For a long time this organization was set up with an IBM® Mainframe and an IBM supported printing solution. There were technical print-related issues, but the trust in IBM did not encourage them to look at alternatives.

Until they started moving applications from the Mainframe to Java. That opened up an opportunity to address the printing issues and to propose an alternative printing solution.

The switch to Java had also added a layer of complexity. In order to print, a salesperson had to physically go to a point of sale, open the document in PDF and print it. Instead, they preferred a document to be printed without the salesperson having to do anything other than issue a print command.

The nature of the printed documents and the hardware they were printed on, required a versatile solution that was vendor agnostic and intuitive. First, the documents were printed on laser printers from different vendors. The solution also had to manage trays to select the right one depending on the type/size of the document

A specific requirement that often occurs in retail is label / barcode printing. This organization had Zebra® thermal printers to produce such output.

In their case, the files needed to be bundled and printed together. An example of this is when a suit is left with the fitting department. Both the sales ticket and the pick-up receipt would print at the same time in order to simplify the process and keep things organized properly. If these were printed separately, or not printed at all, business continuity would be impacted and potential errors could occur.

Other changes included the use of PDAs. These were set up with mobile access to the Point of Sale application. The sales person would be able to release the documents to the nearest printing device using NFC technology.

LRS® VPSX/Secure Delivery manages this process where a request is triggered from the PDA application after it detects a printer using NFC technology and releases it to the Zebra printer for immediate production - avoiding delays for manual submission and conversion to PDF. All tickets from same transaction are bundled together and sent to a queue where they wait to be printed.

In case a printer is not able to print one or many of the ticket bundles, the bundle remains in the queue waiting to be released at a different printer (or the same printer once the problem is solved). If a user starts releasing all of his/her print bundles and the printer runs out of paper, the user can add paper and re-release the pending bundles by approaching the same printer with the PDF or by approaching another printer and releasing all pending bundles.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Vendor agnostic printing solution that manages output from the PDAs to any printer on the network. Business intelligence and continuity with automatic release to the nearest by printer for an optimized business flow.
• Improved enduser experience: fast and easy for sales person to print any document related to the sale at any printer, laser or thermal, with automated tray selection for the proper size of documents as well as processing of bundled tickets on Zebra printers.
• Process improvement: printing is stable, monitored and controlled while the enduser doesn’t need to open any document on the terminal as all are printed automatically.
• Simplified IT Operations: the new setup simplifies management of the print environment and its many components compared to the previous complex infrastructure.

KEY DELIVERABLES

• Provide JAVA® API and sample usages to manage and release tickets using secure delivery to Zebra printers when a request is triggered from PDA application that detects the printer name using NFC technology.
• Adjust conversion profiles for proper tray selection based on paper size, and fonts selection. Use of VPSX® UserVariables for Simplex/Duplex selection.
• Secure/Delivery is used as a mechanism to facilitate the print of ticket bundles when users approach a Zebra printer with their PDA.
• A vendor neutral printing solution that supports mobile access.

Learn how LRS® solutions can add value to your print services offerings. Visit LRSOutputManagement.com to learn more.