System 2000 Enterprise
Supply Chain Management Software Solutions
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CASE STUDY
LIFE BENEFIT PLAN
Background & Challenge:
In 2001, when we first met John Mongello, President and Union Administrator of Life Benefit Plan, he was very bitter about his union membership's AS/400 software system. The office PC's were attached to the old AS/400 via outdated emulation boards, and everyone was suffering from repeated software glitches. Bob contracted with a several different IBM Business Partners, but they couldn't solve his problems and on top of it, a few over charged him for services.
Finally, John decided to contact IBM and ask for help. IBM recommended SMC Data Systems to resolve the issues facing his organization.
Because the union membership software was so poorly written, union members who left their jobs or retired still appeared on the records as active members. Meanwhile new members who had just joined, were missing. This resulted in Life Benefit's clients distrusting the computer information and required excessive manual efforts by Life Benefit's employees to verify and correct the computer information.
Solution:
In order to establish the software's reliability and determine the source of the data corruption, the following steps were taken:
- SMC Data analyzed and documented all components of the software system.
- SMC Data identified major and minor problems within multiple programs, and designated some programs for complete re-writes and others for patches.
- SMC Data implemented all programming updates and ran the software through rigorous system tests with client cooperation.
- SMC Data restructured the corrupted union membership and built in new safeguards to avoid corruption in the future.
- SMC Data exported data from the repaired union membership database to Excel files and coordinated a verification & correction process with client staff.
Results:
Today, Life Benefit's union membership software is reliable and stable. At the click of an icon, users can create accurate Excel spreadsheets from data residing on the IBM iSeries server. Data is easily emailed to Life Benefit's union representatives, clients, and sales force. As a result, Life Benefit has improved services for all members, and even discovered new revenue sources by analyzing the now accurate data.
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