Automotive Manufacturer

Mission-Critical Label Printing with SAP® and IBM® CrossWorlds® Software

The Challenge: Centralized, Fully Compliant Production of Bar Code Labels
With 81 plants and 2,200 printers around the world, a major automotive supplier needed a centralized, highly reliable and fully compliant bar code label process. Label printing is a mission-critical operation for this company: all its plants must to be able to print labels even if they can't reach host applications.

Loftware's Solution: Reliable 24x7 Operations
The organization already had SAP and IBM CrossWorlds systems, as well as some integration between the warehouse management system and a few Loftware® installations. A member of the supplier's label order fulfillment team, a long-time Loftware® user, recommended the Loftware Print Server because, as he put it, "It just works." Loftware's enterprise solution gives the supplier a faster, more dependable way to print complicated GM 1724 2D global shipping labels.

Now, when a user requests a label, SAP sends the label description to CrossWorlds, which relays the label data over the WAN to LPS. Loftware Print Server prints the label and notifies CrossWorlds of the results. In turn, CrossWorlds passes the information back to SAP. In less than five seconds, the user knows whether or not the label printed successfully.

To ensure 24x7 label printing, when the system loses connectivity with the WAN, the solution automatically reroutes requests through a Loftware On-Demand Print Client, which communicates directly with the LPS. Again, the user knows the outcome within five seconds. Loftware maintains an audit file for retrieval by SAP once connection with the WAN is restored.

Benefits to the Automotive Industry: The Ability to Leverage the Power of Existing Applications
In the high-pressure business of automotive supply, reliable access to first-class label printing is imperative to continuous production and visibility. Loftware technology has given this automotive supplier a competitive edge through:

Tight integration with third-party enterprise solutions
Redundancy for 24x7 label printing
Fail-over and audit capabilities thanks to Loftware's advance IT administrative and enterprise features
Extensive support for compliance requirements

Loftware software and tools for automotive bar code and RFID marking run in high-capacity, multi-site and multi-printer environments, ensuring seamless integration into mission-critical operations.