XPFC ACCOUNT - A Recent Case Study

The Client & the Problem
A major European FM organisation merged a number of client workloads, resulting in a clutch of three Xerox 4090 laser printers at one of their UK datacentres.

The print load handled by these three 4090's was made up of offline (tape) printing from a variety of (non-IBM) hosts, an online print stream from their massive IBM MVS bureau service, and a number of "flat form" printing contracts.

The basic problem was that the company was not sure whether it needed a laser upgrade or not ...... this was further complicated by the fact that there was no database of laser usage statistics (apart from the basic laser produced accounting sheets) upon which to query or endorse any claims or proposals.

Although not on their original "wish list", there was also a desire to automate the various, and increasingly time consuming, cross charging and accounting processes of this rapidly growing and diverse laser workload.

The Solution
XPFC ACCOUNT was installed on their main IBM MVS service. This was deemed to be the focal point for the purposes of management, accounting, and capacity planning information.

The standard XPFC ACCOUNT reports immediately satisfied the majority of the operational "wish list" ...... user level summaries where now being produced, and an added benefit was that the separate management summary reports were used to provide high level laser usage and scheduling information.

We've converted these reports to Microsoft WORD V2.0 format so you can download them and see for yourself what they look like. They're self extracting .zip files to reduce download time. You can download the User/File Level Report and or the Management Summary Report.

Simple client implemented changes to the data files allowed the same XPFC ACCOUNT data to be used to monitor individual laser throughput on a shift-by-shift basis.

This laser usage data was also downloaded onto a PC and input to a spreadsheet package, and highly visual management information reports are now readily available.

The Benefits
The site now has a TOTAL SOLUTION ...... the basic "wish list" has been satisfied completely.

Management now have a clear picture of what is actually being printed on EACH laser, and on a shift-by-shift basis ...... even for "flat form" printing.

The use of PC packages simply added further benefits ...... piecharts and graphs are all easily produced using existing packages and skills.

Future client plans are to introduce a sophisticated laser accounting suite so that each client of the FM company's laser service will receive detailed monthly "statements" showing their ACTUAL laser print load, which will include individual report costs.

The FM company now offers a "print tuning" advisory service whereby "slow" and "expensive" print jobs can be identified, investigated, and improvements discussed.

Plans to upgrade the lasers has been "put on hold" ...... There never was a need to upgrade ...... simply a requirement to identify that certain print loads were being run at the "wrong" time, and thus spoiling the service for other laser users.

Major savings in laser running costs and paper consumption have been achieved with very little effort. All that was necessary was to study the general usage patterns of individual clients, and to apply the old "80-20" rule and improve the worst "offenders" ...... such as routine SYSOUT output being printed in "2-Up", or even "4-Up Duplex".

Future needs are unlikely to cause any hassle or grief - all the basic laser usage information is being captured ...... the only possible problem is deciding what to do with it !

Conclusion
In truth, there never was a problem ...... the site simply didn't have the right tools in place in the first place.

Once XPFC ACCOUNT was installed and running, the site was able to take full control and exploit the laser usage information using existing skills and packages.

Future maintenance and updates for XPFC ACCOUNT isn't even an issue ...... this is all covered by the standard maintenance and support service.