Best Single BPM
Application:
Arizona Public
Service
Case
Study Overview:
This case study was
submitted after a
catastrophic fire
destroyed five
transformers at an
Arizona Public Service (APS)
substation. That fire
impacted 400,000
customers, caused
millions of dollars
worth of damage, and
required a rebuild of
the substation.
As part of the
corrective action plan
that was approved by the
Arizona Corporation
Commission (ACC), which
is an Arizona regulatory
body, APS agreed to
incorporate leading
practices into its
substation maintenance
processes and to
implement a scheduling
tool. The goal was to
increase reliability by
ensuring the substations
were maintained in an
effective and efficient
manner. 'Westwing
Substation' fire
provided a "burning
platform", both in
a literal and figurative
sense, that required APS
to look at Substation
Maintenance and
determine the gaps
between "leading
practices" and
current practices.
APS also met a
challenge because of
company values. How does
one incorporate change
into a company with
employees that have an
average of 17 years of
service? Or incorporating
change into a company
that is undergoing
incredible growth as
Arizona is the second
fastest growing area in
the United States? So,
in the midst of this
substation crisis, the
company was also having
to handle more customers
then ever before. To put
that growth in
perspective, the number
of APS customers has
doubled every 20 years.
In 1980, APS had 400,000
customers and, in 2005,
customers topped the
million mark. In 2020,
it is projected that APS
will serve 1.6 million
customers. The growth in
the past ten years alone
translates into 7,600
additional miles of new
wire and 65 new
substations. During this
time, the number of APS
employees has remained
essentially unchanged,
however forecasts
suggest that a large
percentage of APS
employees eligible for
retirement may take that
option within a few
years. Therefore, like
most US companies, APS
is faced with an exiting
work force and an
emerging work force that
may not be able to fill
its needs.
Finally, how does one
enroll Substation
Maintenance employees
into a Business Process
Management (BPM)
initiative, and once the
first part of the
initiative is completed,
how does one integrate
continuous improvement
into ongoing efforts?
Case
Study Solution:
To meet the
challenges of increasing
reliability and becoming
aligned with
"leading
practices", APS
brought in a
"leading
practices" expert
and focused on
documenting the
"as-is"
processes and capturing
issues, opportunities,
gaps, problems and
unanswered questions.
Once the as-is processes
were documented, the
group focused on
addressing the issues
and creating a
"future state"
process that reflected
the leading practices.
The processes had
Process Owners and they
attended all of the
process meetings along
with process teams who
reflected a SIPOC
(Suppliers-Input-Process-Output-Customers)
perspective. The two
layers of management
above the section
leaders also attended
the sessions
periodically to show
support and provide the
incentive from
leadership. The
"voice of the
customer" was to
reduce the number and
age of the work orders
and to implement a
scheduling system that
would support planning
for five weeks out.
In addition, there is
a monthly continuous
improvement meeting.
Currently, the focus of
the meeting is to review
the form that crew
leaders complete to
identify where the
process may be improved
or what worked correctly
for them. The form is
reviewed and the Process
Owner is responsible for
addressing concerns or
requests for
improvement.
The methodology is
the APS BPM methodology,
which is largely based
upon the Rummler-Brache
approach. The tools are
a combination of BPM
best practices, Lean,
and Project Management.
The modeling tool is
Casewise Corporate
Modeler.
Implementing best
practices required
changes in how work was
distributed and changed
job duties. The leaders
were exemplary in being
there to support that
what was being done was
the "right"
thing. They let people
work through their
problems with the
changes but reassignment
for people who were not
in alignment was an
option. Management
provided a consistent
message and culture
change happened.
Throughout all of this,
the focus on process
enabled people to
envision what was needed
to meet the ACC
requirements and to
become more proactive in
their work. This picture
in Figure 3. shows the
Substation Maintenance
Process System.
In 2007 Substation
Maintenance met or
exceeded all of their
reliability metrics.
Before the process
effort, they had not met
more than 80% of the
metrics. Before the
process effort, 80% of
their work was reactive,
now 20% is. They have
created acceptable
ranges for the number
and age of work orders.
Substation
Maintenance Process
Owners are process
aware. Periodically, the
processes are reviewed
to find new areas of
improvement. For
example, one review
showed that the plan to
schedule out to five
weeks was not being met.
The process was reviewed
and changed based on
input for the process
team. The end result was
that they are now
scheduling out to 15
weeks. The biggest
impacts are to:
1. The department
that is responsible
for scheduling
substation outages for
Substation
Maintenance,
Transmission
Construction and the
Lines Department
because it allows for
more planning and
2. The ability to have
the parts ordered
earlier and,
therefore, available
for the scheduled
work.
Through the end of
September 2008, APS is
on track to establish an
all-time best years in
reliability measurements
that track average
number of service
interruptions per
customer and average
outage duration per
customer. In fact,
comparing APS' 2000
figures with 2008's
projected numbers,
customers are
experiencing a 34%
reduction in outages per
customer and a 14%
decrease in average
outage duration per
customer.
The greatest proof
that the Substation
Maintenance Process
effort was successful is
that once Substation
Maintenance met the goal
of operational
excellence they were
able to support an
innovative project. That
project is the
Transformer Oil Analysis
and Notification System
(TOAN). TOAN allows APS
to automatically monitor
transformer oil data,
receive notification of
abnormalities nearly in
real time, and take
necessary preventive
actions. The net result
is that catastrophic
transformer fires may
one day be a thing of
the past, resulting in
fewer customer outages
and greater reliability.
BPM methods were used to
capture this highly
cross functional
process, to develop new
processes to implement
and monitor the vast
amount of data that is
gathered, and to resolve
the issues with
implementation. This
cross functional process
goes across a number of
departments: I/S
(Information Services)
Communications, I/S
Construction &
Maintenance Systems,
Substation Maintenance,
Transmission
Construction Projects,
and the Reliability and
Management Department.
BPM allowed these team
members to have a
facilitated conversation
about what was needed to
implement TOAN and a
systematic way of
resolving issues. The
TOAN Process System
overview is pictured in
Figure 4.
The Substation
Maintenance and the TOAN
staff review their
processes every nine to
twelve months to detect
areas for improvement or
to update the process
documentation so that it
can be used for
Knowledge Management and
APS BPM methodology.
The successes of the
Substation Maintenance
Improvement Project and
TOAN resulted in the
Vice President for
Energy Delivery starting
an initiative in 2008
for Standardized,
Optimization,
Automation, Reporting
(SOAR). The purpose of
the multi-year
initiative, which is
process-based, is to
assess processes,
procedures,
technologies,
capabilities and
organizational and
operational
effectiveness and
performance to identify
areas for improvement.
The cross-functional
areas included in the
initiative include Asset
Management, System
Planning, System
Operation, Design and
Engineering
Construction, Project
Management and
Standards, Design and
Configuration
Management.
>>
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Competition Winners
page.
Best
Enterprise-Wide BPM
Effort:
University of
California, San Diego -
Auxiliary & Plant
Services
Case
Study Overview:
The Auxiliary &
Plant Services
(A&PS) group at
UCSD encompasses a
wide-range of business
activities, including
Facilities Management,
Transportation &
Parking Services,
Imprints (Full Service
reprographics and
other printing,
copying, and scanning
services), the Campus
Research Machine Shop
(a metal fabrication,
manufacturing shop),
the Early Childhood
Education Center (an
infant through K child
development center),
and the Campus
Bookstore. Facilities
Management (FM)
includes all
maintenance activity
on the UC San Diego
campus, as well as all
Landscaping and
Grounds, Custodial,
all Trade Shops,
Campus Fleet
Operations, the
Central Utility Plant,
and Special Events
Services.
In an effort to
become more process
driven, to understand
its processes, and to
prioritize future
improvement efforts
UCSD A&PS
undertook the creation
of an Enterprise Asset
Management (EAM)
system. Since more is
spent on Facilities
Management's (FM) is
the largest
Maintenance, Repair,
and Operations (MRO),
A&PS decided to
initially focus on
their operations and
identify opportunities
for improvement. The
driver for the
assessment was
spending on materials
with a mandate to look
at procurement,
maintenance processes,
and supporting
technologies. Their
findings highlighted
the need for increased
collaboration, the
benefits of combining
redundant processes
across A&PS, a
lack of resources that
drive FM into a
reactive maintenance
mode, and potential
savings to be made by
moving from a reactive
to a
preventative/predictive
maintenance culture
complemented by an
improved training
program.
Case
Study Solution:
The team initially
developed a process
architecture of
Facilities Management
and then proceeded to
identify process
problems and to
develop a roadmap for
the elimination of
defects. This roadmap
was based on the
Reliability
Improvement Starter
Kit (RISK) reference
model adopted from
Datamasters.
Facilities Management
plans to continue to
use the architecture
to implement process
changes in the effort
to become a more
mature maintenance
organization. The
process methodology
will be utilized to
perform the same
analysis on the
processes for the
other A&PS
business units. In
addition, A&PS has
already begun
low-level procedural
modeling of activities
and tasks utilizing
the BPMN
specification,
aligning those within
the process
architecture. Long
term the vision is to
implement such
activities and tasks
within a BPM execution
package for end-to-end
processes and
procedures.
While all of the
process work to date
has been very valuable
and a mainstay for
A&PS for some
time, the approach
will be supplemented
with an effort to
educate staff using
system thinking and
system dynamics
modeling to reinforce
conclusions and
provide tools to
reinforce the new
processes and
activities. Such tools
are now available in
an interactive,
game-like setting
where fast-paced
simulated real
interactions are
experienced in
non-threatening
learning environment.
UCSD A&PS
employed a consulting
group, the Process
Renewal Group (PRG),
and adopted the PRG
Enterprise
Architecture
Methodology along with
the RISK reference
model from Datamasters,
as the structural
components of their
process efforts. It
also used a modeling
tool, Envision, from
Future Tech Systems,
that is designed to
work with the PRG
approach to enterprise
process architecture
development and the
RISK reference model.
>>
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Competition Winners
page.
Runner-up:
Intel Corporation
Case
Study Summary:
Intel was using a
variety of different
process change
methodologies (BPM,
Lean, Six Sigma,
Business Process
Reengineering) and
several different
notation. The company
wanted to coordinate and
standardize its
methodologies, notation,
and overall process
change efforts and to
better coordinate the
interaction between
business and IT.
Case
Study Solution:
Intel adopted the
Rummler-Brache
methodology and created
a business process
architecture to provide
an overview of the
processes and measures
it would seek to manage.
At the same time
Intel developed a
curriculum, including a
1.5-day training course
and a BPM toolkit
consisting of tactical
tools to be executed in
a prescribed order. The
tools are used to
identify, measure, and
prioritize processes,
and to identify,
execute, and sustain
projects to maximize
bottom-line impact. It
also ensures that
business groups are
working in conjunction
with IT throughout BPM
efforts. Intel provides
mentorship and recognize
BPM efforts with a
Business Process Manager
Certification upon
effective execution of
BPM tools. The
architecture efforts
have gone from ad-hoc,
disconnected work to a
centralized effort
including governance and
support. We have a
standard tool for
architecture efforts,
and a support team to
ensure compliance. This
tool includes a central
repository containing
and connecting
architecture developed
across the enterprise.
This architecture
started at the highest
level**, allowing
business groups to link
architecture in and
understand how they fit
within the enterprise.
Although the ideal
scenario is to have BPM
as a tops-down-driven
effort for ease of
adoption across the
enterprise, we needed to
demonstrate results
initially to gain
support at higher
levels. We have
therefore started with a
bottoms-up, grassroots
approach to show
immediate value and are
implementing BPM at
different levels in the
business groups.
The efforts to deploy
BPM throughout the
enterprise have resulted
in significant tangible,
quantifiable Finance
approved ROI, and intangible,
valuable to the
operations of the
business, benefits. At the
business group level,
teams deploying BPM now
have a comprehensive
understanding of the
processes executed on a
daily basis and how
those processes directly
impact the performance
of their organizations.
Business groups have a
concise list of
improvement projects
which are correlated
with critical
performance areas.
Improvement projects are
executed using proven
methodologies such as
Lean Six Sigma and
formal Project
Management methods.
Individuals in the
organizations are
trained and certified in
these methods ensuring
that projects are
executed efficiently and
expertly. The formal
methods also contribute
to greater ROI as teams
utilize specific tools
to isolate the root
cause and develop a
customer based solution.
Finally, teams that have
adopted BPM are
intensely aware of how
important it is to
control and manage a
process once it is
improved. The act of
controlling and managing
a process in a
disciplined manner has
proven the most
difficult and rewarding
aspect of BPM. At the
greater, enterprise
level, BPM efforts are
less mature and
comprehensive but the
results are present and
promising. Through the
efforts to influence the
business groups to
embrace and execute the
BPM Methodology, there
was a realization about
connecting processes
across the business
groups into value chains
or value streams. A
central effort to
coordinate this was
started and we have a
number of people working
on an Enterprise
Capability Framework (ECF)
that comprehends all of
the high level processes
of the company. This
'process inventory' is
used to identify and
prioritize enterprise IT
system programs and
processes. It is also
used to ensure that more
localized efforts are
not going to compromise
the greater value chain
and therefore
sub-optimization does
not occur. Essentially,
there is greater
communication and
understanding across the
company which has
produced efforts to
align projects, roles
and responsibilities,
metrics, goals, results,
etc. These intangible
benefits are real and
noticed. Ultimately,
senior management wants
to see bottom line
results and BPM has
identified process
improvement projects
that have delivered more
than $100 million ROI to
the company in 2008
alone. This amount is
Finance approved and is
for Lean Six Sigma
projects only. It is not
inclusive of other
improvement efforts such
as enterprise systems
projects. The aspect of
these tangible results
that is most pleasing to
senior management is
that each project has a
very clear 'control
plan' that ensures there
is active process
management for all
improved processes.
Having a sustaining
structure in place with
a process manager,
process metrics, and
process information
available is what makes
the results 'stick'.
>>
Back to the
Competition Winners
page.
Best BPM Application
That Demonstrates the
Use of Standards:
BOC
Information Systems -
European Union's GENESIS
Project
Case
Study Overview:
GENESIS was an EU-co-funded
project where
cross-organizational /
cross-country B2B and
B2G processes were
implemented using UBL,
BPMN, BPEL, and CCTS.
Besides BOC (Austria),
the implementation
partners were from SAP
(Germany), Insiel
(Italy), Singular
(Greece), and Logo
(Turkey). User partners
- mainly from
governmental
institutions - were
based in Eastern
European countries such
as Romania, Bulgaria,
and Lithuania.
The main goal of the
project with full title
"GENESIS:
Enterprise Application
Interoperability via
Internet-Integration for
SMEs, Governmental Organizations
and
Intermediaries in the
New European Union"
was the research,
development and pilot
application of the
necessary methodologies,
infrastructure and
software components that
allows the typical,
usually small and
medium, European
enterprise to conduct
its business
transactions over the
Internet. It can do so
by interconnecting its
main transactional
software applications
and systems with those
of collaborating
enterprises,
governmental bodies,
banking and insurance
institutions with
respect to the current
EC legal and regulatory
status and the existing
one in the new EU,
candidate and associate
countries.
Case
Study Solution:
GENESIS focuses on the
following transaction
types, to be carried out
through application to
application (A2A)
interconnection of
existing enterprise
applications like SAP
R/3:
- Business to Business
(B2B) transactions such
as orders, purchases,
invoicing, payments,
etc.
- Business to
Government (B2G)
transactions and
information exchange
such as VAT declaration
and payment, tax
declarations, INTRASTAT
reporting, etc.
- Business to
Intermediaries (B2I),
including electronic
transactions from the
enterprise applications
towards Banks (account
interrogation, fund
transfers, etc.) and
public insurance
organizations (salary
payments, VAT payment,
etc.).
- Other supportive
transactions, such as
financial data exchange
between SMEs and
certified professional
accountants.
The four categories
of transactions above
(B2B, B2G, B2I,
Supportive) shall be
taken from the current
manual fulfillment
status to the new
Internet-enabled
interoperable operation
using an approach,
comprising of three
levels:
- The processes level
(where the processes
followed in each country
/business sector will
have to be analyzed and
mapped).
- The information level
(where the various
business documents and
exchanged information is
analyzed, resulting in
ontologies, models and
finally XML descriptions
according to the
existing standards).
- The systems level
(where technical
specifications and pilot
implementations are
produced, for the A2A
interconnection).
GENESIS is trying to
solve problems in
several fields, all
connected with each
other:
- In the field of BPM,
the creation of a unique
set of prototype
business processes (not
covered by the existing
standards and with
respect to the national
legislation
particularities) that
will portray the
followed practices of
eastern EU SMEs and VSEs
and shall constitute a
reference point in the
area of B2B, B2I and B2G
processes. GENESIS shall
propose enhancements in
existing EM and BPM
tools to support the MDA/EAI
life cycle.
- In the field of
information and data
modeling, the creation
of a prototype set of
data models using
semantic constructs
(such as ontologies)
shall depict the minimum
data needs of the most
common business
processes for B2B, B2G
and B2I in the EU. The
production of XML
schemas, enhancing
existing standards (or
its existing repository
of data models with new
ones from the
representative
countries) such as
ebisXML, xCBL, UN/CEFACT,
or RosettaNet shall
cover business processes
and countries that are
not covered by the
standards today.
- In the field of
Service Oriented
Architectures it was the
goal to design and
develop a functional
server-based system,
along the ebXML
architectural approach (CPPs,
CPA) and following the
current SOA
specifications (UDDI,
SOAP, etc.), for new EU
member states and
associated countries.
An indicative list of
business transactions
were created (based on
the UBL 2.0 standard) in
order to provide an
initial reference for
the users to identify
the most important
business processes. Then
a model driven
architecture (MDA)
approach was utilized to
end up with executable
business process
specifications ready to
be deployed in the
GENESIS server
implemented in Java.
All of these modeling
activities were carried
out with the help of
BOC's BPM tool ADONIS.
In the first modeling
phase workshops were
conducted together with
end-users (SMEs) to
capture their Private
Business Processes in
ADONIS' own 'BPMS'
modeling notation. In
this first phase we
solely focused
completely on a business
view.
In second phase, so
called Public Business
Processes were created
with the BPMN modeling
notation. It was
necessary in order to
filter out those parts
of the processes that
have some kind of
connection to entities
outside of the company;
like other companies,
governmental bodies or
banks. In parallel,
business documents were
modeled in ADONIS using
the principles of UN/CEFACT
Core Component Technical
Specification (CCTS),
allowing for an
integrated modeling of
processes and data. The
UBL 2.0 business
documents and common
library were used as a
reference. While the BOC
team led the process
modeling activities, the
SAP team directed the
data modeling
activities, both of
which were realized in
cooperation with
potential end-users of
the GENESIS system in
several countries. In
addition an online
survey was conducted.
The process and data
modeling were then
united as business
documents within the
business processes in
ADONIS.
In a third phase we
abstracted and
re-modeled the Public
Business Processes to
form so called 'Abstract
Collaboration Processes'
in BPMN notation.
Similar to the UBL
transaction types, these
GENESIS Collaboration
Processes are a
blueprint for
generalized business
transactions on a
trans-European level.
They were then used to
export BPEL scripts from
ADONIS which is the
basis of the
orchestration of the
GENESIS production
server. Then the
implementation of the
GENESIS production
server was jointly
completed by the server
implementation partners
SAP, Singular, Logo and
Insiel.
Small, Medium and
Very Small Enterprises (SMEs
and VSEs), which
represent more than 93%
of the total enterprises
in the EU, will benefit
through the:
- Significant reduction
of required effort and
time for checking,
entering, verifying and
completing transactions
in ERP or financial
applications. It is
estimated that in a
typical medium
enterprise
(approximately 50 B2B
transactions daily) the
effort to be gained
exceeds 20 person-months
on a yearly basis.
- Significant increase
in correctness of data
for inserting documents
into the existing ERP
system (invoices,
purchase orders, etc.)
according to the
traditional way. It is
estimated that the
number of errors due to
human error of data
entry in the ERP will be
eliminated (zero levels)
as the documents will be
automatically entered
into the system.
- There will be no need
for re-entering data,
printing or sending
through a non-secure
manner (e.g. fax, mail).
- Significant decrease
of the cost of ownership
of similar B2B
e-Business systems, as
usual project-based
solutions will be
substituted by COTS
components.
- Foster the e-Business
operation, to the users.
Through experience with
GENESIS in pilots and
events with
demonstrations, trial
sessions, etc. it is
expected to increase the
level of awareness for
the need of
interoperable solutions
from the user's side.
The GENESIS system
adds value because…
- Organizations save
time and money,
depending on…
- Initial
"set-up"
(negotiation) when
dealing with a business
partner for the first
time
- The number of foreign
business partners vs.
domestic partners
- The number of
business documents in a
process (e.g. order,
invoice …)
- Then number of fields
(information entities)
in a business document
- The frequency of a
transaction might be low
(monthly) for one
partner, but high for
the other (e.g. for a
government you have to
multiply with the number
of companies in the
country).
- Risk mitigation for
time-consuming
interactions to get
correct and complete
business documents.
- The GENESIS system
will make it easy for
companies do conduct
business with
international partners,
even if they have little
experience.
The GENESIS project
clearly showed the
importance of BPM within
a project that uses a
model driven
architecture approach.
Using a tool such as
ADONIS as a common
modeling repository, it
was possible to survey
real-life business
processes in SMEs and
governmental
institutions in several
European countries.
Additional
information can be
found for
downloading here.
>>
Back to the
Competition Winners
page.
The BPM Project That
Demonstrates the Best
ROI:
US Military Entrance
Command (USMEPCOM)
Case
Study Overview:
The United States
Military Entrance
Processing Command (USMEPCOM)
processes and qualifies
individuals applying for
military service in any
one of five Armed
Services (Army, Navy,
Marine Corps, Air Force
and Coast Guard) and
their subcomponents
(i.e. Reserve, National
Guard). We are required
to process over 1
million records a year
with potentially spikes
of 18,000 per day (5.6
million a year), and to
maintain over 60 million
current records across
all the armed services.
Each Service has its
own, unique Recruiting
System and the only
interface to USMEPCOM
was either a flat file
or manual re-keying of
data. The system is
actively used by over
15,000 recruiters and
3,000 MEPS employees
across the US.
Additionally, USMEPCOM
exchanges data with a
variety of Federal,
state and private
agencies such as the
Social Security Agency,
FBI, the Office of
Personnel Management,
Departments of Motor
Vehicles and medical
laboratories. Building
and maintaining these
capabilities in a secure
and trustworthy
architecture across such
a broad set of internal
and external
stakeholders would be a
challenge for a project
team that on average
totaled only 17.
Case
Study Solution:
The genesis of the
USMEPCOM BPM and SOA
project was a business
requirement to make the
exchange of data more
efficient and real time.
The original project,
named by the functional
proponent was Data
Exchange/Top Of System
Interface Process (DE/TOSIP)
was intended to address
the interface with the
Armed Services. The
Office of the CIO saw an
opportunity to expand
beyond the Armed
Services and to address
all of the data
interface requirements
of the command. BPM and
SOA was seen as a way to
provide an agile and
flexible architecture to
meet this growing
requirement, increase
data quality, and reduce
the cost and risk of
adding new capabilities.
BPM and SOA was seen to
permit USMEPCOM to move
to the future of Virtual
Processing, with the
goal of reducing
processing time from
about 2.6 days to 1 day
or less. Using SOA
USMEPCOM planned on
pre-qualifying 90% of the
applicants for military
Service without a visit
to an actual USMEPCOM
facility. Additionally,
SOA was believed to
provide standardization
without having to
reengineer all the
legacy systems; more
accurate estimates of
project time / costs
(key for budget
planning, mission
planning, accurate
projections and
auditing); better
Governance and control;
added agility due to
Business Process
Management (rapid
development of
processes, change
control and management,
error reduction or
"six sigma"
capabilities);
reusability of SOA
components once added to
the SOA Architecture;
and cost savings in
development and support
once a library of
components are built.
Collaborating across DoD,
other government
agencies, and even with
some commercial entities
(e.g. employment and
credit verifications)
would also be
streamlined with an
accepted standards based
SOA interface. The SOA
Governance structure
would also be enhanced
to a more robust model
that would include the
USMEP leadership, staff,
customers (Recruiting
Services), etc. Finally,
the USMEPCOM CIO (J6)
staff wanted to be
compliant with the
Defense Information
System Agency (DISA)
newly defined system
requirements for the
future DoD net-centric
architecture.
The Project team
selected Computer
Sciences Corporation to
integrate the Oracle
Corporation software (BPM,
SOA, Application Server,
and Database) into the
USMEPCOM architecture.
In the development of
the architecture for the
SOA special
consideration was given
to the potential for
either the reuse of the
services being developed
or the ability to create
composite service
quickly, as needed. This
required that the SOA be
designed with an eye to
future projects being
considered by USMEPCOM.
USMEPCOM also used a
company called RCG to
conduct SOA testing
using Soltice testing
software.
One of the greatest
technical challenges was
integrating with and
collaborating with a
diverse and complex set
of legacy systems.
Internal systems include
MIRS built on Oracle
Application Server
(houses applicant
qualifications), medical
records system, and
student testing data.
Partner integration
included all the Armed
Services legacy systems;
Defense Manpower data
center; Office Personnel
Management; Social
Security Administration;
State DMVs; and even the
Selective Service System
on mainframes. All of
this complexity was
increased by the
security and privacy
requirements necessary
for the obvious
sensitivity of the data
used.
Next in technical
challenge was the speed
by which capabilities
were being requested and
the limited resources
available. With only 17
CoE staff to produce
production capabilities
in 3 month spirals, we
had to rely heavily on
both the reusability of
existing components and
the Commercial of the
Shelf (COTS) development
tools and aids that came
with the SOA software.
Key to our success was
the BPM, Service Bus,
and Application
development tools that
matched with our
iterative development
methodology.
The Project Team
consisted of Subject
Matter Experts (SME)
from the functional
(business) proponent,
the Information
Technology (IT)
Directorate, Resource
Management Directorate
(budget/contracts), and
contractor engineers and
architects. This team is
the core of our Center
of Excellence (CoE)
which averages around 17
personnel. As projects
start and progress the
team may grow with the
addition of SMEs from
both internal business
lines and / or external
participants (e.g. Armed
Force components, other
agencies, etc.) that
could be assigned either
full or part time. The
Team first meets to
review and agree on the
System requirements
Specification (SRS). The
Team was chaired by a
senior IT manager.
Meetings were held at
least once a week to
review designs, project
progress, etc. All
decisions were
Team-based with no
differentiation between
Functional and technical
issues. It was the
responsibility of the
Team to coordinate with
external customers -
i.e. Army, Navy, Air
Force, Marine Corps and
Coast Guard.
MEPCOM has also
established a program
chain of command that is
key in project
governance, control, and
ultimate success. The
ultimate Sponsor is the
Secretary of Defense,
but actual sponsorship
is delegated to Mr. Bill
Carr, the Deputy Under
Secretary of Defense,
Military Personnel
Policy, then to The
Commander, USMEPCOM
Marine Colonel Lon Yeary,
further to The CIO for
USMEPCOM is Mr. Kevin D.
Moore and The Director
of Operations, Navy
Captain Sandra Haidvogel.
Additionally, MEPCOM set
up a Governance
structure to manage
change control,
budgeting, planning,
etc. This was key to
keeping the functional
and line of business
components from
circumventing process.
Finally, MEPCOM has seen
a not only a reduction
in costs, but also a
reduction in risk. As
more SOA components are
added to our inventory
we can estimate project
scope (time and costs)
and even project scope
variance a lot better.
This is increasingly
important as our
projects get more and
more complex and we are
asked to do more with
less. Allocating the
correct amount of
resources (neither too
high nor too low), is a
key measure of the
success of our SOA
governance initiative.
>>
Back to the
Competition Winners
page.
Runner-up:
Dickinson Financial
Corporation (DFC)
Case
Study Overview:
There is intense
competition among banks
to improve the quality
of services to attract
customers in the
competitive banking
industry. For Dickinson
Financial Corporation (DFC),
one obstacle toward
effective customer
service was the
company's reliance on
paper to initiate and
process customer service
re Josh Laire, project
lead and application
development integration
manager at DFC, realized
that these processes
were preventing ROI and
was concerned that the
problem would only get
worse: with DFC adding
another $3 billion in
assets and growing from
100 branches to more
than 200, time-intensive
manual processing
threatened to slow down
future growth.
DFC needed to improve
scalability, ROI and
faster customer service,
but it also wanted to
implement better risk
management through
automated compliance
with documented
processes.
Case
Study Solution:
To help
address these issues and
meet its business goals,
DFC turned to Adobe
LiveCycle Forms ES and
Adobe LiveCycle Process
Management ES, speeding
the completion, and
processing of forms as
platform- and
application-independent
Adobe Portable Document
Format (PDF) files.
Laire coordinated with
the business units to
define their business
requirements and scope
of information needed.
By documenting each
workflow and external
system that was touched
during the process, DFC
was able to create
processes that let the
computers do the
majority of the work. DFC
accomplished this task
by integrating web
services in an SOA
platform that could be
called at the precise
time needed to update
the correct system with
the correct information
and only involving the
user to verify that the
information was correct.
Users were able to
increase the amount of
work that they were
capable of accomplishing
by not having to
research to find the
information that was
needed for each process,
but rather look at the
material that was
presented to them and
verify that the customer
hadn't changed their
information or hadn't
requested something that
was out of the ordinary.
This allowed for
front-line users to have
more time for
interaction with the
customers and back-line
users to have the
ability to handle
additional workload.
DFC has seen
significant results
since the implementation
of Adobe solutions,
realizing 1,408% ROI
over the course of three
years. Qualitative and
quantitative results
include:
- Savings of
more than $2.4 million
across Dickinson
subsidiaries
- Dramatically accelerated
processing time for
banking forms-Customer
Due Diligence Forms
handled 76% faster;
Address Change Forms 50%
faster; Account Closing
Forms 43% faster
- Slashed time to process
debit card requests by
95%
- 90% of benefits
realized began in first
year
- Executed CIO
charter of using
technology to grow
banking services
- Enabled bank to serve
new customers without
increasing staff needed
to process forms
- Freed
employees to engage with
customers for increased
up-selling and
cross-selling
- Accelerated
time-to-revenue with
faster service delivery
Now, dynamic digital
documents are used to
initiate the automatic
processing of a number
of customer account
activities and requests.
DFC staff can now enter
a few details about
existing customers or
requested services, and
backend systems
instantly validate and
pre-populate the
appropriate forms with
data - quickly and
conveniently. Also, this
automatic process
virtually eliminated the
illegible and incomplete
forms that were a major
source of delays, saving
several days or even a
few weeks of processing
time.
In the future, DFC
plans to make a number
of additional
implementations
including the migration
of 161 forms from their
current environment
(Paper or Electronic)
into a workflow system,
the inclusion of
signature pads and
integration with Web
service / API management
system. DFC is also
starting to focus on
giving incentives to
consumers such as a
savings account
"change back"
program. With Adobe
LiveCycle, the company
can now automate
document completion,
delivery, and
processing, moving forms
instantly cross-country
instantly, turning a
10-15 business day
process to 10-15 minute
process all while
significantly increasing
saving costs,
operational efficiency
and customer loyalty.
Laire says, "The
automation supported by
Adobe LiveCycle
solutions is helping us
to meet our customers'
needs more quickly and
accurately-and that, in
turn, is helping us meet
our targets for growth
and profitability."
>>
Back to the
Competition Winners
page.
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