International insurance company prints thousands of pages of agents sales data each week. 1200 agents and independent brokers have their pages printed. The 1500+ page report goes to various departments, including Agency Services, Human Resources, Payroll, Accounting, Marketing and other. Some of the departments are in the head office, while regional offices, agents and brokers are worldwide. Each week, scheduled batch job runs and prints eight copies of this report at the home office. These copies are then being distributed to all departments. Two extra copies are being sent through dedicated channels to remote printers in UK and Hong-Kong. Additional 10 copies of microfiche are being produced for departments archive and distributed from home office.

Departments analyze the report and re-enter key figures as input into their own programs. Whenever they need a historical report, they have either to seek it on a microfiche or to request a reprint from systems department, which can take several days.

Batch jobs changed to print to specific, dedicated output class. Rexx scripts installed and running on a scheduled basis after batch jobs, against dedicated output class and converting output to HTML. Converted reports being sent via ftp to an NT server.

This server can be accessed via corporate LAN at head office and via WAN from overseas offices.

All departments that would normally be receiving printed report now access it through the network. The company saved close to $100,000 per year in printing and distribution costs. The savings resulting in streamlining of the business process, faster turnaround time and other intangible benefits were not quantified.