Overnight Report Printing 

Using the ClusterQue Solution

The Situation:  The Global Asset Division of a major insurance and real estate corporation currently prints between 7,000 to 12,000 pages of overnight reports each night in a high-speed mainframe print environment.  The reports must then be distributed daily by hand to a different location approximately 10 miles away.

The Solution:  HP and LBM successfully implemented a cost effective solution that utilized a cluster of 5 HP8100 printers and LBM software.  Both reside and are managed at the physical location where the reports are needed.  The customer now has up to 160 ppm throughput capabilities and a system for reprinting on demand by retaining the print jobs on the ClusterQue- even partial range reprinting is available!  In addition, the cluster printers are available individually or as a cluster off-peak for use as local departmental or workgroup laser printers.

Application:  Daily and monthly reports from a global asset management finance application.  Data is generated from a mainframe, LBM software is installed on an NT server which manages a cluster of 5 HP8100 printers.  Large jobs are automatically run overnight and are split across the cluster; automatic load balancing is achieved; no operator intervention is required.  In the event of printer failure, subsequent jobs will route to the next available printer.  Off peak, printers can be utilized throughout the month as department network printers.

Volume: 

- Daily report printing volume of 10 jobs totaling 7,000 pages

- Last day of month and first week of month report printing spike to 12,000 pages daily

- Total monthly volume of approximately 185,000 pages

- Departmental volumes to be determined

With the HP/LBM solution, reports are now delivered to the proper location, eliminating distribution costs.  The off-site mainframe printer is no longer necessary to achieve high-speed throughput.  Jobs do not need to be regenerated by the application in the event of reprinting requirements; partial ranges can be reprinted by authorized operators.  

Invoice Printing and Delivery

Using the ClusterQue Solution

The Situation:  A major consumer electronic goods corporation prints invoices generated by an HTML application.  Prior to the HP/LBM solution, each order had to be manually printed four times, three of the orders were manually stapled together and the fourth was manually delivered to a different department for filing.  Personnel responsible for taking orders were constantly drawn away from their workstations to verify and manage the printing process, distracting them from their main priority of customer service.

The Solution:  HP and LBM successfully implemented a cost effective solution that utilized a cluster of 2 HP8100 printers and LBM software.  With a single printer selection, print jobs are sent to two different printers:  one prints three copies and staples all three automatically; the second is located in the area where documents are filed.  Order-taking personnel now simply select the ClusterQue virtual printer from their list of available printers and the HP/LBM solution does the work!

Local printer, 3 copies printed and stapled together		Copy to be filed printed in another location