Background and Business Need
The SNA costs, had RPM not been implemented, are shown along with the actual SNA costs after RPM was put in place. The rising SNA costs without RPM are a factor of 1) Small facilities being converted to larger facilities, thus increasing the number of users, printers, and SNA lines 2) Increases in fees for a legacy service (SNA) and 3) General inflation.
Before switching to RPM for mainframe printing, the monthly spend for SNA circuits and printer/terminal costs was over $100,000. Dot matrix printers and greenbar printers were used for printing documents, and associates had to walk, often to a different level in the building, to pick up their reports.
The agency needed a low-cost printing solution that could replace the existing SNA setup. The solution would have to run in the background with little or no need for end-user interaction. Associates would have to generate reports on the mainframe and have the printouts sent to a locally attached printer.
Solution: RPM Remote Print Manager
The agency's associates now use RPM Select to print reports generated in a mainframe program (accessed through a 3270 emulator package). RPM is able to print these reports on inexpensive, locally-attached printers (USB or parallel) or common network printers, as well as apply formatting and perform other operations on the print jobs.
zSeries and System i5 Windows Printing: Associates running 3270 emulators on Windows PCs request reports from the mainframe. The reports are sent to RPM on the same PC, which sends the jobs to locally attached parallel or USB printer. RPM also formats some reports before printing them.
Results
The calculations and figures below provide a quantitative view of the savings the agency has seen; however, RPM has also provided other, less-quantifiable savings:
As RPM replaced SNA lines and printers, the state agency saw significant savings. After five years, the agency is saving well over $1 million per year. The cost of RPM relative to total savings is also illustrated, with substantial savings from minimal investments in RPM. From Jan 2000 to Dec 2005, the agency has saved over $4 million dollars simply by replacing SNA lines and printers with RPM Remote Print Manager, which uses existing TCP/IP lines and common, accessible printers.
- Since mainframe reports can now be printed on common, inexpensive printers which use standard, inexpensive paper, printer and maintenance costs have gone down as old dot matrix and greenbar printers (along with the corresponding greenbar paper) are no longer necessary.
- Associates have easier access to printed reports, as they no longer have to walk to the nearest greenbar printer (possibly on another floor or even in another building), and many can simply print the reports to the locally attached USB or parallel printer.
- When printing checks for the internal banking system to transfer funds from one facility to another, the check printing processing (e.g. lining up the check and printing it correctly) has been greatly simplified.
Summary
With RPM in place, the agency has experienced considerable cost reductions and mainframe printing is more convenient and flexible. The organization is continuing to phase out SNA lines and printers and implementing RPM in more locations. The SNA expenses are expected to be eliminated in early 2007.
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