Background
One of the top 10 banks in America recently selected Crawford Technologies to assist in their online delivery of customer credit card statements. The bank is one of the largest credit card issuers in North America, printing and mailing over 50 million statements each month. The bank needed a more effcient process to provide instant and secure Internet access for their millions of credit card holders to view statements and pay their bills. CrawfordTech’s conversion from AFP to PDF is now used for retrieving and converting the documents in real- time whenever a customer wants to view or download one of their card statements.
The Challenge
Statements are stored in the bank’s IBM Content Manager OnDemand (CMOD) repository and printed in Advanced Function Print (AFP) format. The bank’s CMOD archive/retrieval system is generally considered to be one of the most complex and challenging CMOD systems in the world due to the high volume of documents and high retrieval rates, so the bank needed to fnd a solid, high performance component with an excellent support team behind it.
Prior to selecting CrawfordTech’s PRO AFP to PDF solution, the bank was using a legacy program to convert their print formatted documents to PDF for online customer retrieval and viewing. This legacy program had become problematic to the bank and its customers. They required signifcantly faster performance to support their growing user base, more fexibility, higher fdelity, and lower operating costs as well as highly responsive and completely reliable support. The bank also wanted to have a road map for the creation of ADA Section 508 compliant Accessible PDF documents for their clients with special needs.
The Solution: Conversion Services with PRO AFP to PDF
After a rigorous testing regime that included load tests with several applications at speeds up to 200 transactions per second, the bank selected PRO AFP to PDF from Crawford Technologies to replace its legacy conversion solution. PRO AFP to PDF impressed the bank’s IT team not only with its capability to provide faster conversions and create smaller output fles, but also because CrawfordTech’s proposed solution included an easy and rapid migration from their legacy conversion program.
Low Impact Solution Installation
The PRO AFP to PDF solution was able to be quickly confgured to replace the legacy program in the bank’s workfow. The choice of Java and .NET API sets allowed the bank to plug the solution into their web application servers and get underway quickly.
Very heavy load and stress testing techniques were used to assure the bank that PRO AFP to PDF would run well in the bank’s IT environment, and that it was completely compatible with their print fles, as well as capable of handling their high retrieval volumes.
Results
PRO AFP to PDF was successfully placed into production to replace the legacy program on schedule and on budget.
The bank achieved a very rapid payback of 125% ROI in the frst year. Over fve years, projected savings are $3.1 million. These savings are the result of reduced license and support costs, as well as reduced hardware costs.
Next Steps
Based on the success of the PRO AFP to PDF roll-out, the bank will execute several follow on projects with Crawford Technologies. CrawfordTech’s SunRise server has been selected and tested for implementation in conjunction with PRO AFP to PDF, providing the bank with even better performance and allowing the bank to defer hardware acquisitions that were originally anticipated for handling peak transaction loads.
The bank will also implement Crawford Technologies’ Riptide® solution to improve productivity when multiple documents from the bank’s repositories are required for customer service, compliance, staff functions and reprints.
The PRO AFP to PDF platform will be upgraded to include PRO Transform Plus for Accessible PDF, enabling the bank’s customers who have visual or cognitive impairments to receive their statements in Accessible PDF format and utilize them with assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays. Leveraging PRO Transform Plus for Accessible PDF ensures that the bank’s electronic document delivery system will be fully compliant with ADA Section 508 regulations.
