LANSA Touts Eight RAMP Successes

June 17, 2008 Alex Woodie

LANSA is lifting the veil on the recent success it’s had helping customers to modernize their System i applications using its RAMP offering.

The customers include Cinram UK, a division of the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of prerecorded entertainment media, which modernized its System i-based application into a Web-based portal that looked more like a Windows-based SAP application.

CHS, a Fortune 200 company that supplies grain, food, and energy products from its headquarters in Minnesota, used RAMP to upgrade a legacy COBOL application, and enjoyed a 25 percent productivity improvement by streamlining the customer service system.

DEMCO, which supplies equipment and furniture for libraries and schools in North America and Europe, modernized the green screens of its LANSA-built applications with a mix of rich clients and Web interfaces that cut down on the number of screens users must navigate.

Francis Marion University of South Carolina used RAMP to modernize a large, S/36-era RPG-based student administration system with a new Windows-based front-end that is much easier for users to navigate, and also features links to Office for e-mail capabilities.

Gannet, the $7.4 billion newspaper giant, relied on RAMP as a crutch of sorts as it consolidated its call centers, as well as the System i-based applications powering those call centers.

Norfolk Iron & Metal is using RAMP to modernize an in-house ERP system developed in RPG. The company wants to move entirely to Windows, and RAMP provided the company with graphical interfaces for some programs as the new Windows system is being developed in Visual LANSA.

PartyLite, a direct-selling company operating in the U.S. and Europe, used RAMP to modernize green-screen interfaces with new graphical screens that have been well-received by customer service representatives.

Strattec, a provider of automotive locks, keys, and security products, used RAMP to modernize certain distribution elements of its System 21 ERP system. The new graphical interfaces sped completion of processes by a factor of six.

System i shops considering application modernization should keep their options open and not feel trapped to pick a certain solution, says Steve Gapp, president of LANSA Americas. “In choosing a modern architecture for your IT systems, you are not restricted to just .NET or Java,” he says. “LANSA is the third option.”