VOI Solutions - März 2007
Captured and checked in one step
LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg validates housing premium applications with DpuScan directly in the mailroom
Anyone can read forms by OCR, thought the organisational managers at LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg. It only gets exciting when the data entry software automatically checks whether the form has been filled out correctly.
And this is what the flexible software solution DpuScan from Janich & Klass Computertechnik GmbH can do, for example. On the basis of this solution, LBS Hamburg has developed a sophisticated set of rules for checking the plausibility of applications for housing subsidies right in the post office.
The result: shorter business processes and a significant reduction in the workload of the clerks.
LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg has been innovative in the field of document management for ten years now. While other organisations were still dominated by suspension files and filing cabinets, they had already introduced the electronic archiving system Image Professional. Since then, incoming forms and documents have been digitised with the robust InoTec scanners and transferred into electronic customer files.
Restructuring the business processes
In 2004, new scanners had to be purchased. When researching the market, those responsible for the organisation at LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg discovered that innovative capture software products were now available whose functionality had been dreamed of years ago. This was especially true for the flexible solution DpuScan by Janich & Klass. “We were enthusiastic about the solution’s ability to check plausibility using rule-based definitions and to derive appropriate actions from this,” remembers Dr. Rüdiger Weißbach, authorised signatory for the organisation at LBS in Hamburg. The decision was then quickly made: with the purchase of new InoTec scanners, the business processes were to be restructured with the help of DpuScan.
Automated verification of premium applications
Among the many different business processes, the processing of housing subsidy applications was selected as the starting project. Every year, LBS in Hamburg receives around 35,000 applications for housing subsidies. In order to be able to process these automatically, the technical and organisational departments created a comprehensive set of rules that checks the form for numerous plausibilities directly during digitisation. “For example, it checks whether both signatures of the spouses are there if “married” was marked as the family status in the form,” explains Dr. Weißbach.
Validate entries for accuracy
Based on historical customer data, DpuScan validates various other entries in the form for correctness. These plausibility checks are already carried out in the scanning centre, which significantly relieves the specialist departments. The data extracted by OCR is finally sent to the central building society application at Finanz IT in Hanover for further processing. The scanned forms are stored in the archiving system as TIFF files. “With this solution, we are one of the innovative savings banks in the LBS association and have made significant progress in the area of business process optimisation,” Dr. Weißbach is pleased to say. After successful introduction, LBS Hamburg plans to extend this procedure to other processes. Next, incoming cancellation forms are to be validated automatically with DpuScan.
“Scanning, image optimisation and data extraction by means of barcode reading, marker recognition, OCR, ICR as well as validation via databases are among the elementary tasks of a powerful capture software,” adds Dietmar Janich, Managing Director of Janich & Klass GmbH.
About LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg:
LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg Aktiengesellschaft is one of the smaller of the eleven Landesbausparkassen in Germany that are part of the savings bank association. Since 30 December 1996 it has been wholly owned by Hamburger Sparkasse. The employees look after a total portfolio of approx. 146,700 customers with approx. 189,300 building society contracts. The product range of LBS Bausparkasse Hamburg includes attractive building savings offers and financing at favourable conditions as well as competent advice and services.
About Janich & Klass Computertechnik GmbH:
Janich & Klass Computertechnik GmbH was founded in 1981 as a spin-off of the University of Wuppertal and was run as a limited liability company from 1985. Since 1987, J&K has been active in the field of document processing; here there are three main areas of activity: Basic research for image enhancement, scanner technology for scanner manufacturers, and flexible scan software with interfaces to a wide variety of DMS. DpuScan is the universal programme developed by J&K for scanning (colour, grey, black and white simultaneously), with indexing, image optimisation, barcode reading, OCR and much more.