BRISTOL AND WEST, PLC BRISTOL, ENGLAND

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1 BRISTOL AND WEST, PLC BRISTOL, ENGLAND EUROPEAN EXCELLENCE AWARDS: WORKFLOW, MERIT PROJECT OVERVIEW Bristol and West undertook a comprehensive review of its business strategy in This resulted in the decision to focus on Mortgages, Savings and Investments. It was determined that to compete as a specialist, the company would have to have the best products, customer service and process. The MAP project is possibly the most important component of the I.T strategy to achieve the aims of the business strategy. In addition, it is tightly integrated with customer management and projects for all future systems. The three main objectives of the project were: To define and implement a Lending Process that will provide World Class Customer Satisfaction to their mortgage customers and staff. To maximise contribution to the key capabilities and critical processes identified in the Group Strategy. To maximise financial returns. THE SYSTEM APPLICATION. The new Mortgage Application Processing system (MAP) covers the period in the Mortgage Application process cycle from customer inquiry through to application, underwriting, offer and legal completion. The MAPSee Mortgage Application Processing System project has been split into two main phases. MAP Phase 1 has been implemented into the Intermediary Mortgage Center (IMC) business channel and its associated support areas. IMCSee Intermediary Mortgage Center is a dedicated business channel dealing with small/medium size brokers. The new MAP system provides a Windows based application with full Workflow Management and Image integration. Users are presented with a list of tasks based upon their skills and authorization levels. Selection of a task automatically invokes the appropriate application piece e.g. to register a New Mortgage case or to key in all details from the Application form to the system. 144

2 BRISTOL & WEST Whenever Document Images are required these are automatically displayed based upon the task the user is completing in the application. In addition, automatic zoning is performed whereby tabbing to particular fields on the application screen moves the image display to that field on the image of the form and zooms to the appropriate size. The zoning function includes a Learning mode, whereby users can define zoning coordinates for different form types with no intervention from systems development staff. Major features of the system include: The installation of a 155Mb per second ATM Metropolitan Area Network. The ability to access all customers records and automatically populates customer data information, if already available. The Project has provided the infrastructure required to successfully build new applications for other areas of the business, for example, the Project to replace Bristol and West s Savings systems is currently in the design phase with the build phase due to commence in September THE KEY MOTIVATIONS BEHIND THE SYSTEM The key motivational factors were to improve customer service by removing the paper from the process. Other factors include: The need to improved speed to market for new products and services Develop for the first time a single version of the truth available across the whole organization. This will improve both the quality and quantity of information knows about their customers. Improve the usability through the introduction of a graphical user interface of the existing legacy system. The old system used character-based terminals and required significant training before full familiarisation was achieved. This could take up to six months. To increase of resource flexibility through the redefinition of rules together with dynamic load balancing using the system to remove any geographical boundaries. Work allocation would be based on availability of skills irrespective of location. To redefine current MAP process and then implement a Lending Process that will provide world class customer satisfaction to mortgage customers and staff To increase the efficiency and therefore the number of mortgage applications processed per employee. This will then remove the capacity constraints for taking on new business. To utilise advanced technology whilst retaining the reliability of existing core legacy systems. 145

3 Provide a means of disaster recovery by removing the paper from the process. This would also remove the problem of files being unavailable while they were in transit between sites. THE CURRENT SYSTEM CONFIGURATION The Bristol and West has introduced many new technologies in order to provide the infrastructure required not only for the MAP, but for all future system development activities. The current user population was 20, increasing to 60 by October Phase 2 of the MAP project will increase the user population to 1,500 by mid The technologies implemented include: An Image Processing system from Tower Technology A dedicated multi-processor Compaq 5000 server, running NT and configured with 24Gb of RAID 5 disk. Windows NT clients as users workstations. Optical Storage for images using an 80 Gigabyte HP Jukebox Disaster recovery facility providing a full Hot Standby at a remote site. This backup system incorporates mirrored updates allowing the system to be brought back on-line within 10 minutes with a minimal risk of data loss Automatic initial indexing via Barcode Recognition 520 scanner A central scanning unit incorporating a Ricoh 420 scanner A workflow management system based on Staffware. A dedicated multi-processor server, running NT and configured with 24Gb of RAID 5 disk Windows NT clients as users workstations. Disaster recovery facility providing a full Hot Standby at a remote site. This backup system incorporates mirrored updates allowing the system to be brought back on-line within 10 minutes with a minimal risk of data loss Metropolitan Area Network This network links nine of the Bristol and West City center locations and is based on ATM technology running at 155Mb per second. 146

4 BRISTOL & WEST Relational Database The corporate standard for relational database technology is IBM s DB2. The live data used with the system, which hold information for both workflow and Image sub-systems is held on a DB2/MVS system. Application development and testing however uses DB2/NT. Application Development Environment To provide an enterprise wide and cross platform development environment Natstar was used. Using Natstar the client application is tightly integrated with the Workflow Application layer API s and provides a graphical interface to the users. IMPACT TO THE COMPANY. The previous MAP system was a character-based system, which required users to complete 24 screens in a pre-defined order, to capture the required customer information. Users are now utilizing a flexible, windows GUI-based application which allows flexible navigation and data validation. Business users as opposed to the managers of business areas have been empowered to make decisions on behalf of their manager and business unit. By the use of prototyping these users have been able to rapidly visualize an application and contribute effectively to the final design. Conversely, IT developers have gained a far greater understanding of how business areas function, their working practices and business drivers. This will benefit developers significantly in the development of the MAP phase 2 system. All users are able to deal with customer queries immediately and on first contact, as status information is now available showing information on documentation received for example. COST SAVINGS As the implementation of the MAP system is quite recent, detailed analysis of benefits is still ongoing. However, benefits have already been realized through the use of this technology. A specific example of an unexpected spin off has been the ability, through the availability of new technology, to bring in-house activities that may previously have been out sourced. An example of this is the use of Image Processing technology for the Distribution of Bristol and West preference shares as part of the conversion from a Mutual Society to a Plc. 147

5 This project required the establishment of an additional high volume scanning unit which captured bar-coded customer details and information on whether members wanted delivered a reduced cost solution on whether members wanted to keep or sell their shares. This application has captured approx. 250,000 customer s details in the first two-week period. By keeping this project within the society (as opposed to using a bureau) the Bristol and West has successfully: delivered a reduced cost solution purchased additional scanning equipment for future society use (while still achieving cost savings) gained valuable experience in operating a high volume scanning environment PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENTS The flexibility of available resources has not yet been fully exploited. This is because the re-definition of roles has a significant impact on existing organization structures. The Human Resource issues associated with the availability of new technologies is being addressed as part of the MAP Phase 2 development. As system implementation has been relatively recent, detailed post-implementation analysis is still on going. However, benefits achieved include: - A reduction in the time required to key applicants data onto the mortgage system by 25 percent Automatic routing of work to individuals/groups based on pre-defined criteria The amount of customer data captured has been increased significantly and is only captured once (negating the requirement to re-key information for existing customers). An image version of the mortgage application file is now immediately available to underwriters once it has left the packaging stage, previously as these sections are eight miles apart, this would have taken half a day to arrive Document images are accessible simultaneously across geographically distributed sites Parallel processing is now possible Improved Customer Management, through a single source (CRM) controlling all data related to a customer Case Management, at defined stages of the process flow, a mortgage application is assigned a case owner. Now each case owner can fully assess the information available and check progress/status of parallel processing activities (which may be undertaken by a person other than the case owner) 148

6 BRISTOL & WEST A high degree of systems integration, data is seamlessly transferred between applications. MAP is the first project to populate the customer relationship database. This database allows customers to be identified and will show all accounts and services provided to them. In the past customers were only known by the unique account number and therefore the full picture was never known Cases sent on the next processing step have had full data validation significantly reducing the amount of rework required The system has fully demonstrated the benefits of a case/task management approach to the processing of mortgage business COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE GAINED The purpose of the new MAP system was to not necessarily move the goal posts for their industry but to achieve the Bristol and West corporate goal of providing World Class Customer Satisfaction. To deliver against this goal has required the implementation of many leading technologies, which have enabled the MAP system to be technologically advanced, and provided a proven and reliable infrastructure for other project facilities for future. THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS AND METHODOLOGY Bristol and West developed its own Rapid Application Development/Joint Application Development methodology, Cornerstone that was utilized during the MAP project. Cornerstone is based upon the DSDM methodology. The approach involved the formation of joint user developer teams who were responsible for designing the new business process. The methodology involved the use of iterative prototyping, allowing rapid user feedback on the application components. This project has altered users and developer s perceptions on how systems are best developed and delivered. By moving to combined user/developer teams the system delivered is closer to user requirements by evolving through continual feedback (through prototyping) within the development loop. The development methodology followed has allowed the impact on people of change to be managed and understood fully prior to an implementation. The project has demonstrated the benefits of a phased approach to system development and implementation (as opposed to a big bang ). This has allowed both users and developers to learn from the initial phase and incorporate learning points, missed functionality into the subsequent release. 149

7 There were a number of areas where they learned from the first Phase of implementation. The RAD approach and the prototyping design methodology (based on DSDM) meant that the users were not going to see a 100 percent solution first time. This was a cultural change from the Waterfall methodology Acceptance that you will never achieve an ideal process Successfully developed process and place but not ideal people (however this is being addressed as part of Phase 2 of the project). The requirement for an extended testing period from users Change control process in a client/server environment was more difficult than in a mainframe environment THE OVERALL TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION, Based on the success of this project, they are now moving forward to reuse the application and tailor this for implementation into the other mortgage channels. This will continue until late One of the challenges for subsequent phases is the introduction of the system to 150 branches across a wide geographical area. The introduction of the 155Mb per second ATM network is the base infrastructure for the companies proposed Intranet. It has transformed the concept of what is possible for many people in the business. THE OVERALL BUSINESS INNOVATION. It is intended, in the future, to integrate their brokers and other agents into their Workflow Management system via the Intranet. Although extremely successful in its own right, the MAP Project was the most important foundation system they had implemented in six years. 150