Open Print by Sefas is at the heart of Starweb, an innovative solution at CIMUT
The mutual insurance IT center at Quimper develops new services and innovation with Sefas
Project
For more than 30 years, CIMUT has built a trusted reputation by providing information technology solutions to organizations that manage health and retirement services. For many years the organization had worked to develop its own business document solution to service an extremely rich business scope. This customized environment became increasingly difficult to maintain and upgrade, however, so in 2001 CIMUT decided to refocus on its core business – electronic data management for mutual insurance companies – and began a search for an integrated business document solution broad enough and flexible enough to meet their specific needs.
“We couldn't maintain so many applications,” explains Hélène Guillou, business document manager at CIMUT. “We didn't have the human resources required. So we decided to drop our former system and look for the best partner to provide a solution. We wanted a single platform with flexible features that was capable of leveraging advancements in Web technology.”
Document process innovation
CIMUT selected Sefas Open Print for its powerful document composition engine and web based capabilities. Open Print provides a uniform platform for all CIMUT documents and an efficient user interface with on-line search capabilities. “We evaluated many options, but in the end our strategy led us to use a single technology: Open Print,” continues Hélène Guillou. “The composition engine is both flexible and robust, and the various features are integrated in a comprehensive and modular solution.”
Today, Open Print processes no less than 31 families of applications for CIMUT and works with more than one thousand document templates. In a widely integrated system, 1,900 users produce all types of personalized documents and produce an average of 45,000 documents per week. The outcome is approximately 32,000 mail items and over 300,000 pages produced for all CIMUT member organizations.
New services for enhanced efficiency
One advantage that Open Print has provided is to print documents at the counter. In the past, document production was only feasible by batch, but now production can be performed locally. In just a few seconds, customer documents and duplicate member card can be issued in real time without waiting for a lengthy production batch cycle.
CIMUT found on-line access to be another important benefit of Open Print. Statements, forms and letters are automatically generated and made available on-line to each mutual insurance company. Anyone with proper access can view, print and archive them locally when needed.
The document template based system allows the company to automate the production of personalized mail. Large production volumes are outsourced to a service bureau which optimizes the documents and takes them to the postal service. This has significantly reduced postal expenses for CIMUT.
Always seeking to meet the concerns of its member organizations, Gilles Marty, CIMUT CEO, explains the advantages of this approach. “We found that postage is the second largest cost item for our customers. With a weekly production of 30,000 mail pieces and 15,000 control forms and statistical reports, a paperless environment has become a key to profitability. Open Print can process all kinds of formats, allowing us to produce optimized PDF documents and meet our strategic requirements."
On-line services for members
One of the primary strategic requirements at CIMUT was met by using Open Print as a core of their new “Starweb” solution. CIMUT developed Starweb© with a clearly industrial approach. This Web-based IT solution is designed to manage compulsory and supplemental plans. It uses satellite applications that are integrated with customer relationship management, business intelligence, accounting, on-line Internet services, and business documentation.
According to CIMUT Chief Executive Officer, Gilles Marty, by following a development strategy that focuses on cutting-edge technologies, CIMUT was given a real boost. “Starweb is a strategic application for CIMUT and its members,” says Gilles Marty. “It allows mutual insurance companies to enter the Web 2.0 era. We feel our choice of a Web solution turned out to be excellent and visionary.”
The vision of Starweb is dedicated to providing customers with a high level of organizational and work flexibility, reactivity and productivity, and CIMUT is leveraging Open Print to better serve its members. “Today, CIMUT offers multiple services that are based on leading technologies,” Gilles Marty continues. “The secure Web platform made available by Open Print allows mutual insurance members, using their secret code, to view the progress of their refunds or their contract. They can also edit their personal information in deferred mode, declare the birth of a child, or download documents and forms. Our member organizations can access their contracts and other business services. This access is integrated in the mutual insurance company's website in accordance with its corporate identity guidelines."
Starweb has a rich interface and offers a comprehensive and unified solution based on 150 applications and 600 repositories, including services (medical certificates, treatment forms, repository management, etc.), administrative operations and contributions (collection, revenue and registration management) and business intelligence.
Hélène Guillou points to Sefas flexibility as a key success factor. “Open Print has allowed us to drop the very restrictive PCL format and make PDF documents format available in real time. This has enabled a tremendous improvement in productivity. Twenty CIMUT customer mutual insurance companies have already signed up for extranet services that offer 200,000 potential users immediate and permanent access to on-line services."
Modular and reactive architecture
Using Open Print Web-enabled technology, the architecture at CIMUT features three layers: data servers, application servers and client stations. This concept, called "N-tiers," ensures independence of the different layers and makes the system modular, reactive and scalable. As a result, CIMUT can perform development activities, such as the integration of new standards, very quickly since changes to one level do not necessarily affect the others.
"This is one of the strong points of Open Print," exclaims Hélène Guillou. "With its centralized repository, in a few steps we can modify all our document models. For example, as soon as a new law is passed, or if one of our organizations changes its corporate identity guidelines, we can immediately take appropriate action. For us, this means tremendous flexibility in terms of document base maintenance, reactivity and service."
Key production figures
· 35 servers (Unix, Windows and Sun OS)
· 10 terabytes of data spread over 4 disk racks
· A backup system controlled by Time Navigator, which manages an Overland robot
· 2,000 backups per month
· Application automation and scheduling: 2,000 tasks/day
· Flow administration coupled to scheduler: 50,000 transfers/year
A promising future
With a successful partnership and proven results, CIMUT plans to use the skills and know-how of Sefas to further their efforts to build reliable and powerful solutions and allow greater efficiency and productivity for CIMUT and its member organizations. Gilles Marty concludes: "This technological progress allows CIMUT to position itself perfectly in a context that is demanding in terms of productivity, scalability and reliability."
About Sefas Innovation
Sefas Innovation is a world leader in document production technology. The company is headquartered in Paris, France, with operations in the U.S. and the U.K. Sefas has been a leader in the European market since 1993 and has created expert enterprise solutions with unparalleled levels of flexibility and performance. Many of the largest financial companies and Fortune 500 leaders rely on our technology to produce complex, high-volume and mission critical transactional documents.