Private i: Inside Solutions is an opportunity for IBM i and Power Systems vendors to describe a customer success story involving one of their products. System iNEWS receives no payment from the vendor, and the vendor receives no payment from System iNEWS . Answers are edited for continuity and clarity.

Westside Produce -a fruit grower, packer, and shipper of more than 60 years-knew its cumbersome business application interfaces required some much-needed modernization. Recurring training sessions for its seasonal staff and a lack of options for new features were becoming an issue. But after implementing two solutions from Profound Logic Software, Westside Produce's app interfaces have found new life, and employees are even taking a new active role in improving business systems and processes.

Talk about Westside Produce.

For more than 60 years, the TRI brand and management of Westside Produce continues to be recognized as an industry leader for quality of product and consistency of pack, and as an honest source of reliable information and a superior provider of customer service. With an established history of doing things the right way, Westside Produce strives to eliminate waste, control costs, and optimize efficiencies.

What kind of IBM i environment does Westside Produce use?

Westside Produce runs its business on an IBM I running 5.4, with applications in RPGLE for business processes that include shipping and receiving. These applications were accessed through outdated 5250 green-screen user interfaces.

What problem was Westside Produce trying to solve?

Although Westside Produce made great strides in modernizing its processes over the years, something lagged behind: its business application interfaces. Westside Produce is a seasonal operation with nine months off between peak harvest times. Because the green-screen interfaces were so cumbersome and required so many keystrokes, office staff had to be retrained on their business systems. Between recurring training sessions and a general lack of ability to add new features due to interface limitations, it was clear Westside Produce needed a better way to access its business applications.

Talk about Profound Logic's Genie and Profound UI solutions.

Profound Logic's Genie and Profound UI IBM i solutions were just what Westside Produce was looking for. Genie from Profound Logic offers a low-effort, on-the-fly option for web-enabling and enhancing 5250 green-screens. It allowed Westside Produce to quickly create Web browser interfaces for the departments that needed an immediate solution. Profound UI was used to convert existing DDS source code into Rich Display Files for designing and deploying custom user interfaces for the company's applications, in addition to integrating applications without source code.

How did the implementation go?

Westside Produce was able to create modern browser interfaces within a few days of using the products and is working on custom development projects to roll out with the next season's harvest.

"I'm not an RPG programmer or expert in JavaScript, and I found these tools incredibly easy to use," says Justin Porter, who heads up Westside Produce's IT department. "Within days we were able to deploy interfaces we needed immediately using Genie and were able to web-enable other applications with additional features in a matter of weeks using Profound UI."

How have the Profound Logic solutions helped Westside Produce?

"Our workforce became much more efficient," Porter says. "The modernization efforts made our departments' applications, including those used for shipping and receiving, more intuitive, which made our workers' jobs much easier." Additionally, Porter says that he has more time to focus on other efforts because he has spent much less time retraining the staff on how to interact with the 5250 interfaces.

Westside Produce's employees are now taking an active role in improving business systems and processes. "Before, because many of them didn't really understand the systems, there was very little feedback about improvements," says Porter. "Now our workers are very involved in improving how our systems work because it's easy to visually identify where changes can be made."

If you're an IBM i/Power Systems solution vendor (or customer) and want to share your story in Private i: Inside Solutions, just write us at editors@systeminetwork.com.