Wyandot, Inc., is a 70-year-old contract manufacturing food supplier, producing private label snacks and goods for some of the world's largest food marketers. The company had previously used ASNA Visual RPG for .NET (AVR) to create a production-scheduling system. This system not only eliminated the need for a $100K vertical software package, but it also put the Wyandot developers in more direct control of the software that drives their manufacturing procedure.

In the spring, Steve Alderman, a Wyandot senior programmer/analyst, turned his attention to replacing Wyandot's existing, green-screen-based Bill of Lading (BOL) process with one written in AVR. In six weeks, he created a pair of custom BOL processes that are tightly integrated with their ERP system and dramatically reduce the expense of using pre-printed BOL forms. His solution also makes it easier to distribute BOLs internally.

The Challenge

Wyandot had several challenges with its previous BOL system:

• The system required pre-printed forms. Not only were these forms expensive, but they also had to be ordered in large quantities to get the lowest price possible. This made it impossible to customize bills of lading on a per-customer basis, a problem because BOLs had to look the same for all customers.
• The pre-printed forms had to be printed on a tractor-feed printer. This kind of printer had an expensive annual maintenance contract, and Wyandot only had one of them. Thus, anxiety ran high during the times when the company printed BOLs.
• The internal distribution of some BOLs was slow and error prone. Wyandot often needed to print special BOLs for non-inventory shipping (such as when the business had to return large wooden pallets). The process for creating these BOLs required manual data entry, and the distribution process demanded that each BOL be printed and then manually copied for internal hand distribution. To make this manual process even more troublesome, these special-case BOLs weren't saved when they were created; thus, if one needed to be reprinted or changed (even slightly), it had to be completely rekeyed.

One of Alderman's biggest challenges as he built the new BOL system was to ensure that the new printing process was seamlessly integrated into the existing green-screen ERP workflow process. To accomplish this, he first created the necessary print files using AVR's Print File Editor. Although similar in concept to a traditional green-screen print file, AVR print files are intended to be used by laser printers and thus don't need special translation or hardware (such as IPDS) to operate. AVR print files can intrinsically print lines, boxes, and even images very easily. AVR reads the Wyandot file data directly from Wyandot's System i and prints BOLs on plain paper. (There's no need for special preprinted forms on laser printers.)

To integrate the print process with the green-screen ERP workflow, Alderman added a "print" option to the ERP application. This option launches the AVR print process, hosted on a Windows PC, with OS/400's RunRmtCmd. The operator can't even tell that AVR is involved; it's transparent to the operator that the PC is really driving the print process.

AVR connects to the Wyandot System i through ASNA DataGate. DataGate provides fast record-level access to Wyandot's data. DataGate also offers a program call mechanism (implemented with the familiar Call/Parm opcodes). As Alderman built his new system, he was able to call CL and RPG programs where necessary (to reuse existing System i-based logic) and was also able to connect directly to the necessary data files for the actual printing process. "The performance and reliability of ASNA's AVR and DataGate are superb," he reports.

"Although the project did take me six weeks, I spent a fair portion of that time getting OS/400's RunRmtCmd to work appropriately. After a great deal of trials and error, including calls to IBM's tech support, we did figure it out. Otherwise, though, the project progressed exactly as I hoped it would. AVR for .NET's print file designer made it easy for me to print what I needed. I also found it easy to customize the print files with images and other graphic elements. We're now able to offer Bills of Lading tailored to any one customer."

Not only is Wyandot able to make customer-specific changes, but it can also react quickly to external changes. For example, The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently imposed new changes on the kinds of information that must be included on a bill of lading. In the old days, this required a substantial form redesign. That's no longer the case; Alderman can now make changes very easily.

A Secondary Challenge

Wyandot often needed to create secondary Bills of Lading for the shipment of non-inventory goods. Having tackled and resolved the primary Bill of Lading issue, Alderman turned his attention to this secondary challenge. This project was a part of the six-week overall BOL effort.

"I was familiar with the manual process, and with my growing familiarity and comfort with AVR for .NET, writing a small Windows program to create our secondary BOLs was actually a pretty easy process," he says.

He enhanced the functionality for the secondary BOL process by letting users save the BOL data and thus be able to recall previously entered BOLs for update or reprinting. After the BOLs are created or modified, the company now distributes them by e-mailing a PDF version to users. Alderman again used ASNA print files for this task, this time in conjunction with a low-cost, third-party PDF print driver. This feature eliminates the manual processes previously required for the distribution of BOLs.

A Solution

Wyandot's programming supervisor, Eddie England, says he is proud of Alderman and his efforts with ASNA AVR to update Wyandot's BOL process. "Using ASNA AVR to create a new BOL printing process has solved big problems for us, England says. "Because the new system prints on plain paper with our standard laser printers, we no longer need to purchase custom pre-printed forms. And, we are no longer dependent on a single tractor-feed printer. We're able to save several thousand dollars a year on printer maintenance, and we'll also show a substantial savings by not needing the pre-printed forms.

"Although the tangible dollar savings is important, perhaps even more important and certainly less tangible is that the BOL system makes us much more responsive to our needs and those of our customers. We can quickly make changes to the BOL printing process, and we can tailor BOLs on a per-customer basis. That's a great value-add to offer our customers," England adds.

About ASNA

ASNA (Amalgamated Software of North America, Inc.) has been developing visual programming and systems software for the midrange community since 1982. ASNA web and Windows development products include ASNA Visual RPG for .NET, DataGate, and the ASNA DataGate Component Suite. ASNA Monarch is a fully integrated solution for transforming RPG applications to the Microsoft .NET platform. ASNA is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner, an IBM Tools Network Partner, and an Advanced Tier Member of IBM's PartnerWorld for Developers. ASNA is also a founding member of the Midrange Alliance Program and an exclusive Delivery Partner for the Microsoft NXT program for ISVs. More than 750,000 end users employ business applications developed with ASNA Visual RPG (AVR) and DataGate. Based in San Antonio, Texas, ASNA also has offices in Europe (Guildford, UK) and more than 20 international distributors.