TriTek Solutions - Linking people, process and content

The call center at WOFCO is responsible for handling all customer service requests, such as changes to a lessee's account. Within the call center, there were significant challenges with expense processing associated with lease terminations and repossessions. Requests were processed manually by completing various forms and spreadsheets. This method was highly error prone and time consuming. There was no accurate reporting method, so reimbursement amounts from lessees could not be calculated. In addition, management was forced to manually audit 100% of expenses being processed, which prevented oversight in other areas.

A document management system was already in place at the call center; however, the system had minimal extensibility and lacked workflow. WOFCO elected to transition their call center operations to an IBM FileNet P8 environment. To help with this transition and future customizations, TriTek Solutions was brought in as an expert in P8 solutions.

The Solution

TriTek Solutions implemented a customized solution built on top of IBM FileNet P8, leveraging Business Process Framework (BPF) and eForms integration. BPF is IBM's transaction processing framework for the P8 platform and eForms is an application designed to manage and process electronic forms through P8. This solution was implemented in the call center at WOFCO, and automates processes associated with all customer service requests, including name or address changes, credit corrections, late charge waivers, and other general requests.

When a customer service representative receives a call and further action is required, the employee enters information into an eForm that launches a workflow through BPF. Based on the work type selected, BPF interprets business rules to route the eForm to supervisors, managers or other internal employees. Through the BPF processing interface, these processors can view the completed eForm and work item information relevant to the transaction request. Embedded within the BPF interface at each step, the eForms are presented to the user in a tabbed format for simplified viewing and processing. Options for approving, denying and routing are also included within the BPF processing interfaces, enabling the user to perform multiple tasks through a single interface and, therefore, streamlining the operation.

The solution is also integrated with WOFCO's existing mainframe systems through BPF custom extensions. All customer account information is stored in the mainframes, so providing a link to these systems eliminates the need for extensive data migration. When a customer service representative enters an account number, an eForm is populated with account information pulled from data on a mainframe. In addition, processors can access customer account information through BPF when reviewing transaction requests.

BPF was customized to accommodate WOFCO-specific business functionality to the call center system. Through a "clone" component, users can create a copy of a document and its attributes within the IBM FileNet repository. Effectively, this function provides users with document templates that can be used when creating new documents that are based on originals, without creating the document from scratch. A second lookup component imports information from an IBM FileNet repository and external databases to create a uniform search interface. Through the single BPF search interface, users can search for content without switching to different search engines for each database or repository.

After the successful initial implementation of IBM FileNet P8 in the call center, WOFCO continued to extend the solution; adding enhancements to accommodate internal expense processing functions. Customer service representatives initiate the new process by opening an expense eForm, where it is possible to enter vendor expenses related to lessees. The eForm is routed for approval based on the amount and type of expense. Managers receive these approval requests through BPF, where they can approve or reject the expense. If approved, a spreadsheet is automatically generated by BPF and uploaded into an accounts payable system. At the end of the process, all documents used during the approval process, including the eForms, are declared records in IBM FileNet Records Manager.

The Benefit

By implementing an IBM FileNet P8 solution with BPF and eForms, World Omni gained substantial workflow, reporting and auditing capabilities. With the expense processing solution, management can concentrate on associate productivity and performance, all while reducing manual processes and errors. Employees are now able to process customer service requests more effectively through BPF's intuitive user interface, without switching to different applications for each job function. The increased efficiency in the call centers directly translates into improved customer service. In less than one year, cases processed per month with the system increased from 300 to over 8,500. This dramatic increase shows increased productivity and user acceptance. To underscore the success of the call center solution at WOFCO, the company was recently awarded the IBM Information on Demand Innovation Award for Best Employee Productivity Solution. This award is presented to an IBM customer that most effectively integrates enterprise applications, business processes, and content management to dramatically improve productivity.

The Challenge

Prior to implementing the Trans@ction eXpress-based imaging and workflow system, the Investor Services operation was largely inefficient, inconsistent, insecure, and expensive. Every day users saw high volumes of transaction exceptions with limited control over their processing. Through the manual processes, the inefficient communication channels between the back-office processing center and the customers and field agents were debilitating. And the lack of access to applicable data within the enterprise created operational gaps.

Further, the entirely manual, paper-driven processes were measurably prolonging the processing cycles of standard transaction requests. And, even among these "standard" transaction requests, there was a lack of processing consistency across the varying types.

The Solution

To address these issues, TriTek developed a solution based on their Trans@ction eXpress software framework. The Trans@ction eXpress solution provides TD Waterhouse with a customized interface for the processing of all incoming account administration requests, a rules-based workflow to ensure the automatic delivery of the appropriate content to the appropriate users, an automated skills matrix to manage user responsibilities and system access, and a collection of process-specific real-time and historical reports.

The processing interface and rules-based workflow have enabled TD Waterhouse to realize tremendous processing efficiencies through the management and automation of the transaction approval processes, while firm management has significantly reduced compliance risk and audit liability through both the functional reporting capabilities as well as the system architecture. For example, all transaction approvals are indexed and written to Write Once Read Many (WORM) media, as per SEC regulations. This not only ensures technological compliance, but also enables TD Waterhouse to quickly produce transactional approval reports in the event of an audit.

To gain efficiencies through TD Waterhouse's recordkeeping and clearinghouse software, the Trans@ction eXpress application is integrated with Automated Data Processing's (ADP) Brokerage Processing Services (BPS) software. Through this integration, the system incorporates detailed security-specific information (e.g. ticker symbols, buy/ask price, etc.) to include in asset transfer instruction letters. Also through this integration, the system is able to extract real-time status information to indicate whether a particular asset transfer has been completed. This enables the automatic completion of a transaction when the transfer clears – without requiring any manual intervention.

The Benefit

Through the processing interfaces, rules-based work distribution, and ADP integration, the customized Trans@ction eXpress system has provided TD Waterhouse with immediate benefits. Marc Beerman, Senior Vice President of TD Waterhouse Investor Services, said of the system, "Benefits include better control over processing of information, improved efficiencies, streamlined and more effective management of reporting and analytics." In addition to the reduction in overhead due to the realized processing efficiencies, the back-end system compliance and readily accessible reports have drastically curtailed the risk of SEC fines. Further, the success of this engagement and the established eProcess and Trans@ction eXpress framework have motivated other lines of business throughout the organization to pursue solutions leveraging these technologies.

In a desire to optimize this process, Deutsche Bank contracted with TriTek Solutions to design, develop and implement a customized thin-client workflow management system to handle the processing of New Account Request and Fee Agreement documents. The comprehensive solution included the configuration of Web Services to provide the users with thin-client access to work items and documents, as well as integration with Deutsche Bank's existing DocMan2000 software, which is built on top of Capture to facilitate the scanning, indexing and committal of documents to the Image Services repository.

TriTek integrated the customized front-end interface directly with SQL Server 2000, which serves as the back-end workflow engine. TriTek also developed a custom background "injector" application that checks the FileNet Distribution Queue for entries. This program then attempts to pair a committed document with an existing work item that has been flagged for further documentation. If no corresponding work item is located, the application creates a new work item in the SQL database.The solution architecture includes Active Server Page, Visual Basic and COM technologies running on an IIS web server. TriTek also implemented standard Windows 2000 SMTP email notification to inform users that they have new work items to process. All users access their individual workloads through an Internet Explorer web browser. In order to meet Deutsche Bank's reporting requirements, TriTek developed a utility to programmatically extract system data and write it to a reporting table, which can then be accessed by Crystal Reports for the creation of custom reports.During the course of system development, Deutsche Bank requested that TriTek make some minor modifications to improve the functionality of the workflow system. One such enhancement was to add a field to the work item to identify other accounts related to the current work item. Since these accounts may not necessarily exist in the workflow system, TriTek created a text field for this purpose that can be populated with other account numbers. These values are then stored in a separate table in the SQL database.The final system was delivered to Deutsche Bank on time after undergoing rigorous system testing by the TriTek project team and the Deutsche Bank end-user community to ensure that all functionality fully met client expectations. This initial custom workflow application is expected to lead to the implementation of a more robust workflow infrastructure at Deutsche Bank.

In order to achieve more efficient plan administration, MassMutual Retirement Services contracted with TriTek to design and implement a Compliance Retrieval application known as "eCab," or "electronic filing cabinet." The "eCab" system is a Visual Basic thick-client image storage and retrieval mechanism for retirement plan contracts, amendments and correspondence. The comprehensive solution ties together FileNET, DB2, Sybase and Reflex data from the back-end systems. DB2 stores all FileNET index values, while Sybase stores custom tables that are specific to "eCab" and Reflex is MassMutual's primary mainframe system for everyday use. The system relies upon an extremely flexible, table-driven application to retrieve data from these multiple back-end systems and present it to the user in a consolidated fashion. The table-driven approach is intended to make the system as configurable as possible without having to rewrite the code every time a new document type is added or business changes require a change to the way documents are displayed.

In order to support a fully automated indexing process for contract documents, TriTek also developed a dynamic barcode generation application for use in scanning both backfile and day-forward documents. The customized barcode application is table-driven, reading database tables in order to dynamically determine the data to include on the barcoded cover sheets. With improved system maintenance in mind, TriTek designed the barcode generator such that it can be changed by modifying the tables rather than the underlying code.

TriTek implemented a filing interface similar to the previous paper-based method, which facilitated improved ease-of-use giving users minimal options but maximum functionality. This ease-of-use, along with the system's capability to tie multiple back-end systems together and the elimination of the need for (and problems associated with) paper, made it very popular across the user base within Retirement Services. The system is currently in use across approximately 130 workstations, with plans to add an additional 50 to 75 users in the near future and possibly expand the system to track state-level compliance documents as well.

John Hancock contracted with TriTek to provide a customized solution to meet their business needs, which involved upgrading their Workforce Desktop software to Panagon Capture. As the upgrade had to be integrated with John Hancock's existing FileNET imaging system and their current workflow applications, TriTek's solution was to implement and customize TriTek's CapturePlus foundation software. Specific customizations included the inclusion of various annotations on documents, integration with Rhumba (a terminal emulator enabling Windows to interface with a mainframe system) for screen scraping data, providing extensive validation of index values entered by users, and creating default index values when necessary. TriTek also configured the software to provide the specific data reporting capabilities necessary for John Hancock's business processes.

Over the course of the project, TriTek encountered several obstacles that required special attention. These challenges included a decision to upgrade from Panagon Capture version 3.0 to version 3.1 midway through the project, a requirement to integrate with John Hancock's integrated security applications, such as Full Armor, as well as a requirement to integrate the FileNET systems fax capabilities with CapturePlus. The latter issue was resolved by modifying the CapturePlus code so that the filtered Phase of a batch displayed to a user matched the Phase in which the fax server was leaving them.. On the technical end, TriTek's developers were also challenged with finding a solution that would allow users to only access batches within their specific business group. All of these challenges were addressed and overcome and the system was rolled out on schedule.

TriTek successfully delivered a customized solution to John Hancock's Pensions group within ten weeks of the project start date. The solution included both the Scan and Index modules of CapturePlus, along with the accompanying custom Visual Basic code. TriTek's integration services also included several transfer-of-knowledge courses, which provided training on FileNET and CapturePlus, along with training materials, manuals, and release notes. All John Hancock user groups are currently in production and using the CapturePlus software. Additionally, due in part to the success of the CapturePlus customization and implementation, John Hancock is looking to upgrade their downstream workflow application to a customized eProcess-based system.

The Challenge

Travelers Life & Annuity (TL&A) is a member of Citigroup, a global financial services organization with over 200 million customer accounts in more than 100 countries. Prior to engaging TriTek Solutions, TL&A had been processing work off of paper and then imaging documents on the back end for archival purposes. Travelers' business managers and users alike cited myriad issues with this processing environment, including:

• A manual and labor intensive environment - high volumes of paper, manual distribution, logging and tracking of work;
• Non-standard, sequential & complex processes resulting in high unit costs;
• An inconsistency across business processes - risk of missed steps and adherence to processing rules;
• Lost Paper Work;
• Disparate systems made it difficult and time-consuming to research or retrieve needed documents;
• Administrative and business process rules were applied manually - the speed, accuracy and consistency of processing was directly impacted by the varied skill and experience levels of the end-users;
• The business processes and rules were not visible or well understood to help transform the business for improved service, or to identify redundant steps and bottlenecks for process improvement;
• Inability to monitor work progress and report on performance and productivity in real-time & to enable process tuning (workload balancing) based on recorded experience;
• Lack of a framework for business process automation;
• Non-adaptive and inflexible infrastructure to adjust for peak volumes, personnel changes & to support additional business growth; and
• A lack of business continuity and disaster recovery support for work-in-process documents.

 

In addition to the inefficient front-end processes, TL&A employed an eiStream content management system for the back-end imaging and archival. This software suite was ultimately deemed unsuitable for the growing process and content management needs of the organization and needed to be replaced. To address these problems, and in consideration of the technology sensitivities of the client, TriTek proposed a phased implementation of eProcess and Image Services – using ISRA and TriTek's Trans@ction eXpress foundation software to provide a java-exclusive application to the 6 business units. The proposed solution would not only enable TL&A to gain control of their operations, but it would also provide a suite of flexible, scaleable, recoverable, and adaptable software to support the changing and growing business demands of the organization.

The Solution

TL&A contracted with TriTek to implement front-end imaging and automated workflow technology as the vehicle for defining and managing the end-to-end business process, using the Annuity Loan processing as a pilot for the system. The primary objective of the initiative was to implement a system that would be flexible, scaleable, recoverable, and adaptable to support changing business demands.

The customized flavor of Trans@ction eXpress, dubbed Annuity Loan Processing System (ALPS), enables TL&A to configure the distribution and routing of work within the eProcess workflow engine according to specific business rules, providing different types of users with access to the appropriate work types and work queues based on their individual area of responsibility. This flexibility ensures that each user only processes the work for which he or she is directly responsible. It also provides the business administrators with the tools and abilities to quickly adapt the workflows based on shifting business needs.

In addition to mapping the custom workflows that drive the business processes, TriTek developed several custom components that are critical to the system's overall functionality. For example, TriTek incorporated a screen capture utility, which allows a user to take a print screen of a mainframe screen window and attach it to the work item as an image for audit purposes. TriTek also created an online forms module, which eliminated a number of internal paper forms, replaced them with HTML form templates, and enabled online management approval of these documents. Finally, TriTek implemented a random QA selection feature, in which the system dynamically determines whether a completed work item must pass through a quality assurance process based on certain parameters.

The Trans@ction eXpress application runs on a Sun Solaris server powered by IBM's WebSphere Application Server software. The FileNet Image Services and WorkFlo Services components are co-located on a separate Sun Solaris server. The Trans@ction eXpress application metadata is stored in an Oracle 9i database. To meet TL&A's reporting needs, the FileNet eProcess Event Log is exported to FileNet's Process Analyzer data cubes, leveraging OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) technology to "slice and dice" the workflow data along different dimensions. To facilitate the document entry process, TriTek enhanced the native functionality of the Capture Professional scan and indexing application by customizing TriTek's CapturePlus software for TL&A's specific requirements.

The Benefit

Through the implementation of the Trans@ction eXpress system, Travelers has improved productivity, quality and speed of service delivery, created a volume scaleable and flexible infrastructure to handle changing business processes and rules due to competition, business growth and regulatory/compliance environment, improved document search capabilities & quick retrieval of needed information, provided real-time work management, monitoring and reporting, and provided backup and recovery capabilities to support the TL&A Continuation of Business (COB) plan.

The pilot system was released into production ahead of schedule and under budget to approximately 200 users in TL&A Annuity Operations. Based on the overwhelming success of the initial phase, TL&A is currently rolling the system out to the entire enterprise. The additional business units that are currently being rolled on to the system include: Annuity In-force, Annuity New Business, Life New Business/Underwriting, Life Policyholder Services, and Distributor Support Services.

Based on preliminary ROI metrics, the Trans@ction eXpress system is anticipated to result in 10%-30% productivity savings across all production users in the six business areas.

The Solution

The workflow solution is based on TriTek’s Trans@ction eXpress, an award-winning transaction processing application framework, built on top of IBM's content and process management product suites. Trans@ction eXpress provides a highly configurable user-friendly interface, a robust background framework, and custom processing capabilities designed to meet the consistent needs across varied ECM solutions.

Trans@ction eXpress software comes equipped with several features germane to workflow applications that are working to streamline the business process at LIS. These features include the automated creation of a work item from a document that has been committed to the FileNet content repository, the ability to pend work items for later processing, and the ability to create work items manually if necessary.

With Trans@ction eXpress, the automated distribution of work items within the workflow engine can be configured according to the specific business rules in place at each site. At LIS, a user typically processes work based on two different factors – the type of the work itself and the relative age of the work item. These business rules ensure that each user processes the next oldest work item with the highest priority that exists for that user’s function.

In addition, Trans@ction eXpress’ innate reporting capabilities are being used to generate information necessary to satisfy the reporting needs of LIS. LIS users need to process work in a certain amount of time and, more significantly, they need to be able to document that the work is done within that time frame. To meet this requirement, TriTek configured Trans@ction eXpress to automatically archive critical reporting data captured by the FileNet process management platform to demonstrate that LIS is satisfying its Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This data is presented to the different service centers under LIS, and Trans@ction eXpress facilitates the archiving of and access to this data to enable the creation of reports.

The Benefit

Once the Trans@ction eXpress solution was rolled out to nearly 600 users across the disparate service centers, LIS was able to concentrate on managing the entire business process at a much higher level than was ever possible with a paper-based policy administration mechanism. Future phases of the engagement tentatively include a plan to integrate the imaging and workflow system with an LIS mainframe admin system as well.

In order to better serve its customers, Boston Scientific contracted with TriTek to design and implement a more automated and advanced image-based fax order entry system using FileNET's Visual WorkFlo software. The server applications run on three separate machines: a FileNET IMS root/index server, a 12-port FileNET Panagon Fax server processing approximately 1,300 fax orders per day, and a third server running custom background applications developed by TriTek. The background applications, including a work object injector and a "clean up" program, serve to move work items through the system. The client machines were configured using a Visual Basic, thick-client Visual WorkFlo version of the tritek@your.service foundation software. TriTek customized the @your.service software to contain certain functionality that Boston Scientific required for its workflow, most notably "multi-queue prioritized workflow processing." Essentially, Boston Scientific's workflow consists of three types of work and three types of users. Basic users can only process one type of work, which is at a "normal" priority. More advanced users can process "normal" work as well as special processing orders. Supervisor users can process high-priority and high-complexity items, which typically tend to be low volume items. To accommodate this scenario, TriTek customized the system to enable the user to press a button and gain access to the highest priority work for which he or she is authorized, without having to switch queues manually.

One unique requirement of the system implemented by TriTek is that all unprocessed FileNET faxes had to be made available offline in the case of a catastrophic failure of the FileNET fax order entry system. TriTek met this need by implementing a "failover system" in which every incoming fax is made available for viewing (through a non-FileNET TIFF viewing application) or printing (via Windows print) if there is a hardware or software failure. This enables Boston Scientific's users to continue processing incoming fax orders with minimal interruption. As the work items are completed in the workflow, the clean up program then automatically removes the backup copies of the TIFF images, thus minimizing system maintenance.

The image-enabled fax order entry system that TriTek developed has significantly streamlined fax order processing for Boston Scientific, by eliminating paper documents from the order entry process and enabling a faster and easier retrieval or archived orders. More importantly, the system has been lauded by its users for an improved ease-of-use and interface.

The Challenge

Consolidated Edison, Inc is an energy supplier for New York City, Westchester county, northern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues and $27 billion in assets. The company had realized significant growth in the past decade and with NYC construction in 2007 forecasted to reach $21 billion, new business and construction assignments were projected to increase even faster. However, the company was ill-prepared to manage this growth because the disparate departments were running on standalone legacy systems that lacked any form of integration. Furthermore, ConEd lacked a universally accessible and easily searchable central repository and virtually all mission critical business processes were heavily reliant on paper documents.

As a result of these enterprise wide problems, employees in the Construction Services business segment were having difficulties organizing and managing all paperwork relating to construction assignments. This department is responsible for the maintenance and building of electrical, gas and steam infrastructure, so it is critical that the information available to employees in this segment be accurate to ensure timely construction and repairs. New York City officials would call requesting an opening ticket – the permissions to commence construction – and it would take days to produce the correct documentation. This would result in costly delays. In addition, construction employees would print off paper documents for work authorizations or infrastructure layouts at their office, bring the documents on site and any updates to the documents or additional paperwork required a return to the office.

In order to integrate all legacy systems through one centralized server, ConEd purchased BizTalk Server, Microsoft's business process management solution. Although the older applications were now linked together, the company still lacked a central repository that connected to the server and a user-friendly platform to access the integrated technologies. ConEd commissioned TriTek to establish a link between FileNet's Content Manager and Microsoft's BizTalk and a platform that employees could use effectively to communicate with the server.

The Solution

TriTek implemented a version of Trans@ction eXpress on top of Microsoft's BizTalk server to automate all business processes within the Construction Services business segment. Trans@ction eXpress is a customized a business process management application that automates tasks and content flows. This system helped to simplify the workflow process within the department and also established a connection between the workflows, documents and FileNet's Content Manger. Included in the legacy system integration were tracking systems through Oracle Forms and separate mainframe systems for work authorizations, layout instructions and construction drawings. Throughout the implementation of Trans@ction eXpress, TriTek needed to provide a solution that was compatible with all technologies.

Trans@ction eXpress enabled employees within the Construction Services segment to automate all new construction workflows. After information about construction sites and plans came in from BizTalk, an opening ticket was created and all information relevant to a construction site was stored within the Content Manager repository. Information was stored and linked together based on layout number, permit number, or any other specified unique identifier.

Trans@ction eXpress was implemented with BizTalk through a web service to allow for connectivity between the BPM application and Content Manager, and remote connectivity between employees and the system. FileNet's native web service didn't support the BizTalk framework, Microsoft .NET 2.0, which was already in place at ConEd. Therefore, TriTek provided a wrapper on the back-end of the system to enable integration. On the front-end, TriTek developed a customized, web based document search application that was created as an extension of Trans@ction eXpress.

When Microsoft's BizTalk Server was connected with FileNet's Content Manager, ConEd brought in TriTek to establish a mobile office for its construction employees. After all systems were able to communicate, ConEd wanted to leverage this connectivity to provide workers access to electronic documents on-site. All information would be accessed through laptops rather than bringing physical papers to the construction site.

After the mobile office was implemented, workers in the construction segment no longer needed to search for data in their offices because it was easily uploaded on a laptop screen from the FileNet repository. Workers had mobile access to all systems based on the previously developed web service. Once on site, construction specialists could search for the most recent site documents, make updates in real-time, and collaborate with various other employees in the Construction Services segment – all this without ever leaving the field.

The Benefit

Migrating from a paper-based system to an electronic, fully-integrated and automated system has numerous benefits for ConEd. When officials from New York City now call for documentation such as an opening ticket, the information is easily pulled from Content Manager. This reduces the time needed to retrieve documentation, ensuring proper record keeping to avoid possible violations or construction delays from lost paperwork. Additionally, workers can focus on the job at hand without searching for documents in their office to bring on-site. Updates to documents are made in real-time through laptops and the possibly of lost paperwork is nearly eliminated. Management also has more control over business processes because of the ability to monitor workflows and identify bottlenecks. In addition to process benefits, the productivity of ConEd's information systems will be increased dramatically because all programs are integrated and connected to a centralized repository.

The Challenge

Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation's largest investor-owned companies with more than $9 billion in annual revenues, $19 billion in assets, and over 14,000 employees, provides electric, gas, and steam transmission and distribution services to 4.5 million customers throughout New York City, Westchester, Orange, and Rockland counties, as well as parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Prior to engaging with TriTek, ConEd was unable to effectively process or respond to Corrective Action Requests or Notices of Violation issued by New York City officials. These citations were simply accepted as a business expense and paid without any investigation as to their validity. Further, due to the manual processing environment, the citations were often lost, paid late, or paid inappropriately. As a result, ConEd was subjected to penalties and fines that were inaccurately levied. The late payment penalties, overpayments, and undue payments led to over $1M in avoidable annual costs.

TriTek Solutions implemented an eProcess and Image Services-based system to create structure and control around the processing of these citations. By using ECM technologies, ConEd representatives are able to efficiently review the citations, dispute those that are not tenable, and immediately pay those that are.

The solution

The Compliance Imaging & Workflow (CIW) System is used for processing Corrective Action Requests (CAR) and Notices of Violation (NOV). The compliance process was automated to reduce costs stemming from city inspections of Con Edison infrastructure and ongoing construction jobs as well as to improve overall public relations with the City. The process initiates with planning the job and obtaining a city permit to perform the work. While CARs are, effectively, similar to parking tickets and can be summarily paid, NOVs – violations resulting when city inspectors determine that Con Edison crews are performing their work outside the guidelines of the permit – are summonses requiring a court appearance. The Compliance process is distributed across all five New York City boroughs and impacts dozens of departments across Con Edison.

The CIW solution was built using TriTek's Trans@ction eXpress foundation software customized to provide 15 unique user interfaces and accommodate dozens of business scenarios. Through the eProcess-driven workflow the system is able to automate the processing of and reduce the response time for CARs and NOVs. Many of these citations are issued in error. In these circumstances, by automating the response process, ConEd is able to effectively identify the circumstances of the citation and respond accordingly (often disputing the violation in court), whereas in the past the fine was simply paid without consideration. Further, for the instances where the citation is issued with cause and ConEd is at fault the system automates the expeditious processing of the violation, thereby eliminating costly penalties for late payments.

The CIW System provides end-to-end process automation and a complete document archive for permits, CARs, and NOVs. Management reporting of work-in-progress as well as historical metrics was a natural extension of this automation. An extensive collection of such custom reports have been developed using Process Analyzer and deployed enterprise-wide. Lead-time to plan, manage and react is enabled by reducing the overall cycle time. Manual steps such as logging in access, searching and copying permits, and interoffice mail are replaced by automation and electronic routing. Con Edison's existing document imaging component for permits and NOVs has been structured to store related CARs. The existing summons workflow component has been integrated to a new automated CARs process providing the required end-to-end visibility. Additionally, the out-of-the-box eProcess interfaces have been customized so clerks and managers alike can easily prioritize the tasks at hand. Because the proposed solution is a natural extension of both the infrastructure and processes that already exist, Compliance will be able to realize their objectives quickly and economically.

The Benefit

Con Edison receives approximately 8000 summonses per year, translating to an annual cost of over $4M. Con Edison's manual process for managing summonses was not reliable, nor did it provide the information needed to make informed decisions on whether to pay or dispute a summons in a timely manner. As a result, opportunities for early payment discounts and to fight summonses were missed and additional late fees were incurred. This caused Con Edison further monetary penalties and further strained their relationship with the City of New York.

Con Edison made a decision to reengineer their summons handling practices by leveraging their investment in FileNet. Not only are they deriving significant business benefit by automating their manual paper processes, their relationship with the City of New York is improving and the expected cost savings in annual fines is significant.

Through the implementation of the CIW system, Con Edison has realized a five-month return on investment and projects a year one savings of up to 30%. Ultimately, the savings resulting from early payment discounts, avoiding late payments, and challenging untenable violations will result in annual savings of over $1.1M.

The Challenge

Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) houses over 19,000 inmates across 18 institutions. The general management of these inmates (as well as inactive inmates) results in over 100,000 institutional documents and 100,000 medical documents generated every month. For decades the DOC, drowning in this volume of paper, adhered to a process of the manual movement, transfer, archival, and retrieval of these physical documents. Under these conditions, the staff of just twenty-five sentence computation employees was unable to effectively manage the work folders (containing documents including judgment orders, appeals, correspondence, detainers, individual or county credits, and parole board hearings) in the Central Office. In addition to the daunting tasks of merely managing all of this paper, the sentence computation services (SCS) personnel also had to process it. These processing tasks ranged from capturing the documents on microfilm to inputting the salient data into the various interfaces of the TDOC's sentence management mainframe, eTomis.

These processes proved to be manually intensive as folders had to be carried not only from one SCS station to the next during inmate initialization in the central office as well as accompanying the inmate during institutional transfers. Although Tennessee Department of Corrections implemented a web-based mainframe system (eTomis), TDOC still had a hodgepodge of inefficient processing, routing, and retrieval methods resulting from their lack of a structured workflow environment.

Data integrity was compromised as documents were often lost during transfers within the central office, or across institutions, courts and police stations. TDOC lacked security measures as documents could be photocopied or tampered with by various unauthorized employees and inmates. Legal request and correspondence processes were also unnecessarily inefficient as document requests from the institutions had to be retrieved from cumbersome filing cabinets or printed microfilm before being mailed or faxed. Effectively, TDOC lacked a central repository for the secure storage of and access to its comprehensive document library.

To resolve these issues, TDOC engaged TriTek Solutions to implement a central image repository with a customized workflow to expedite sentencing processes and increase the integrity of the operation.

The Solution

Tennessee Department of Corrections engaged TriTek Solutions to remedy its debilitating paper-driven sentence management processes. To do so, TriTek designed, developed, and implemented a customized Trans@ction eXpress solution built on top of TDOC's Image Services and eProcess framework. The distributed system included a centralized processing environment for the central office as well as general content management and document capture capabilities for the remote institutions.

Through TriTek's CapturePlus foundation software, the sentence documentation is scanned directly into the centralized Image Services repository from the remote location where the documents are generated. Based on the values entered through the indexing interface, Trans@ction eXpress then initiates the appropriate workflow (e.g. judgment orders, appeals, credits, etc.) and routes the comprehensive inmate package to the initial processing queue. Within each processing queue, Trans@ction eXpress dynamically builds the user interface specific to the corresponding eTomis mainframe screen and automatically populates the eTomis fields with the data from Trans@ction eXpress. This integration across the two systems ensures the integrity of the data and significantly reduces the processing keystrokes.

The Trans@ction eXpress system also automates the management of exceptions. For example, incomplete inmate files can be routed to a pend queue where they await additional documentation. As the supplemental documents arrive, the system evaluates their properties and automatically rendezvous them with the inmate-specific file residing in the pend queue. Following the rendezvous, the appropriate index fields are automatically updated in eTomis and the inmate package is routed to the appropriate processing queue.

The system also includes robust workflow and workforce tracking metrics. SCS managers are able to review workflow volumes and can track the performance of the system users and their processing histories. This tracking system allows the SCS managers to review user performance and manage labor resources accordingly.

In addition to the capabilities of the processing capabilities of the central office's workflow, the Trans@ction eXpress system has also been extended to TDOC's 18 remote institutions. These remote sites are able to conduct web-based searches and retrievals of documents specific to each institution's inmates. Through these searches, authorized personnel of the 18 remote locations are able to leverage the Trans@ction eXpress integration with eTomis to search both the document library as well as the eTomis records. For example, a prison guard at a remote institution could execute a search in eTomis for a visitation record. That search would then return the eTomis record as well as the corresponding documents such as visitor clearance authorization stored in the FileNet repository.

The search and retrieval capabilities are built on a sophisticated security platform that ensures that only documents specific to a given institution's inmates are accessible to that institution's personnel. The security capabilities also eliminate the risk of tampering or reproduction through a feature that produces a watermark on each page of an inmate package. Further, this watermark varies based on the status of a given inmate.

The system also includes a series of background programs that further automate the management of prison sentences. The Retention Manager, for example, evaluates document properties to determine when archived files should be purged from the repository. This application also activates and deactivates designated documents for inmates that have been released and then subsequently returned to state custody. Another background program, the Face Sheet Migration, pulls sheets from a sunsetted DB2 database, deletes the corresponding image, and automatically sends it to the Image Services repository and files it with the existing inmate file. As a result, a Trans@ction eXpress search will display all inmate information, including the face sheet previously stored in a disparate system.

The Benefit

Through the implementation of Trans@ction eXpress and CapturePlus Tennessee Department of Corrections has realized reduced processing cycles, increased data integrity and security, and detailed tracking measures. Further these benefits have been realized across the central office and the remote institutions through the distributed image capture and search features.

Because the system is thoroughly integrated with the specific eTomis mainframe system, it ensures that all data is consistent across systems and is immediately displayed to the user, saving the user from the time consuming tasks of manually indexing both systems and of searching for relevant material across both.

In addition to the eliminated risk of paper loss, the conversion of paper transfers and paper storage to images stored in a single repository frees up storage space, increases operational capacity, decreases paper and copying costs, and expedites court proceedings and other legal matters through immediate delivery of related documents.

The Challenge

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Division of Health Professions Licensure is responsible for the collection, review, and adjudication of complaints lodged against licensed health care professionals and facilities. DPH was burdened by a manual, paper-intensive process, as the investigation and resolution of a complaint resulted in the generation of massive amounts of documentation, much of which was printed, filed, and stored in physical case folders. Further, the unstructured process often led to lost or missing information, suspended investigations and delayed decisions. To alleviate this burden and accommodate the increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, DPH required a robust content and process management framework that would provide the requisite structure, security, and accountability.

The Solution

To streamline and automate its paper-driven processes, DPH engaged TriTek Solutions to design, develop and implement a customized Trans@ction eXpress solution leveraging FileNet's P8 content and process management engines. Key features of the resulting solution include:

Triage Process: After a complaint form is scanned, the system creates a work item and routes it to a supervisor for review. The supervisor reviews the allegations stated in the complaint and decides what action to take upon it. The supervisor can then route the case to a “triage” queue, where up to 3 selected users independently vote on the validity of the complaint. Based on the results of the independent voting, the system either automatically initiates the subsequent investigation process or escalates the complaint to a decision maker who determines whether or not the case should be pursued.

Investigation Data Capture: As part of the investigation of a complaint, DPH investigators conduct numerous interviews with various entities, including the licensee, complainant, and any witnesses. To facilitate this process, the system includes a customized processing interface for capturing information obtained during these interviews. To streamline the subsequent adjudication of the complaint, this data is automatically populated into an Executive Summary document following the completing of the investigation.

Board Agenda: The system includes a feature that allows a user to select groups of cases to be presented in front of the Licensing Board on a monthly basis. The system automatically generates a document summarizing the case list for the board and assembles the Executive Summaries for each selected case. This enables authorized users to access a central queue and download the complete set of documents necessary for the board meeting.

Document Generation: The complaint resolution process often yields substantial quantities of documents for each case. This documentation can include letters to the licensee and other relevant entities, requests to courts for applicable records, and consent agreements and other legal paperwork. To replace the manual generation, processing and distribution of these documents, the system automates the entire process by dynamically generating each document with data stored in Trans@ction eXpress. The result is custom generated documents with guaranteed data integrity and regulatory compliance. These documents are committed to the content repository and become part of the official complaint record.

Background Programs: As part of the comprehensive solution, TriTek developed a suite of background programs that further automate the processing of complaints. For example, a Pre-Investigation program automatically assigns a docket number to a work item after it becomes a formal complaint. The Licensing lookup background program integrates with the in-house Licensing database to retrieve data related to the licensee, which eliminates re-keying of data and improves data integrity. This program also assigns a new work item to an investigator on a rotational basis, while taking into account both any related cases that are already open as well as each investigator's current workload. This mechanism ensures that the caseload is distributed evenly among available investigators, reducing the amount of work for the investigation supervisor.

The Benefit

As a result of the system, DPH expects to significantly increase their workload capacity and improve the integrity of the complaints process. Management foresees a drastic reduction in the overall cycle time of each complaint and anticipates faster, more efficient, and more structured adjudication processes. This will not only yield quantifiable results for the Department of Public Health, but it will also benefit Massachusetts taxpayers and the growing number of licensed health professionals statewide.