March 25, 2004
To Whom It May Concern:
In the fall of 2002 Univar needed a universal
bar code printing solution that would work on more than one kind of
printer and did not require a protocol box or interface card to
print bar coded documents. Experience has taught us that a hardware
solution will inevitably need to be replaced, and with each
replacement, you scrap your previous work and start over. Adding to
the problems was the fact that we now needed to print bar codes on
hundreds of printers. We needed a software solution. Enter Sound
Software’s IBM Mainframe Server product, the Bar code Print Facility
(BPF). Univar started a trial of BPF at the end of 2002. During
early 2003, Sound Software worked with our tech support to get the
sample BATCH and CICS programs that come with BPF working to print
bar coded documents to both HP PCL and IBM IPDS style printers.
Shortly after implementing BPF in our production environment, we had
a request from a branch to consolidate their printing functions by
utilizing their copier as a printer. With a few minutes of effort,
we were printing bar coded documents on a Cannon copier.
Additionally we discovered BPF generates the correct printer data
format to be transferred over TCP/IP lines. During the
installation, Sound Software always promptly returned all calls and
emails and provided resolution to all problems even when the
problems were not with BPF. After we had proved that BPF was a
workable solution, we had yet another hurdle. All of the documents
we initially targeted for bar code enhancement are sent through a
central spooling program written in assembler (circa 1980). We
eventually sent this program to Sound Software – which they
agreed to modify at no extra cost. Sound Software updated
the program and resolved our problem. This program reads records
from a spool file and formats calls to BPF CICS API. BPF then
translates the page to the desired printer language and sends the
data to the printers. To make a long story short, Sound Software
worked with us through it all providing timely tech support and any
needed enhancements to the get the job done. We would not hesitate
to contact Sound Software for any of our IBM Mainframe Server
printing needs.
Sincerely,
Michael
Layson
Univar
Corporation
Work
phone: (916)371-3587
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