The company uses a computer system running UNIX to manage the warehouse.  In the shipping department, a UNIX terminal is connected to the CPS shipping workstation over an Ethernet network.

Harvey Software set up the CPS shipping workstation as an FTP server.  This enabled it to receive data from the UNIX host system as FTP commands.  Customer information could now pass directly from the host to CPS at maximum speed.

To process a parcel, the shipper just presses a single button from the UNIX host application to send the customer data to a file on the CPS shipping workstation.  As the data is received, it is automatically imported into CPS. CPS reads the weight, processes the parcel and prints the label.  Then the shipping data is sent immediately returned to another file for use by the UNIX host application. The entire process takes only seconds and it all appears to have been done total by the UNIX host application.

Except for the single keystroke from the UNIX host application to initiate the process, the parcels ship themselves.  No manual data entry is required on either end.  The CPS program doesn’t even need a keyboard for parcel processing.  That’s hands-off shipping!