Founded in 1935 as the Coal Operators Casualty Company, Old Republic Insurance Company (ORIC) is a major player in the American workers’ compensation industry. Solimar Systems interviewed Carol Oravetz, Manager of IS, and Rob Brinkley, Assistant Manager of IS, to learn how Solimar products helped them satisfy their department’s goal of providing the ORIC user community with quality print output on a timely basis, while keeping printer downtime to an absolute minimum. The primary objective in seeking a new print server solution was to transfer ORIC’s mainframe printing from proprietary DJDE to a new ‘open architecture’ printer. Oravetz summarizes the economy that SP/D brought to ORIC, “Our print stream is still via RJE as Metacode, which is translated into PostScript by the Solimar® Print/Director. This permitted us to keep our existing DJDE forms and defer the expense of redesigning a fairly robust variety of forms.”

In the quest to meet their requirements, ORIC looked at several vendors before selecting Solimar. When comparing products, Oravetz and Brinkley identified a few software solutions that might have been adequate. Solimar was able to quickly turn around a sample set of ORIC’s more challenging documents during the fact-finding phase of the project, however what impressed ORIC most was the technical expertise of the Solimar staff. Oravetz explains, “From our first conversations, they understood our existing printing environment and agreed with our vision of a non-propriety printing solution. They backed up their words with deeds.” Brinkley adds, “Solimar had no questions and/or issues with our sample forms and data. They simply took what we gave them and ran. Other vendors didn’t even come close.”

Like many companies, ORIC had cautious expectations about introducing new technology into their production environment. Nevertheless, Print/Director’s power and flexibility, combined with ORIC’s fleet of new printers, provided a smooth, almost instantaneous transition and a rapid ROI. “The first savings was in the choice of vendor,” the IS managers explain. “Of the potential options, Print/Director was the most cost effective in terms of out-of-pocket expense.” Additional savings were realized during the implementation process as well. With nearly 1,000 documents to be addressed, the project could have involved a lengthy and costly conversion phase. Instead, Print/Director delivered all documents on day one. “Literally within one shift, our entire production process was up and running, relying completely on Print/Director. Both our ‘click charge’ and our monthly maintenance fees are greatly reduced,” states Oravetz. “Print/Director enabled us to realize those savings sooner rather than later because Solimar was able to demonstrate results that we could take back to our management as ‘proof of concept’.”

In addition to reducing initial migration expenses, ORIC is reaping the ongoing benefits of a more efficient production workflow as a result of Print/Director’s job management features. ORIC’s operators especially like the ability to quickly reprint output by dragging and dropping from the print queue. Another favorite feature is the ability to re-route critical print to another printer during a PM or when printing windows are tight. “We ran our production live the very first night, and have not really looked back since. With the exception of adding a few more jobs to some of the routing filters, we have not had to modify the settings since our start-up adjustments,” explain the IS managers. “We could disconnect the monitor and put the CPU on a shelf in the back room, and Print/Director would keep working and not miss a beat.”

Solimar Systems devotes a large portion of its resources to product development and customer support. This ensures that Solimar clients get the most out of their investment with the least amount of effort. As Oravetz and Brinkley make clear, this philosophy resonates with ORIC. Brinkley explains, “What support we have required has been excellent. Installation/conversion took a mere two hours. Beyond that, only one set of forms has required any further attention. We sent them to Support, they duplicated the results immediately, and I received a patch about two hours later. I’ve worked in this industry for a quarter-century; it is uncommon to have a patch within days, let alone hours. That speaks volumes about the quality of the design of the product, and about the commitment of Solimar’s Technical Support team to service their customers. In sum, our print goals were met and exceeded.”