Mixing it up with SpoolMaster

AT MASTERFOODS PRINTOUTS AND FORMS OUT OF THE AS/400 ARE CHILD’S PLAY

Highlights

Customer: • Masterfoods Austria OHG

Goal: • Flexible and cost- effective output directly from the AS/400 on Xerox and Masterfoods Austria OHG standard PCL printers Founded in 1966 as a subsidiary of Inc. Masterfoods is today one • Spool processing of the major Austrian food manufacturers. With more than 39,000 • PDF output employees the Mars Group produces an annual turnover of more than $ • Comfortable forms 16 billion. Masterfoods Austria has two subsidiaries: the pet foods plant creation • AS/400 link-up to fax in Bruck/Leitha and the snack food production in Breitenbrunn, and with systems 750 employees achieved a turnover of approx. € 356 million in 2003. Among the popular brands are snacks such as Mars, , , , M&Ms, Milky Way, , Amicelli, Fanfare, the food brand Application: Uncle Ben’s among others as well as pet food and care products like Output management , , Pedigree, Cesar, Frolic, Kitekat, Trill, Seramis or system SpoolMaster

Catsan. Project: • Planning The challenge • SpoolMaster Masterfoods uses the secure system IBM AS/400 iSeries yet its printing implementation functionalities and devices are little comfortable. This is why in the mid- • Software support 80’ies the Mars daughter introduced a printing solution which – as it eventually turned out – also could not come up to all demands. Finally Benefit: the IT department decided to look for an output management system • Hardware-independent which would allow them to printout directly from the AS/400 on the printing out of the existing Xerox printer as well as all other PCL printers. The appointed AS/400 iSeries goal was: hardware-independent, flexible and cost-effective printing. • Spool processing and Further desired qualities of the new solution: it should be scaleable, conversion to PDF for open for further technological development and thus future-oriented. fax, archiving,… And last but not least it should offer a wide range of functionalities • Powerful forms concerning spool processing on the AS/400 such as PDF output, creation comfortable and efficient processing and archiving of forms and the direct link-up of the AS/400 to fax systems.

ROHA Software Support GmbH, Ameisgasse 49-51, A-1140 Vienna, www.roha.at ROHA Software Support GmbH, Aegidiusplatz 15b, D-53604 Bad Honnef, www.spoolmaster.info ROHA Software Support S.L., Calle José Abascal 42, 6ª Derecha, E-28003 Madrid, www.spoolmaster-es.com

The project Sleeves were tucked up and in December 1997 it was accomplished: SpoolMaster handles the printing. As one of the first clients Masterfoods thus had quite some stake in the development of this first SpoolMaster software version and in the meantime SpoolMaster has become a vital part of their AS/400 environment.

Today’s broad application area at Masterfoods illustrates how SpoolMaster has matured to an integrated output management system for the AS/400 iSeries: the software handles the entire print output of the AS/400. Numerous departments at Masterfoods enjoy the advantages of the output management: SpoolMaster operates in planning, production, logistics und sales as well as payroll and times accounting.

Concerning paper output users at Masterfoods have become used to printing barcodes on PCL printers. But not only does the output software accept spools from the iSeries as input, the module Database Reader also reads information directly out of the data base files. Masterfoods employs SpoolMaster also for the processing of AS/400 spools for archiving and for the fax dispatch of spools via fax software – manual handling and the associated expenditure of time have become redundant.

The benefit Thomas Putschalka, IT department Masterfoods puts it brief: „SpoolMaster is constantly present.“ Of course he has to handle version changes with care as the software is integrated in the 24/7 cycle of the production plant. But Putschalka also emphasizes the benefits of the flexible flow control and smooth handling by his trained users: „We in the IT department are the ones who operate the output system – and the acceptance is very high. The users do not even notice SpoolMaster. They are simply enjoying the perfect printing results and numerous functionalities such as electronic forms with barcodes. And the PDF Writer is going to be the next hit,“ says Thomas Putschalka. „Talking about plans concerning application development, we build on the possibilities of the integrated solution: SpoolMaster is simply an integral part of our AS/400!“

ROHA Software Support GmbH, Ameisgasse 49-51, A-1140 Wien, www.roha.at ROHA Software Support GmbH, Aegidiusplatz 15b, D-53604 Bad Honnef, www.spoolmaster.info ROHA Software Support S.L., Calle José Abascal 42, 6ª Derecha, E-28003 Madrid, www.spoolmaster-es.com