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Dispute Resolution Services Limited
Overview
Dispute Resolution Services Limited (DRSL) was set up in 1999 to provide an impartial dispute resolution service for New Zealand’s unique 24-hour, no-fault personal injury scheme. Every year, DRSL’s experienced and independent reviewers adjudicate and deliver binding decisions on 5,000 reviews of decisions made by the scheme manager, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC).
ACC manages New Zealand’s accident compensation system, which provides accident insurance for all New Zealand citizens, residents and temporary visitors to New Zealand. Anyone who disagrees with or is unhappy about a decision ACC has made can apply for a review of that decision.
Recently, DRSL has decided to extend its services beyond adjudication to mediation and facilitation - and expand its client base to include government and industry participants in the wider health and social services sector. Its strengths are its professional mediators, facilitators and adjudicators, and its focus is on helping organizations to resolve disputes constructively and cost effectively.
Challenge
In moving from a single-service/single-client proposition to a multi-service/multi-client mix, the DRSL team realized it needed to boost its technology capabilities – specifically so that it could:
- manage and grow the business while keeping overheads to a minimum
- minimize (or preferably eliminate) the potential for error, duplication and data integrity issues in both its everyday work and its formal reporting processes, especially given the variety of document authors and dispersed office locations
- identify, analyze and resolve specific issues, such as process bottlenecks
- identify opportunities to improve the customer experience
DRSL needed to manage its core processes more effectively and after extensive research into its options, decided that a business process management (BPM) solution offered the benefits they were looking for. BPM would enable its staff to enquire into the handling of individual cases in real time, to identify and remove bottlenecks, to produce reports easily and most importantly to provide exceptional service. It would also remove any support-system-related risks and constraints to expanding its services in future.
After an initial prototyping approach to introduce staff to the concept and specify its business requirements, DRSL issued a tender to two prospective suppliers. The decision to ultimately select Metastorm BPM™ came through the advice of TechTonics, a Metastorm partner and existing supplier of its Hummingbird document management system.
Solution
As a first step, DRSL chose to apply Metastorm BPM to the ACC review process – the most significant part of the company’s work. While containing an element of risk, the company was comfortable with the approach since they were very familiar with the process, having managed it on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for five years, and Metastorm had an extensive and proven application base.
That said, implementation did have its challenges, largely owing to the multiple parties involved: ACC with its Oracle-based network and Unisys, which needed to be involved for some aspects of the implementation. However, with communication protocols established at the outset, the project proceeded swiftly and smoothly – the planned schedule of a progressive introduction to three main offices with a parallel three-month processing phase was completed in less than two.
DRSL reports that user acceptance has been very high, mainly because the new processes and language closely mirror the previous system – and because those who would be using Metastorm BPM were involved in defining the process.
The system went live in February 2005, and has already achieved mission critical status for DRSL, with the company’s disaster recovery infrastructure boosted to match.
The TechTonics solution has proved ideal for DRSL by having a single supplier for both Hummingbird and Metastorm. TechTonics has brought a number of benefits to DRSL and has been very responsive to the company’s needs, with prompt turnaround times and helpful advice.
Results
DRSL reports that Metastorm BPM has exceeded their expectations by offering them opportunities they had not even contemplated such as providing its customers with direct access to key information and the ability to interact online with timetabling plans.
DRSL’s service has also vastly improved. With accurate, reliable and instantly accessible information, employees can follow up on status queries and complaints in minutes instead of days or weeks and frontline staff can often answer queries themselves rather than passing them on, which has dramatically reduced the number of phone calls within the organization.
Other benefits have included:
- improved internal communication, with accurate information and consistent data now available to everyone. Every Metastorm BPM user can now query and search for almost anything, including data on their own performance. The integration with Hummingbird means they can easily call up dispute decision documents and email them to clients
- the ability to identify bottlenecks and move resources between regions, with workloads visible on screen
- the ability to schedule activities simply and reliably
- reduced reporting cycle times, from three days with three people to one day with one person. The team can produce predictive and consolidated reports on demand, enabling one person to manage a client instead of several
- an ‘alert’ system to ensure DRSL meets its statutory timeframes (such as to set ACC hearings within three months) and avoid penalties and deemed decisions that could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars
- a robust audit trail that enables DRSL to track performance and identify and act on issues.
DRSL plans to use Metastorm BPM to its maximum potential, and is currently working with TechTonics on further streamlining its ACC review and decision-making processes. The company expects to report a noticeable and measurable increase in productivity, combined with reduced cycle times, over the next six to 12 months.
DRSL is also advancing its plans to build out its client base. Two important new clients have already signed on and the company can now quickly design and implement business processes that suit their needs.
While one of the next priorities is improving communication with customers – especially through interactive online exchanges – DRSL also plans to automate internal processes such as leave management.
“We chose Metastorm mainly because it was easy to work with and because its inherent flexibility was so powerful,” stated Neil McKellar, General Manager of DRSL. “We could also apply it to all our business processes – and it will play a key role in enabling us to expand our services and client base. In essence, it’s future-proofed our management systems requirements for at least the next five years.”
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