Iron Workers’ Locals No. 15 and 424 Fringe Benefit Funds
Iron Workers’ Locals No. 15 and 424 Fringe Benefit Funds of Meriden, Connecticut came to Standard Data Corporation with a unique set of challenges. During the period of approximately seven months, start to finish, the complex benefits and administration processing requirements of this busy Fund were addressed by SDC.
PACE University
SDC has recently completed the process of installing a complex custom configuration of the SDC/LibertyIMS Electronic Content Management Solution.
Carpenters Benefit Funds
After a diligent search, Standard Data Corporation was selected as the vendor most qualified to meet the complex requirements of this large Benefit Fund.
AT&T
SDC has been providing response processing services for AT&T since 1991 and has consistently been awarded their Supplier of the Year Award
Educational Testing Services
Standard Data Corporation's 40 years of experience in the field of high volume data processing made them a natural choice for Education Testing Service.
Actors' Equity Association
Years of experience in providing union administration systems enabled Standard Data Corporation to provide Actors' Equity with the right solutions.
Public Service Electric and Gas
PSE&G was seeking an image processing company that could provide them with a records management solution by changing paper gas cards over to electronic images that could be accessed simultaneously.
Iron Workers’ Locals No. 15 and 424 Fringe Benefit Funds of Meriden, Connecticut came to Standard Data Corporation with a unique set of challenges. During the period of approximately seven months, start to finish, the complex benefits and administration processing requirements of this busy Fund were addressed by SDC. While our implementation was driven by the Fund’s request for a rapid deployment, all of the Fund’s specific requirements were designed into the custom benefits administration processing system we delivered at the end of a remarkable six-month development-to-delivery cycle.
These development challenges included:
- Conversion of a proprietary, obsolete legacy PC based system. The database needed a special interface built encompassing multiple phases to convert data into a production format.
- Medical eligibility rules were in the process of being re-stated in the Fund’s SPD. The requirement for personal interaction with fund staff was met and an up to date full function eligibility module created.
- Pension eligibility rules were in the process of being re-stated in the Fund’s SPD. SDC performed a comprehensive survey and analysis in order to understand the current rules and design the Pension model around those rules. The Fund’s business routines were taken into consideration, and workflow was also built into the system.
- The Fund’s local phone service was creating communication problems that interfered with necessary data interchange and communication with third parties. SDC identified problems and worked to resolve problems with communication carriers.
- SDC built in a system allowing for automatic posting of outgoing reciprocal reports with no additional input from fund staff.
- When the Fund switched from Annuity carriers, SDC supported the Fund and developed the electronic feeds necessary for smooth transactions.
- The addition of a complex new fund just before our “go-live” date.
The above represents a small sampling of the excellent development and support SDC has delivered to one of our newest ASP clients.
SDC/PACE Partnership: SDC has recently completed the process of installing a complex custom configuration of the SDC/LibertyIMS Electronic Content Management Solution. Our ongoing maintenance and support of the University's enterprise wide system has allowed its image enabled departments to function more efficiently. The expansive imaging application is fully implemented and is supporting the day-to-day content management business requirements for Pace University’s most demanding departments including Financial, Legal, Purchasing, Contracts, Human Resources, and Accounts Payable departments.
SDC collaborated with Pace University throughout the application delivery and initial support process, while monitoring application performance and service levels. The SDC Electronic Content Management (ECM) system is fully integrated with the University's legacy enterprise-wide administrative system.
SDC brings its reputation and experience to this complex implementation to ensure that Pace, as one of the largest University systems in the country, will effectively gain strategic value to its operation. Pace is operating the Liberty/SDC system at two of its three campuses. A VPN between Pace and SDC is in place to ensure a comfortable service level.
PACE Challenges and Improvements:
- Conversion of nearly one million legacy images and annotations. A particularly challenging undertaking as annotations burned onto existing images were of a proprietary software configuration. Eventually all existing images were converted and migrated complete with more robust annotation capability.
- Emailed notification of tasks completed or reminders for completion
- Complex workflow develop for ad-hoc and predefined routines
- Detailed status of document via document history
- Detailed Custom Searches
- Interface with outside database to obtain, validate and populate key index fields
Challenge: The New York District Council of Carpenters Benefit Funds sought a third party organization to provide an administrative system for funds administration, as well as a provider of benefit related administrative services.
Solution: After a diligent search, Standard Data Corporation was selected as the vendor most qualified to meet the complex requirements of these large Benefit Funds.
Active members eligible for benefits are located within the New York City metropolitan area, and number approximately 14,000 plus dependents. The Funds have thousands of associated members who are located in and around the New York/New England region. Currently, there are approximately 12,000 retired members receiving benefits from the Funds.
In mid 2000, the Trustees of the Funds decided to move the bulk of the administrative processes, and all member services, in-house. A third party administration firm was at that time responsible for limited outsourced administrative services of the Benefit Funds. Therefore, in addition to selecting a vendor to provide an administrative system, high-volume check and statement processing, and employer reporting data input, the Funds were faced with enhancing their internal staff and infrastructure. A Standard Data Corporation survey helped to determine that outsourcing (ASP/Service Bureau model) the administration, benefits processing, and IT management, would relieve the Funds of much of the expense and day to day management of the Funds' internal administration and processing routines.
The Carpenters Benefit Funds are committed to providing members with comprehensive benefit offerings that will be effectively administered. Through Standard Data Corporation's web collaboration efforts, members now have access to member services representatives via telephone and the Internet as a source of data inquiry and transaction initiation. Standard Data Corporation has assisted the Funds with the implementation of several self-service vehicles to assist members in data inquiry including: an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, a Web-based interactive capability, and a fully integrated Electronic Document Imaging System.
Challenge: In 1991, AT&T's Marketing Communications Direct Mail division began a search for a data processing company that could reduce costs and turn around time through state-of-the-art technology.
Solution: In 1993, AT&T chose to partner with Standard Data Corporation because SDC had recently developed a new method of high speed document scanning of responses at its Image Processing Center in Ewing, NJ. Scanning was used in conjunction with optical character recognition (OCR) technology which allowed for recognition of checked boxes and eliminated the need to key machine-printed characters. By using SDC, AT&T'S marketing communications direct mail division was able to achieve its targets for both cost and cycle time. As a result, SDC was awarded the marketing communications direct mail division's supplier of the year award. SDC continued to receive commendations from AT&T throughout our now long standing relationship. SDC is proud of this accomplishment since AT&T's standards for excellence are well-documented. AT&T is recognized as a quality conscious company as evidenced by its receipt of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. "AT&T values the partnership with Standard Data Corporation and looks forward to innovative solutions to meet the growing needs of our business," says Kate Scheffel, district manager for marketing communications-direct mail response/fulfillment operations.
Challenge: In 1993, Educational Testing Service sought a data-processing company with the established ability to handle large volumes of confidential material to take over its processing center. That same company would also need to continue processing Educational Testing Service exam results and to provide the technology that would allow the company to change over from paper-testing to computer-based testing.
Solution: Standard Data Corporation's 40 years of experience in the field of high volume data processing made it a natural choice for Educational Testing Service. SDC was able to change Educational Testing Service over to computer-based testing by migrating all ETS applications from older legacy imaging equipment to a state-of-the-art Windows NT based system using Kodak 9500 scanners and newer, faster jukeboxes for retrieval. Currently, SDC is Educational Testing Service's in-house imaging solutions provider for all departmental work flow solutions including test registrations, photo file records, plus handwritten essay and test scoring processes, and has been the recipient of ETS bonusing for its achievement of significant levels of quality production.
Challenge: After several years of unsuccessful attempts to provide their own membership, association dues and contracts administration, Actors' Equity Association, the union of professional actors in the United States, began the search for an outsourcer with an established record of success to track membership, contracts and union dues billing for its 40,000 plus members. Union dues billing was based on the total dollar figure earned by actors throughout the year through a fixed-rate process in addition to weekly deductions of 2% work dues on actors' salaries.
Solution: Years of experience in providing union administration systems enabled Standard Data Corporation to provide Actors' Equity with the right solutions. Since 1979, SDC has tracked all nationwide shows, including Broadway. This comprehensive system also aids in tracking delinquent work dues as well as the union's pension, health funds and benefits systems activities. Recently, SDC migrated both the Union and Funds systems from a mainframe system to the AS/400 environment. The move made Actors' Equity Association year-2000 compliant, reduced costs in data entry and integrated a number of previously unconnected databases significantly reducing errors in data entry and providing ease of access to information.
Challenge: PSE&G was seeking an image processing company that could provide them with a records management solution by changing paper gas cards over to electronic images that could be accessed simultaneously. The thousands of index-sized gas cards were often extremely old and subsequently torn, faded and fragile. In addition, the information on the cards was irreplaceable and therefore highly valuable.
Solution: "After investigating several companies that provide such solutions, PSE&G chose Standard Data Corporation for their experience and knowledge in data conversion and their attention to quality assurance," says Jim Keane, manager, distribution information systems for PSE&G when the decision to work with SDC was made. (Currently, Keane is executive director, utility services group - Inform Worldwide Inc.) The company’s proven ability to handle sensitive materials enabled them to insure PSE&G that none of the cards would get lost, that PSE&G could access them in an emergency at any time and that they would be returned in the same order in which they were delivered. To avoid damaging the often frail cards, SDC utilized large vacuum scanners that could hold the cards gently, scan both sides at once and also enhanced the faint images. To process the cards more quickly and efficiently, SDC keyed in the data directly from the scanned images using their own software, Image Vision. Initially SDC created a database that included a series of indexes for retrieval based on municipality, district and street address. SDC has added to these basic retrieval indexes to create a database that now includes a total of 42 fields. The solution that SDC provided PSE&G has allowed them to not only reduce costs, but to dramatically improve its service and safety. Adds Keane, "Standard Data’s technology, management, and willingness to help us achieve our goals was exceptional. All in all, Standard Data did an exceptional job in helping us achieve our business objectives."