Newsletters

To our Customers

Its been some time since we updated our message on our web site.  There have been many changes in the industry and we have been working very diligently on a new range of products and services.  Our base is always going to be Metrology, but we have been reminded that several of our dynamic products will work in other industries.  Most of our product focus is on the METDaemon web applications and we will discuss more in this letter.  With some of the new products, we have partnered with some of our customers to push the envelope into some new areas.  On Time Support (OTS) has always been a service oriented business, with products to support those services.  We have decided to focus more on the process side of the business, because there is a lack of support and tools in this area.  Examples of this are a new way to print calibration labels, a new Out of Tolerance (OOT) Reporting System, and more metrics to measure the efficiency of the system. From the very beginnings of  OTS, we had worked with the Fluke systems until that partnership ended in 2013.  We made it clear to all of our customers that we would continue to support the existing MET/TRACK systems, and we are still doing this today.  That particular database was very flexible and can be configured to many different processes for entering/updating data  with the use of the OTS products, like Barcode Magician.  We will continue to support the Sybase Anywhere Database version 11 and it has worked great.  We are also looking at upgrading that database to Sybase Anywhere 17 because it is a very compact and portable database. 

Regarding Sybase 11 and MET/TRACK, we have been installing the system on MS Server 2012 and 2016 with no problems at all.  Not a single issue.  While you will hear that it is not designed for those environments, we have even tested the system on different versions of those servers.  Lately, several companies have asked us to provide support and install the new servers for them and we can do that for your company also.  We know how to work with IT and how to deal with the security issues. The performance has been just fine and we have defined a new configuration for the installation of those systems.  Over the years, our customers have built unique processes on those systems that cannot be reproduced elsewhere without a tremendous cost.  We realize that our customers have put their trust in us and our products, and we want to make sure that we do not disappoint them.  We will go into more detail in this letter, and we are working on putting some new details on our web site. If you have suggestions or comments, contact us at inquiries@ontimesupport.com.

Label Printing Will Never be the Same

OTS has always been known for the design and printing of dynamic labels using the Brother Label Printers.  These dynamic printers are capable of printing laminated labels that are very durable and do not fade.  And these labels can be used for anything, not just calibration.  This process has evolved over several years.  In the beginning, starting in the late 1990's, we printed labels from the MET/CAL and MET/TRACK  applications using Crystal Reports.  These labels were printed with rendered images much like printing a Word document.  Some customers still do this, but the process had to change.  And the change was how to print from the web applications. With web applications, it is not viable to print as rendered images or PDF files.  We had created the Label Direct program and we are often asked to create labels for the Brother Printer that can be interfaced to other applications, but another change was coming. USB device printing for the web based labels was always difficult because the client computer must have Java installed and use an Applet.  However, the Browser Developers had deemed the applets to be a security issues and they no longer work.  At the same time, several customers have eliminated the use of USB ports on their computers and that has caused much grief with calibration labs.  One customer has to lease each USB port for a year and keep track of the usage.  It is time consuming.  With these issues, we decided to go in a new direction and use  network connection only.  The new Label printer that we use supports two network interfaces, a Wireless and Wired LAN.  There are two MAC addresses for these labelers.  We have updated the METDaemon admin program to control the label printers from the OTS applications. You can print the labels in two clicks.  It is incredibly fast and easy.  However, here is the best part.  For the Labelers using the network, there are no drivers, fonts, files, or Crystal Reports required at the client computer. Most barcode types are supported also.  Yes, we have created a driver-less label printing product for the OTS web applications.  We can also work with a different system to do the same.  It does require a METDaemon and you might have to modify your web applications a bit, but the hard work is done. We can work in Linux or Windows and we can communicate with most modern databases.  We have several database drivers for the METDaemon.  Give us a call.  You will not believe it.  Did we say no Crystal Reports ....... ?

Metrology Xplorer 2 (METEX2)

Metrology Xplorer 2 continues to evolve and it was originally marketed as the web based MET/TRACK in 2007.  We will be adding new features that were not in the original MET/TRACK.  There is also the new MT Manager program that is used for administration.  In the last newsletter, we mentioned that there is a new MS SQL server for METEX2, and it works exactly the same as the Sybase version.  This is an OTS product and when it is released for standard distribution, we can provide that application as a standard product.  There are already two enormous databases, one in the US and one in Europe that are using the MS SQL system.  We have to finish some other utilities before we formally release the product, but it is coming.  It will look the same.  But the back end is a complete re-write and that took some time.  In fact, the new OTS applications are now tested with the MS SQL database as well as the Sybase Anywhere database. We have been asked to provide this from many customers over the past few years and we will be able to finally satisfy this need in the near future.  We are working on plans that will make it easier to access data from Metrology Xplorer 2 by other management systems in use within the company (like accounting systems and Enterprise Resource Planning systems).  These improvements will eliminate data export/import cycles to keep data in sync and allow a more real time update between computer programs.  We are actually starting to test some custom utilities to do  this. For example, we might want to transfer some data to an Oracle database.

Metrology Xplorer 2 operates in all modern versions of Windows, and most Linux Desktops, and is fully supported by OTS.  If you currently use Fluke's MET/TRACK (which Fluke no longer supports), you can upgrade to METEX2, and retain all of the functionality of traditional MET/TRACK.  You do not have the high costs involved to change your internal processes, rewrite all of your reports, transfer all of your data and re-doing process validation tests that a new asset management system would require. We will update the web site when we are ready.  If you want to be put on a list as interested, give us a call.

Barcode Magician 1.8

In the last newsletter, we announced that we were going to release Barcode Magician 1.8, but that has not occurred yet. The product needs some new features first, and it was originally written to support the MS SQL database, and it does. What did occur was more interest in BC Mobile, the web based Barcode Magician.  We changed priorities to update the BC Mobile product, add the new label printing, and work on the user interface which is faster. We will start looking at a new Barcode Magician early in 2020.  We have also seem some customers start to use tablets for BC Mobile, but one big surprise was the new label printing for BC Mobile.  Because there are no drivers to print labels, the application can run on an Android Tablet or Phone.  Barcode Magician is a core OTS product and we will be making new enhancements for it.

Joint Venture with Cal Lab Solutions

We have been working closely with Cal Lab Solutions for a long time.  Mike Schwartz has released his Metrology.Net® application for automated and manual calibration procedures.  Because of our workload, we have not completed an interface yet, but that is a higher priority and it will happen.  Mike is having success with this product and we have encountered third party calibration labs that are using it now. The people involved with the product have reported they are very impressed with its capabilities.  We believe it is a powerful tool that will help our customers be more productive; not just replacing MET/CAL automation for meters and scopes, but also with RF & Microwave, torque, pressure, temperature, humidity and several other disciplines. OTS has not taken a position to replace MET/CAL and as long as customers have MET/CAL version 7.3 to 8.3, we will continue to interface with MET/CAL.  Currently, this is only with the Sybase Version of Metrology Xplorer 2.  We realize that customers have an investment in MET/CAL and that it is important to them.

METDaemon

For those unfamiliar with METDaemon, it is a software platform and development environment that greatly speeds the implementation of custom applications, thereby lowering the cost.  METDaemon provides standardized functions and database connectivity features to make software development easier and fast.  All newer OTS products use the METDaemon environment for operation.  The new METDaemon applications can operate in Windows and Linux.

So here is the news part…
We have developed a METDaemon Development Kit (MDK).  OTS is known for our dynamic applications, and we are going to provide customers the METDaemon tools needed to develop their own custom secure applications.  The kit is already been in use and we are very encouraged by the positive feedback we have received. This is a programming type of product, and like any other product like this, it requires that the developer have experience in this area.  Training will be required for the customer to get the most out of the development system.   If there is interest in this, please contact us.  You can also visit, www.metdaemon.com.

Our Other Products

Adapting our products to work well with all of the major databases has been an important goal for us.  Our other products haven't been left out of this endeavor.  We make a lot of products and it takes time to integrate everything. One other product, the METDaemon Responder, is being used for our new OOT process and we think it is the best process of its type, and can be used with other database systems. Some customers have said that the Respoder is one of the more powerful products that we make.   Email Notification has also evolved and there are new features in the METDaemon admin tool, making it nicer to write SQL reports.  Several of our products do not require a specific database schema, and we will re-classify these products.  Dynamic Email is an example of a product like that.  We recently sold a customer the Dynamic Email with an MS SQL driver.

If you have any questions and want to discuss any future plans, please contact us and we will be happy to help. Our goal is to bring new exciting products/processes to the market at a very competitive cost.  If you want to keep your existing MET/TRACK system, we can also support your requirements. We know Sybase.  There are several options for you through On Time Support.  We can provide any kind of support for those systems and we will support them for years.

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

On Time Support