For Citigroup, embracing change has become a way of corporate life. Created in 1998 through a merger between banking giant Citicorp and insurance colossus Travelers Group, Citigroup now has some 190 million customer accounts in more than 100 countries. It provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, insurance and securities brokerage.

Always attuned to seeking the best business practices, The Associates' financial services development center in South Bend, Indiana, began looking for additional ways to improve productivity. "We're always looking for ways to do our jobs better," explains Kevin DeLaruelle, customer service coordinator for Citigroup. "We were looking at better productivity and cost savings for our equipment, so we contacted Xerox to discuss the options." What they learned made good business sense. "The 4050's bus and tag connectivity was expensive to run all the time, so Xerox suggested the DocuPrint 65," notes DeLaruelle.

Converting Legacy Files Made Easy

But DeLaruelle and his colleagues were not willing to change for change's sake. "Xerox spread out all the documents and demonstrated to us how it was going to be a better fit, but we were thinking, 'We'll see.'"

One concern was how to convert legacy files from Citigroup's IBM 0S390 mainframe so it could print on the DocuPrint 65's PostScript-enabled printer. Xerox representatives suggested Rochester Software Associates' M.I.S. Print to convert client data into efficient PostScript files designed specifically for networked high-speed production environments. M.I.S. Print converts host applications without requiring program or job-process changes. M.I.S. Print also uses existing printer resources to support  forms, job setups, fonts and logos.

"At first, some of us were a little skeptical," admits DeLaruelle. "I mean, how smooth of a process could this be?" Development center staffers had reason to be cautious. The group supports two of Citigroup's five development centers, handling everything from credit card statements to P&L statements to leasing documents. "What's supported here entails a really wide scope of documents," adds DeLaruelle.

"The transition went very well," he says. "We went live in two days. And RSA was super to work with. There are always little things that happen. And when they did, RSA was right there taking care of them."

DeLaruelle admits there were still a few skeptics. "With the 4050, it was channel extended, so we knew where we were getting our data. But hooking up to a LAN connection and getting the data in the same way? Some folks weren't sure."

So the development center group performed every test it could think of. "And it worked wonderfully," says DeLaruelle. "The old printer didn't have the memory for images and logos, so we had to limit what was loaded on the machine. But with the DocuPrint 65, we just download it and queue it up."

Seamless Customer Service

DeLaruelle points out that M.I.S. Print's contribution has proved substantial. "There's no other way we could have approached our legacy files without making it a huge production," he notes. "Here, it's seamless. Thanks to RSA's M.I.S. Print, we now have the capability to print both mainframe and network jobs on the DP65." Even upgrades are easy.

And the skeptics? "This equipment is more efficient," says DeLaruelle. "It was straightforward to install, and the file conversions from legacy to PostScript have been very smooth. "We're really enthusiastic about this equipment. It handles everything we throw at it as well as all of our legacy documents.

Austin McKenzie is a staff writer with "Document Processing Technology."For more information, please visit www.rocsoft.com.