Speeding up Image generating rate.

hi,
I have a function that creates a barcode image.
 
 
 public boolean setBarcodeImage(String imgStr,int barCodeType,String imageName){
  boolean succeed=true;
  try {
   DefaultConfigurationBuilder builder = new DefaultConfigurationBuilder();
   Configuration cfg = builder.buildFromFile(new File("barcode-EAN13-cfg.xml"));
   Logger log = new NullLogger();
   BarcodeGenerator gen = BarcodeUtil.getInstance().createBarcodeGenerator( cfg, log );
   OutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(new File(imageName));
    BitmapCanvasProvider provider = new BitmapCanvasProvider(
    out, "image/jpeg", 100, BufferedImage.TYPE_BYTE_GRAY, true);
  
   if(imgStr.equals(null)) 
   {   
     imgStr = "0000000000000";
   }
   gen.generateBarcode(provider, imgStr);
   provider.finish();
  } catch (Exception e) {
   succeed=false;
   System.out.println("Error creating Image: " + e);
  }
  return succeed;
 }
 
My big problem is the speed.
The rate of borcode images generation is 200 for 1 min.
It is very slow(I have ~ 20,000 images and more to create for integrating into a report).
Can I speed up the proccess?
Please advise.
thanks
Yossi