Operations Automation Allows WEHCO Media To Keep Pace In A Fast-Moving Industry
Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, WEHCO Media is big business—and continues to grow. WEHCO currently operates seven daily newspapers, thirteen cable television systems, and provides high-speed Internet service to subscribers in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. WEHCO also employs over 2,000 fulltime employees in those states.
As the company has grown, its operations naturally have become more complex, eventually spawning an unwieldy and labor-intensive job schedule. Faced with an accelerated rate of operator turnover and an increasingly complex job schedule, Judy Nethercutt, Director of IT, began looking for a solution that would give her better control of the job schedule. Specifically, she wanted to:
- Eliminate many of WEHCO’s manual processes
- Minimize the daunting six-month training curve for new operators
- Reduce the recurring errors in their job schedule
The solution she chose was the Robot Automated Operations Solution from Help/Systems. WEHCO Media uses Robot/SCHEDULE,® the job scheduler, automatic computer operator, and batch manager; Robot/REPLAY,® the add-on to Robot/SCHEDULE for automating interactive processes; Robot/ALERT,® the system event notification software; Robot/ CLIENT,® the server operations event management software; and Robot/CONSOLE,® the message, resource, and log management software.
WEHCO Rapidly Automates 1,200 Jobs Using Robot/SCHEDULE
Once Robot/SCHEDULE was installed, Judy and Ninette Morse, Operations Manager, wasted no time before digging in. They were able to accomplish all their scheduling goals—and much more— in a short time. “Ninette, our lead operator, and I used Robot/SCHEDULE to automate 1,200 jobs in roughly a two-month period,” explains Judy. Ninette adds, “We’re still working on the rest of the schedule, but that’s ninety percent of our OS/400 jobs that no longer need an operator to run.”
Now that the job schedule at WEHCO is automated, it is making the rest of the company more efficient. Critical reports, such as credit card journals, are much more punctual than before Robot/SCHEDULE was installed. Reports run on time, every night, and the credit card journals are on a Web server first thing in the morning—when users at WEHCO need them the most.
Robot/REPLAY Can “Learn” Any Manual Process
Robot/REPLAY is the plug-in to Robot/SCHEDULE that automates job scheduling for interactive iSeries applications that require input before batch processing can begin. Before automation, many of WEHCO’s jobs required an operator to reference a checklist and plug in different parameters to run the same job for each of WEHCO’s ten cable sites. Now, using a single Robot/REPLAY object and Robot/SCHEDULE reserved command variables, these jobs are automated; required parameters—the current date, Yes or No answers, and more— are entered automatically by Robot/REPLAY and the jobs run error-free in the correct order every time. Using Robot/REPLAY, WEHCO has automated jobs they once thought were “unautomatable.”
The operators at WEHCO, happy to be rid of their checklists, now can concentrate on their other IT tasks. If the iSeries does need attention, Robot/ALERT sends the operators an e-mail message.
Event-Driven Scheduling Across Three Platforms
WEHCO uses Robot/CLIENT for report handling across multiple platforms. On the OS/400 side, WEHCO has one Model 810 iSeries system. Judy explains, “Our OS/400 reports are uploaded to an IBM RS/6000 running AIX, where the reports are converted to PDFs and indexed. The reports are then loaded onto a Windows server. From there, our users can access their reports directly from their PCs.”
Robot/CLIENT kicks off group jobs for each of the report processes on the different platforms. If one of the iSeries, UNIX, or Windows applications or servers has a problem, Robot/CLIENT uses Robot/ ALERT to notify an operator, who can respond immediately.
Message Management With The Added Benefit of Resource Monitoring
WEHCO is using Robot/CONSOLE to monitor their critical network devices and applications. Judy explains, “We use Robot/CONSOLE to monitor things like our T1 lines, VPN, frame-relay circuits, and the ICOMS interface from Convergys that controls cable TV subscriber requests. If a subscriber wants to add HBO or ShowTime, we can immediately activate the new service through ICOMS. Obviously, our frame-relay lines and this interface are high priority. They need to be up and working.”
If the ICOMS interface or any of the T1 or frame-relay lines suddenly display an unexpected status (for example, Inactive), the resource monitor in Robot/CONSOLE uses Robot/ALERT to notify Judy and her staff. Immediate notification means the IT department at WEHCO can respond before users—and customers— notice an interruption.
As WEHCO Media embarks on new ventures and continues to expand its current business, the company has found that automating its operations—using the products of Help/Systems’ Robot Automated Operations Solution—allows it to grow without increasing its operations staff. And, the IT department knows it can handle—and automate—any new processes that come its way.
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