Response Group, the vehicle statistics supplier to the South African motor industry, has used Unisys mainframes since 1978 and in all that time has never been a day late delivering statistics to its clients.
The business has three primary clients: National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA), Automotive Industry Export Council (AIEC) and South African Agricultural Machinery Association (SAAMA). It delivers reports from a number of Cobol applications, including New Car Buyers Guide, Market Segment Analyser, Autostats, Autoparc, Dealer Performance Evaluation and Forecast, Automaps, CSI Manager, The Economics Library (Ecolib) and Electronic Motor Industry News Digest (EMIND).
"We have always used Unisys mainframes, and Unisys Africa has always looked after us. It has given us a 15-year uptime award because our uptime is very close to 100%," says Martin Kruger, executive director at Response Group.
Some of the company`s clients are Absa Bank, Bankfin, Nissan, Barloworld Motor, BMW, Daimler Chrysler AG, Delta Motor Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Honda SA and Jaguar SA, while the complete list is a comprehensive collection of the top motoring brands in the country.
Response Group has had a total of nine Unisys mainframes, from the B series to the A series, where it at one stage had dual A3s, and finally the LX series. Late last year it deployed an LX7100.
Kruger believes implicitly in the mainframe and Cobol as a reliable environment. In the late 1960s, he began his career programming for Standard Bank; he also worked for Burroughs, which later became Unisys through its merger with Sperry.
"People have been saying for a long time that Cobol is a dying language. However, it is still prevalent, unlike many PC languages that are periodically replaced," says Kruger. "Some of our applications have been running for 15 years and have been through all the mainframe upgrades we have had, without a single hitch. The code simply ports directly onto the new system."
Kruger quotes Rod Newing from IT Week on Cobol: "The language runs on any platform, from a personal computer to Unix and Windows servers to mainframes. It has been used for 40 years and the industry claims that 70% of the world`s active business applications are still running Cobol code, representing an investment of $5 trillion. Many of these applications were written long ago, when processors were slow and memory and storage was expensive, using good software engineering principles and a lot of programming discipline. Those programmers knew how to make efficient use of computer resources. As a result, their code is very fast and very scalable. It has also established a reputation for robustness and security."
Kruger adds that by financing his mainframes, it becomes cost-effective to upgrade every five years, at which stage he achieves a 500% performance improvement over the previous system.
"The majority of our daily running programs have been written since 1982. Most of them have only been recompiled when we have acquired new machines and thus more processing speed. Our own preference is the Unisys LX series, running MCP. But Cobol procedures are machine-independent," says Kruger.
"The Response Group experience is typical of that delivered to all our mainframe operating system customers worldwide. The expertise Unisys has gained in the area of 100% uptime is one of the reasons why Unisys understands the requirements of high-availability computing and why our approach to Microsoft as an operating system to replace the mainframe is so successful, " says Andre Purchase, Portfolio Sales Executive: ClearPath Program at Unisys Africa.
Response Group fact file:
1973 - NAAMSA retail sales statistics are computerised and the first analysis programs are written with specialised dealer reports for Leyland.
1974 - A system similar to NAAMSA is installed for SAAMA and programs are stored on punch cards.
1975 - A bureau system is written for newly established BMW South Africa. Programming moves from coded blocks on paper using a clutch pencil to the new Burroughs terminals.
1976 - Dealer sales versus competition with forecasting computations is written for Nissan South Africa.
1977 - The Ford NAAMSA Dealer Sales Statistics system is written using Burroughs 80 x 24 screens.
1979 - Co-ordinated Transport commissions a fuel-saving system from Martin Kruger for their Ford road deliveries.
1980 - Co-ordinated Transport installs an online vehicle tracking system for its Ford Motor Ferry operation.
1981 - Response Group becomes the first online computer bureau in the Cape Province.
1983 - Response Group places terminals into VTS at motor manufacturers sites and enables online access.
1985 - Design of the first online NAAMSA system called Statistical Online Systems (SOS) begins. The system uses specialised access routines that deliver sub three-second response times in Johannesburg.
1986 - Samcor asks Response Group to take over its Ford Dealer Services Bureau.
1987 - NAAMSA online system is enhanced, using terminals, to provide online graphing at the click of a key.
1988 - Response Group imports PCs from GATE in Taiwan and runs an in-house microfiche division.
1989 - Reports are printed on a 1 500 line-per-minute printer. Locally produced "Rooikat" cards are used in PCs to emulate Unisys protocols.
1991 - Co-ordinated Transport Services puts its branches online in Durban.
1992 - Plans to centralise Response Group operations are laid and design of the new building in Port Elizabeth (PE) gets underway.
1993 - The company moves into its new premises in Walmer Boulevard, Port Elizabeth.
1994 - Response Group stops importing and selling PCs because the market has matured and settled. A decision is made to focus on core business and the microfiche division is handed over to MGX in the Eastern Cape.
1995 - The company moves to Summerstrand and investigates the Internet for disseminating information.
1996 - First Internet offerings are published and an e-mail replaces a snail-mail stiffy carrying information to the UK.
1997 - First leased line for client access via the Internet is installed on a stable Unix platform.
1998 - The www.naamsa.co.za website is created a new mainframe installed.
1999 - The www.autostats.co.za website is released as a PC front-end to NAAMSA statistics.
2000 - The Agristats system is released as a PC-based front-end to SAAMA statistics.
2001 - Response Group receives a 15-year uptime award from Unisys and expands its product range to include Ecolib, MSA and Carspecs.
2002 - www.carparc.co.za is developed as the first analytical picture of what is on South African roads.
2003 - A period of designing, stabilising and growing systems that sees new servers, firewalls and spam protection. Response Group also receives an award in the South African Automotive Yearbook for services rendered to the local motor industry.
2004 - Installs a new mainframe with speed improvements of over 500% and deployment of ADSL, satellite and dual 64k Diginet lines.
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