Business Process Management Technology Delivers Quick Payback
Cary, N.C. September 30, 2003 Managing human resources for large companies is often a task of mammoth proportions, and without the proper resources it became especially nightmarish for Prince William County, Va.
The County serves a general population of approximately 321,000 citizens. Located 35 miles south of Washington, D.C., it employs roughly 3,600 employees in 37 agencies that provide services including public works, fire and police response and social services.
As the county government workforce grew, processing personnel action forms (PAFs) became cumbersome and decreased employee productivity. The county deployed a business process management (BPM) suite from Ultimus, a workflow processes developer, to automate the routing and approval of these forms that process critical human resources events such as merit pay requests, six-month employee reviews, new hires and separations.
"Three years ago, Prince William County needed a new way to process PAFs faster to keep pace with increasing headcounts without decreasing efficiency and increasing costs," said Prince William County Information Systems Division Chief, Maneesh Gupta. "The Ultimus solution delivered ROI that continues to grow today, and Prince William County is automating even more processes with even greater ROI expectations for the future."
With human-centric workflow and Web Services support, the BPM Suite automates any process incorporating people, applications and organizations. With it, Prince William County said it has first been able to reduce processing costs. Despite a personnel increase of 600 workers, staff in the HR and payroll departments did not have to grow the old system would have necessitated two additional new hires to keep up with PAF processing demands.
Second, the County was able to reduce costs of delays and errors. The old way of paper-based approval and routing of forms with multiple points of data entry resulted in mistakes and delays 20 percent of the time. Since automating the business process, mistakes and delays have been eliminated, the County said.
Finally, the new BPM software suite has improved data access. The County said that finding forms was a difficult task with the previous paper-based process. An online search saves dozens of hours each month looking for lost or misfiled forms.
After implementing the suite, Nucleus Research, an independent research and advisory firm, conducted a study of the software deployment at Prince William County. Nucleus reported that, since 2000, the County recouped its investment in 1.42 years and demonstrated 100 percent ROI.
"Nucleus assessed Prince William County's return on investment from Ultimus to help users understand the key benefit and cost areas associated with an Ultimus deployment," said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Research at Nucleus Research. "We found increased employee efficiency and reduced costs delivered significant ROI."
Cary, N.C. September 30, 2003 Managing human resources for large companies is often a task of mammoth proportions, and without the proper resources it became especially nightmarish for Prince William County, Va.
The County serves a general population of approximately 321,000 citizens. Located 35 miles south of Washington, D.C., it employs roughly 3,600 employees in 37 agencies that provide services including public works, fire and police response and social services.
As the county government workforce grew, processing personnel action forms (PAFs) became cumbersome and decreased employee productivity. The county deployed a business process management (BPM) suite from Ultimus, a workflow processes developer, to automate the routing and approval of these forms that process critical human resources events such as merit pay requests, six-month employee reviews, new hires and separations.
"Three years ago, Prince William County needed a new way to process PAFs faster to keep pace with increasing headcounts without decreasing efficiency and increasing costs," said Prince William County Information Systems Division Chief, Maneesh Gupta. "The Ultimus solution delivered ROI that continues to grow today, and Prince William County is automating even more processes with even greater ROI expectations for the future."
With human-centric workflow and Web Services support, the BPM Suite automates any process incorporating people, applications and organizations. With it, Prince William County said it has first been able to reduce processing costs. Despite a personnel increase of 600 workers, staff in the HR and payroll departments did not have to grow the old system would have necessitated two additional new hires to keep up with PAF processing demands.
Second, the County was able to reduce costs of delays and errors. The old way of paper-based approval and routing of forms with multiple points of data entry resulted in mistakes and delays 20 percent of the time. Since automating the business process, mistakes and delays have been eliminated, the County said.
Finally, the new BPM software suite has improved data access. The County said that finding forms was a difficult task with the previous paper-based process. An online search saves dozens of hours each month looking for lost or misfiled forms.
After implementing the suite, Nucleus Research, an independent research and advisory firm, conducted a study of the software deployment at Prince William County. Nucleus reported that, since 2000, the County recouped its investment in 1.42 years and demonstrated 100 percent ROI.
"Nucleus assessed Prince William County's return on investment from Ultimus to help users understand the key benefit and cost areas associated with an Ultimus deployment," said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Research at Nucleus Research. "We found increased employee efficiency and reduced costs delivered significant ROI."
