Overview

Office Products Recycling Associates (OPRA) is an inkjet/toner cartridge and cell phone recycling brokerage. Global Re-Source Funding is an end-user collection program, created by OPRA, that schools, churches, small businesses and non-profits use as a fund-raising program.

In order to participate in the recycling program, clients would request shipping labels. OPRA employees would spend several hours daily creating and mailing United Parcel Service (UPS) shipping labels requested by their customers. It was a waste of both labor and time for OPRA and their clients.

OPRA approached High Touch about building a web-based interface that would allow their customers to generate and print UPS shipping labels on demand, thereby saving time and money.  It needed to operate seamlessly with their existing web site.

Solution

High Touch created a web application to interface with UPS' existing web tools to generate and print shipping labels.  The label also features custom bar coding that includes the client identification and information, allowing OPRA to accurately identify the shipment and client upon receipt. The existing customer database (in MS SQL) is accessed to generate the address information used on the shipping label.

Result & Benefits

The application has proved valuable to both OPRA and their clients as it has reduced turn-around time for OPRA’s clients and lowered labor costs for OPRA. Erin Halferty, Director of Marketing for OPRA, had this to say about the project:

"Not only is our online label printing convenient and timesaving for our company, it is convenient for our customers as well. It keeps our shipments flowing because there is no longer a waiting period to receive labels, and it has reduced labor costs.  High Touch was also great about working with our shipping company to work through, and create solutions for, any issues that arose during programming."

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Technology Used

• UPS Online Tools Application Program Interface
  
• Windows Server
  
• Microsoft IIS
  
• MySQL
  
• MS SQL (for existing customer database)
  
• PHP
  
• Web Services (XML)
  
• avascript
  
• CSS/XHTML