Kodak Enters Print MIS Fray

By Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor

August 1, 2005 -- Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group has announced its first new product since it finalized the acquisition of Creo about six weeks ago, adding Print MIS to its arsenal of solutions for the graphic communications industry. Kodak Enterprise Management Solution (EMS) was developed by Creo, now a subsidiary of Kodak, and has been in the works since Creo’s failed bid to acquire Printcafe in early 2003.

Bob Kutschke, General Manager, Business Workflow, Workflow and Prepress Equipment, Kodak

Kodak bills EMS as a complete business workflow solution for the graphic communications industry that extends beyond traditional print MIS. It will be shown it for the first time publicly at Print 05, North America’s largest trade show for printing and graphic communications, and was previewed at the Creo user’s group which met in May of this year. WhatTheyThink had an opportunity to overview the product in a session with Rochelle van Halm, Media Relations Manager for Creo, and Bob Kutschke, General Manager of the Business Workflow Product Group, during a media/analyst roadshow in mid July.

Kutschke reports that Kodak EMS is based on an already-existing robust and scalable manufacturing ERP solution designed specifically for job-shop manufacturing. California-based Epicor positions its Vantage ERP solution for mid-market manufacturing organizations, defined as companies from $5 million to $250 million in revenues. It leverages Microsoft .NET and is scalable from five users to hundreds of users, across multiple plants.

Leveraging a Virtual Development Team

According to Kutschke, “Based on the fact that EMS is built on a base ERP product that is not specific to the printing industry, our job was verticalization—tailoring it to meet the specific needs of our industry—and developing a variety of print-specific modules. It can be customized down to the customer and/or user level, and includes real time monitoring and integrated business intelligence. The aim with Kodak EMS is to enable management by exception, and we have used a Dashboard model to present information in a way that makes it easy to identify business trends and issues, and to quickly access important data and information.” Kutschke reports that Kodak has invested a tremendous amount of resources in building print specific capabilities into this solution, including JDF integration to Kodak and other third party solutions. He is quick to point out that even though EMS is based on an ERP solution, its implementation is relatively simple compared to many of the high-profile ERP solutions in the market (Oracle, SAP, Baan, etc.) that require many months, a large group of consultants and significant resources to deploy on an enterprise level.

Kodak EMS is designed for printers whose businesses extend beyond traditional offset printing operations to include digital print workflows, fulfillment and mailing operations, and more. It offers the ability to manage the entire enterprise from a single interface. By partnering with Epicor, Kodak has been able to leverage a virtual development team, with access to not only 28 Kodak developers, but partner developers working on core ERP functionality as well, resulting in a development team of roughly of 100 people.

Kodak EMS, which is designed to be a modular solution that lets printers purchase the exact set of required capabilities, easily adding more functionality as required, is currently in beta testing and will be released for sale in the spring of 2006. The company has not disclosed pricing at this time but indicates that it will be competitive with top-tier MIS solutions, likely in the $100,000 to $500,000 range depending on options selected. WhatTheyThink plans to speak with beta customers over the balance of the summer to get their reactions to the product.

The Details

Kodak EMS looks to be a very complete offering that is supported by Kodak Professional Services for presales consultation, implementation services, product training, system integration, business optimization, and system customization services to ensure that the solution is tailored and integrated to each company’s unique business requirements. EMS features integration of Preps and Synapse UpFront components, working toward a goal of lights out prepress, and can associate a known Preps or UpFront layout to a job, removing manual steps and collecting specific job information. It will feature JDF connectivity to downstream prepress, press and finishing operations. The initial release will also provide bidirectional support to Synapse Link. The product comes standard with a Progress database, with Microsoft’s SQL Server as an option.

Other capabilities include:

• Sales automation, including mobile technology that allows users to work offline
• Support for multi-plant (a single financial entity with multiple facilities) and multi-company (a single organization with multiple financial entities) operations
• A fully integrated scheduling solution, including a view of all resources and materials required to complete a job
• An estimating module that includes:
• Automation of the development of optimal production plans
• Multiple pricing methodologies that adapt to specific needs
• Web based RFQ capture to streamline the quoting process
• Automated digital print quoting workflows enabling “end-to-end estimating & quoting” workflows for smaller, time-sensitive jobs that are often difficult to manage within traditional estimating solutions
• A workflow configurator for optimum design of hybrid (offset/digital) workflows, including alternative sales workflows for digital print
• Integrated Lean Manufacturing and Quality tracking mechanisms, important for companies who are or wish to be ISO certified and/or must meet clients’ Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements
• Business document management for incoming documents like purchase orders and RFQs, as well as internal documents such as policies and procedures
• Advanced multi-level bill of materials (BOM) and kitting
• Localization for both language and financial systems, including management of multiple currencies
• Proactive alerting mechanisms to enable exception management, including alerts to customers, employees, and suppliers

Kutschke also indicates that Kodak EMS offers the customer the ability to do significant customization themselves without affecting the source code—important in protecting the integrity of the product and simplifying maintenance and upgrades that can be compromised by having to manage multiple versions of source code to accommodate unique customer requirements.

Dashboards On Demand

One of the most powerful features of this integrated solution is its role-specific dashboards that enable employees within any function in the company to utilize a dashboard specific to their role. Dashboards can include information both internal and external to the company. For example, an executive may wish to add an RSS news feed from a site like WhatTheyThink, while a CSR may wish to include a link to her clients’ Web sites and maps to their locations. Kutschke indicates the creation process for a dashboard is an intuitive process consisting of identifying data to be displayed and then selecting formatting and filtering options. Dashboard templates are available, or users can create their own from a clean slate.

Mixing it Up in the Market

Kodak’s addition of an MIS solution certainly fills a gap in the company’s portfolio of product and service offerings. Because EMS was designed as an integrated solution from the get-go, based on a proven job-shop ERP offering, it hits the market with some interesting advantages right out of the chute at a time when the market demand for Print MIS is starting to gain more traction as printers seeks ways to maintain and improve productivity and profitability. The figure below presents a clear picture of the breadth of the offering.

Kodak will, of course, be able to leverage this solution with Creo’s broad installed base in the graphic communications industry. And because of its modular and scalable nature, as well as its emphasis on managing hybrid (offset/digital) operations, it should find favor in other segments as well.

Keep in mind that Kodak inherited the Networked Graphic Production (NGP) group with its acquisition of Creo, and this offering places Kodak squarely in competition with many of the Networked Graphic Production (NGP) Partners, more than half of whom are listed on the NGP site as providers of MIS solutions. It also brings to market an offering that competes with EFI, another key Kodak partner. While this type of scenario is somewhat expected in today’s era of co-opetition, it remains to be seen how all of that will shake out as these partners—and now competitors—reassess their strategies. With MIS players comprising the bulk of NGP, it also may call into question the future of that organization as well.

In spite of all of that, the Kodak EMS offering appears to be a very attractive alternative for graphic communications service providers who understand the value of an integrated business management solution and the increasing importance of making their graphic communications operations as efficient and effective as possible.

Many companies have islands of automation and have achieved improved productivity by acquiring newer, faster presses, CTP and automated bindery. Print MIS is the next wave that will allow these companies to move to the next level of efficiency. It is a necessity for companies who wish to remain profitable and competitive into the future. Kodak EMS provides another option for these companies to explore.

This report was written by Cary Sherburne. She can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.

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