The benefits of this tremendously successful project speak for themselves:

• Improved the overall operational efficiency of Life Operations and Administration by over 35%
• Reduced the turnaround time for file room retrievals from hours to seconds
• Reduced overall processing time for transactions and enquiries from days to hours
• Established a systematic policy-related document archiving strategy allowing for business continuity in the event of a disaster
• Decommissioned the file room, freeing expensive office space for more effective purposes
• Standardized and streamlined their business processes
• Achieved greater process control and tighter application integration.
• Automated the generation and sending of correspondence and pending memos
• Completely overhauled their entire contract printing infrastructure
• Implemented electronic merging of the application document images into the printed contracts
• Implemented electronic faxing across the entire organization
• Provided sophisticated management reports

This project included backfile conversion of AXA’s entire file room (over 4 million pages), scanning of all new incoming documents, an automated fax solution, an electronic contract assembly & printing system (where application images, endorsements, and AS400 contract-output are electronically merged together and printed), an RSTN custom designed & developed correspondence management system, and end-to-end Business Process Management for all New Business Acquisition and Customer Service business processes.

The RSTN E2 Contract Merge-Print System electronically assembles all of the components of a contract (the endorsements, the required scanned images, and the contract spools received from AXA’s host application running on the iSeries), merges all of these electronic documents, and finally prints the complete contracts as single printed documents.  This is all done completely electronically.

How it Works:  When New Business application documents first arrive at AXA, they are immediately scanned, released into Content Manager’s Advanced Workflow, and underwritten based on the workflow business logic.   During the underwriting process, from a user friendly screen, and based on the plan code, underwriters select the required endorsements and provisions to insert into the contract.  The E2 Contract Merge-Print System will then insert electronic renditions of these endorsements and provisions into the electronic policy folder.  Once a case is approved, in order to issue the contract, the contract spool files will be generated from the host applications running on the iSeries and fed into the IBM InfoPrint application, which applies graphics and formatting to the spools.  The formatted data is then sent to IBM OnDemand where the contracts are broken into individual electronic documents, indexed based on the content of the contracts, and finally uploaded into the Content Manager Imaging & Workflow System.  Finally, the RSTN E2 Contract Merge-Print System electronically merges and prints all of these contract components with zero human intervention.

For this project, RSTN designed and developed a complete correspondence sub-system for AXA that is tightly integrated with Content Manager and now being used for all insurance operations correspondence.  When users select a correspondence template, the E2 Correspondence Builder then populates the correspondence with data extracted from Content Manager and/or from the host DB2 database.  This greatly reduces tedious re-typing of customer data.  Without ever leaving their chairs, the users then have the choice of emailing the correspondence, faxing them out via an electronic fax server, electronically inserting the correspondence into the policy contract, and/or printing the correspondence.  When they are done, a copy of the correspondence is then auto-filed into the Content Manager electronic folder, which can then be routed to the next step in workflow.

E2 Capture is an RSTN product designed and developed to provide high-speed document scanning, automated barcode recognition, image quality control, indexing, image reject/rescan features, indexing of faxes received by fax servers, automated signature cropping, integration with 3^rd party signature verification systems, validation/release to the backend imaging & workflow system, advanced workflow logic, and much more.  This application has been custom built by RSTN, which provides us with the flexibility of modifying the application as necessary to meet the business requirements of our customers. 

E2 Capture provides tight integration with IBM Content Manager.  Much more than a simple document importing integration, the ScanStation Advanced Workflow Logic component executes business specific logic prior to releasing folders and documents into the workflow.  For example, when a Claim transaction is being released to workflow, the Advanced Workflow Logic will check for the existence of any other Claim made under that same policy number or policy holder, and which is being processed concurrently in workflow.  If such a condition is found, it will automatically trigger configurable events such as merging the cases, signalling an alert to notify the user of the condition, updating the case to high priority, and routing the case for immediate action.  This is just one simple example that illustrates the powerful integration between E2 Capture and IBM Content Manager Advanced Workflow.

Another important component of this project was the implementation of an electronic faxing sub-system that now serves 2 primary purposes:

1)      RSTN implemented a RightFax solution as a general office automation fax solution for the entire company.  This was achieved through integrating the RightFax system with AXA’s Lotus Notes email infrastructure such that all faxes are now received directly into Lotus Notes and distributed to users via Lotus Notes email - received faxes now come directly into users’ email in-boxes.  Similarly, users can now send-out electronic faxes in the same manner they send emails – all via their Lotus Notes email.

2)      RSTN has designed & developed a customized Lotus Notes integration component that allows users to file RightFax faxes into the Content Manager policy folders, and directly initiate workflow transactions within CM Advanced Workflow