JPL - Oracle WMS Solutions with Loftware
Vertical Market Focus: GovernmentEnd Customer: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
The Pain of Home-Grown Legacy Systems, Vendor Finger Pointing, Missed Opportunities, and Reinventing the Wheel
recognize the familiar points of pain JPL faced when it upgraded at long last to an industry standard WMS system from Oracle. Installing a system like this can be disruptive to many ‘unrelated' processes; including label printing
Like most companies of this vintage and with this focus, much of the organization's computer technology solutions had resulted from a build versus buy preference. That wasn't always as questionable an option as it may seem today in hindsight. After all, JPL is filled with technical expertise. Much of what it needed way back when simply wasn't available. And it was often thought that by creating a new solution from scratch using internal resources, an organization would always maintain control of the application at hand. Hand-crafted solutions were often seen as the only way to get the specialized, tailored results unique organizations demanded.
Pain Point #1: "No time!"
Internally, JPL's initial reaction was to do what it had so often done before: write, or in this case, ‘rewrite' their printing system. Estimated time to accomplish this for a team with deep familiarity with the existing printing system functionality: 1,000 hours minimum. The bottom line was that this option was time and money prohibitive. They needed a flexible printing solution that could plug directly into the Oracle WMS platform.
Pain Point #2: "It's not an issue with the printer equipment we sold you…"
JPL had six wireless portable printers they couldn't get to work on the network. When the manufacturer of these units was called for help, it simply declined on the basis that in their view it wasn't an issue with the output devices but was a software problem internal to JPL. The bottom line was that they needed to work with a company that was going to address the various problems associated with printing, rather than simply ‘pointing the finger.
Pain Point #3: "Gosh, we didn't know you could do that…"
Sometimes in technology as in real life, people don't know the difficulties they're living with until these troubles go away. Hundreds of product providers ship thousands of packages to JPL annually. Very few provide barcode labels on these packages. The idea that as part of its overall system JPL could offer its various providers a coordinated supplier-based barcode printing option was simply not known until they began working with Loftware's Professional Services Group.
Loftware to the Rescue
It's important to put this opportunity into perspective. It helps understand why so many others showed so little interest in JPL's problem or simply said in response to JPL's RFP, ‘It can't be done.' That was their answer to a requirement among bidders on this project to guarantee they could deliver a 2 second response time from the moment the print job was requested to when the barcode label presented itself at any JPL location.
JPL began their quest for a provider that could address their printing system needs in May, 2005. They first contacted Loftware in July of that year, via an introduction made by an Oracle consultant. In September they visited Loftware's booth at the Oracle Applications World event. In March, 2006, after other potential solution providers had said it couldn't be done – or offered solutions with price tags in the stratosphere – JPL selected Loftware for the assignment.
In two days, Loftware Professional Services consultant fixed the problem of the six remote printers. He discovered that the problem was with the wireless print protocols… the printers were not appropriately configured. Problem solved. The team also installed the Loftware Connector, which is a high speed ‘connectivity bridge' between the Oracle WMS system and the Loftware Print Server. The system could then be ‘tuned' to handle the special cases involved using the data filtering and decision making tools that are standard with the Connector. Total time from start to finish: eight days. Loftware also met and exceeded the 2 second demand. And while at it, they provided a potential solution to JPL's package receipt problem via a supplier-based printing integration approach that JPL didn't know it needed and was not aware existed as part of the overall Loftware service.
Total cost? JPL purchased Loftware Print Servers, Loftware Connectors, software licensing and eight days of consulting to install the various solutions and solve the unrelated problems noted above. The total cost of the project came in under $50,000. The real value of this shows up when compared to 1000 hours of internal programming JPL faced if it decided to solve this problem on its own. And even then, it may not have solved its remote printer protocol problem or discovered a new and better way to identify incoming packages from known vendors.
There's an old saying, ‘No pain, no gain.' If ever there were an exception to this rule, JPL's experience with Loftware is it.