HEIDELBERG - Order processing system

HEIDELBERG
Order processing system for a printing media enterprise.

"Heidelberg CIS" (Russia) is not limiting its business with providing printing equipment and services on the market of printing media in Russia and CIS, but it also works on training and education of printing factories staff, deployment of complex printing solutions, etc.

Currently there are more than 3000 small and medium-sized printing enterprises in Russia, more than one third of which are using Heidelberg equipment. A characteristic feature of small printing enterprises is a lack of large contracts, and, so correspondingly, they aim at completion of a large number of short contracts for small volume projects.

In a situation like this, at the present time and with the existing equipment, the success of such enterprise especially depends on existing resources for estimation of incoming orders, distributing workload, continuing quality technical control of the process, and on the ability to plan work process in such way as to process incoming orders more efficiently.

That's why most of the printing media companies are trying to find an intricate solution for printing media control. Such solution should be able to control the whole work process - from creating order packet through all production stages to releasing the final product to the client.

Average market prices on solutions for automation of printing media factories control vary from $30 000 to $50 000 USD, which is too expensive for most of printing media companies in Russia and CIS.

This is the main reason why "Heidelberg CIS" decided that it is a very promising perspective to develop a printing control factory automation system for mid-sized companies with staff from 30 to 50 employees, with a market price not exceeding $20 000 - 25 000 USD (including implementation).

Software application, which would meet all of the above criteria and created using modern technologies considering Heidelberg requirements and marketed by Heidelberg, could be successful and demanded on the market.

Novosoft was called in to suggest a most practical solution to meet client's requirements. After completing the total requirements study and business analysis, the key performance factors for the company were identified. A solution was created with business-processes control based on Lotus Domino technology, integrated with the third party accounting software (1C).

Currently developed software application is a multi-user distributive system, designed to provide automation and control over processing orders in a printing media enterprise. The system consists of the core and a number of modules. The modules provide base functionality, and in the future allow for expansion of the system functionality by increasing the number of modules.

The system was built using the original solutions, as well as the solutions developed by Novosoft for its internal use. Modern technologies were utilized, as well as applications from the world leading corporate business companies (Lotus Notes/Domino, Crystal Reports etc). The developed system allows for local user access, as well as for the remote users through the system web-interface.

The system is oriented toward support for Job Definition Format (JDF) based on XML, which allows formal description of any printing order. JDF promises to integrate authoring, production, management, manufacturing, delivery and Management Information System control. This allows system and software developers to improve the existing performance systems, to develop new, highly configurable systems, and to create a new level of process integration in the industry.

Lotus Notes/Domino, HTTP, Router, DNFS, XML Toolkit & Java, Novosoft Notes2RDBMS Integrator, Notes C++ API, LSX.
Novosoft Workflow.
Microsoft Visual C++, VARCHART Xgantt ActiveX.
Crystal Reports, Viewer ActiveX.
RDBMS: InterBase / IBM DB2 / MS SQL Server / Oracle.

Developed solution is significantly less expensive when compared to solutions already existing on the market. At the same time Novosoft solution possesses similar functionality and allows to increase media printing enterprise profits due to:

Using this system allowed "Heidelberg CIS" to increase the number of provided services, all thanks to the integral solution which includes:

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