Re: 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