Case Study: Roadway Express / Printronix

Printronix Remote Capability is Key Factor in Roadway Express Cost Savings.

Customer

Roadway Express provides less-than-truckload freight services to over 500,000 customers across North America each year. In addition, they provide export service to 66 countries worldwide, including Canada and Mexico, using offshore agents. Roadway Express transports apparel, appliances, automotive parts, chemicals, food, furniture, machinery, metal and metal products, rubber, textiles, wood, and other manufactured products.

The Roadway Express corporate office is located in Akron, Ohio. Operations are facilitated by 388 terminal facilities, thirty of which are major consolidation/distribution centers in strategic locations throughout the continental United States.

Business Needs

• Create more efficient printing solution
• Eliminate unnecessary service calls
• Reduce support costs
• Reconfigure printers remotely

Roadway Express was using Printronix P3040 and L150MVP line matrix printers purchased between 1991 and 1993. Each printer was connected to a stand-alone computer system, resulting in almost 400 separate systems. The printers frequently ran 24 hours per day, 7 days per week printing all types of transportation documentation including bills of lading, invoices, and delivery receipts. This amounted to about thirty different types of multiple-part shipping forms. Roadway Express needed a printing solution that was more efficient and could still withstand the less-than-ideal environment of the trucking terminals.

Roadway Express centralized help desk is located at corporate headquarters. Non-IT personnel manually run the line matrix printers at the terminal sites and frequently were incapable of solving printer problems or even describing the problem to help desk personnel. Often, two people (one at the site and one on the help desk) were involved on a service call that could last up to 30 minutes. The problem was not always diagnosed correctly, so a service technician might be called when the printer only needed to be restarted or reset. Consequently, downtime of the printers was a significant issue. Roadway Express needed a solution to cut down on unnecessary service calls.

Due to the lack of skilled IT technicians at the individual terminal sites, the number of support calls was totaling 262 every 4 weeks — over 3,000 per year. This resulted in 75 man-hours logged at the help desk every month. "The amount of man-hours spent troubleshooting was only going to increase due to the aging equipment and the rough environment they were operating in," explained Adam Galbreath, Roadway Express Manager of Vendor Relationships. Roadway Express needed a solution to reduce these support costs.

Roadway Express terminal sites experienced an average of 2 to 3 electrical power outages per week. During a power outage the printer configuration was frequently lost. This resulted in the help desk working with a non-technical person through the tedious, technical process of reconfiguring a printer manually or incurring the cost of a service call. Roadway Express needed a solution to this time consuming task.

Printronix Solution

In order to improve efficiency and solve their service problems, Roadway Express purchased 700 P5005 and P5205 Printronix line matrix printers with PrintNet® Plus from Lowry, a Printronix distributor for over 25 years. Roadway Express found the Printronix PrintNet Plus remote printer management tool was the perfect solution for reducing their high service/maintenance costs. Now each printer is remotely controlled through the central computer system located in Roadway Express corporate office.

The remote management tool enables the centralized help desk to look at an individual printer located at any of the terminal sites. The help desk is able to correct problems, reconfigure the printer, and decide if a service call is required. Unnecessary service call costs are eliminated and, with the central help desk efficiently correcting problems, the printer downtime is significantly reduced. According to Ruth Dougherty, Senior Help Desk Analyst, "We average only 15 service calls per month now that we can filter the calls and analyze the problem. We dial in remotely using the PrintNet Plus software and look directly at the printer and correct the problem."

A power outage no longer means an expensive service call. The configuration is remotely downloaded into the printer, significantly reducing downtime. The help desk can reconfigure the printer without holding up any print jobs.

Roadway Express is very pleased with their new printers for many reasons: reduced maintenance costs, high quality print jobs, and increased productivity due to the ability to troubleshoot remotely located printers. Galbreath sums up the Printronix solution, "It’s been awesome for us. The remote management tool alerts us to printer problems immediately. We can remotely put the printer back on line and the problem is corrected before anyone at the site is even aware the printer is down."

Lowry, located in Brighton, Michigan, provided unsurpassed expertise in the planning and installation of the new Printronix printers. "Lowry offers technical and support services that are unequaled in the industry, such as on-site repair service, a dedicated dispatcher who resolves and reports to us on all outstanding service requests, and a web login to monitor and request service dispatch," said Galbreath. "Lowry has been an exceptionally reliable sales and service provider to Roadway for close to ten years."

Another problem solved by Printronix and Lowry.

This case study was provided by PRINTRONIX.