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Cooper Standard Automotive has implemented Help/Systems’ Robot/REPORTS Electronic Report Distribution and Operations Automation software solutions for IBM iSeries servers – helping to automate the manual reporting process and saving a fortune on pape

Cooper Standard Automotive has implemented Help/Systems’ Robot/REPORTS Electronic Report Distribution and Operations Automation software solutions for IBM iSeries servers – helping to automate the manual reporting process and saving a fortune on paper, paper disposal, and printers that were used for reporting in the past.

June 7, 2004 -- http://www.helpsystems.com/ - Help/Systems, Inc., the developer of the Robot Automated Operations Solution and the world's largest software company specializing in Operations Automation software for IBM iSeries servers, shares the success Cooper Standard Automotive has experienced with Robot/REPORTS Electronic Report Distribution.

Cooper Standard Automotive Limited (Canada), a tier-one supplier of automotive parts to domestic auto manufacturers, has been using Help/Systems’ Robot/REPORTS to help save a fortune. Prior to implementing a Robot/REPORTS Electronic Report Distribution solution, Cooper Automotive was printing over 5 million pages of reports every year and spending a small fortune on paper, paper disposal, and printers, as well as the time spent sorting, collating, and delivering reports. By automating all that manual report processing and shifting from printed to online report viewing, the Canadian division of Cooper Standard Automotive Limited is saving a small fortune. In 1996 they purchased Robot/REPORTS, the report management tool from Help/Systems, and by 1998 they had cut their volume of printed reports in half - a trend that continues to this day.

Gail Kapcza, iSeries Operations Supervisor at the Canadian headquarters in Stratford, Ontario, explains, “We now have three iSeries in Canada that we use for everything to run our business: manufacturing, MRP, ERP, purchasing, finances, EDI transactions, e-mail notifications, and human resources management.” They augment the hardware with software like BPCS from SSA, Lotus Notes, Infinium, Kronos and some custom-coded applications. And, they have over 400 PCs, 30 printers, and local area networks (LANs) using Microsoft servers at every site.

To reduce their print volume, Cooper Automotive turned to Robot/REPORTS because of their strong working relationship with Help/Systems. They already used many Help/Systems products, including Robot/SCHEDULE, Robot/NETWORK, Robot/CONSOLE, Robot/ALERT, and Robot/AUTOTUNE to let them run unattended at night. Gail elaborates, “We recommended Help/Systems products to our corporate parent when we went strictly iSeries across the world. We use Robot/ SCHEDULE extensively across all of our iSeries. Back then we had a lot of big reports we printed for archive. Now, we use Robot/REPORTS to archive those reports electronically and we use Robot/SCHEDULE (job scheduling software) to automate the daily archiving functions.”

To automate iSeries report archiving and reduce paper use, the Cooper Automotive report administrator sets up a report archive plan telling Robot/REPORTS how many days to store a report online, in short-term storage, and in long-term storage. Then, the reports administrator uses the REPARCHIVE command to move reports automatically from one archive to another based on the archive plan. Robot/REPORTS keeps a history record, making it easy to track a report. Gail’s impressed. “We’ve tracked our print volume from the iSeries over the last eight years and we’ve seen substantial reductions every year. In 1995 we were printing 429,000 pages per month (about 5,148,000 pages a year). By 1999, we had reduced this to 220,000 pages per month (or about 2,640,000 pages a year). We have continued to cut down every year since and Robot/REPORTS is a major reason why.”

Report archiving is just one way Robot/REPORTS Electronic Report Distribution can reduce printing. Report segmenting lets users see only the parts of the report they want. Gail explains, “Over the last year, we’ve used OPAL code to add more report segmenting. For example, we took a large EDI report and split it up for several locations. Now they don’t waste time checking output queues to see whether a new report has arrived—we notify them via e-mail and Lotus Notes.” As Gail explains, online viewing and formatting offer more chances to decrease costs and increase efficiency. “Our users are doing more online report viewing than ever, and we’d like them to use Robot/REPORTS to format their reports. Users can create custom report views to exclude information they don’t need, move columns, and search for specific information.”

Gail concludes, “It’s really a pleasure to work with the staff at Help/Systems. That’s one of the reasons that we have so many of their products. Our relationship with Help/Systems is one of the better vendor relationships that we have—it always has been and it continues to grow.” Nice words to hear from someone who is saving a small fortune by simply implementing Electronic Report Distribution and Operations Automation solutions from Help/Systems.

About Help/Systems, Inc. - http://www.helpsystems.com
Founded in 1982, Help/Systems is the world's largest company specializing is iSeries software for operations automation. Help/Systems was the first company in the United States to achieve certification under the international quality standard ISO 9001 and continues its certification today. The company develops, markets, and supports a modular suite of software products collectively known as the Robot Automated Operations Solution.