RE: Warehouse Automation Project

Had a similar situation where other machines knew nothing about data
queues so what we ended up doing was have the "non AS/400" machines do
an FTP to the AS/400 every 5 minutes of new data with trigger on the
file on the AS/400 to kick off needed processing jobs

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of ouuch@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 4:13 PM
To: midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Warehouse Automation Project


Hello,

well, we have a bunch of warehouse automation machines that exchange
data with our 
AS/400. These machines basically read and update from about 5 dedicated
interface files. Problem is that we currently have 3 kinds of systems:

            Warehouse filling machine:  RS/6000 with DB2/Connect
            Picking/Labeling device:       Win2K-Server with OLE-DB (
Visual Basic prgs.)
            Sorting machine           :      Win2K-Server with ODBC
(also Visual Basic)

The software for these machines is done by third-party (which also does
the machinery). These 
guys have no knowledge of AS/400 and what I have seen of their
programming is, er, strange.

Anyhow, additional stations for lot-tracing are planned, and third-party
came up with a central, 
non-AS/400 server (with Oracle-DB). Here, the 400 would only exchange
order data with the 
Orcale-Server.

Performance is one of our major problems here. DB2/Connect is okay, but
the OLE-DB and 
ODBC connections needed some major tuning. SQL-statements used are very
straightforward 
and the correct logicals are available.

What other connection methods are available for this type of work? We
basically need close to 
real-time connections.

I have thought about going to dataqueues and skip all that SQL-stuff.
Are there dataqueue 
tools for Unix and Win2K systems (Visual Basic)?

Some statistical data: We process about 20.000 orders/day and 99.5% are
shipped same day 
to about 20 European contries. Orders come in through EDI and are
processed automatically. 
Warehouse people pick up the delivery note and fill the order. It is
then put on the sorter and 
transported to the correct delivery station (carrier dependent).

Best Regards,

Oliver




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