Hartford Steam Boiler Ensures a Solid Implementation and Upgrade with Beacon
Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (HSB) is the world's largest insurer of equipment used by business, government, and industries worldwide by providing services and consulting in risk management, safety, reliability and efficiency. In addition, HSB provides engineering services in support of loss prevention and related equipment breakdown insurance. Headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, HSB has remote offices throughout the U.S. and Canada, international operations worldwide, and an affiliation with over 200 multi-line insurance companies. HSB Group, Inc., the parent company of HSB, is a wholly owned subsidiary of American International Group, Inc.
The Challenge
Originally, HSB was faced with increasingly complex reporting requirements that their GEAC Millennium legacy system proved too rigid to provide. A separate reporting system had been developed and maintained with feeds from the legacy ledger and additional processing to satisfy management reporting. The process was partially manual and error prone, time consuming and had users maintaining redundant data in multiple systems. The close process was taking weeks with staff focused on system mechanics instead of analysis.
HSB’s chart of accounts needed re-design. Procurement was a manual process. The payables process did not maximize payment terms and discounts. A separate reporting system had to be maintained because the General Ledger could not produce the necessary reports; the matching process was manual; and the asset acquisition process did not automatically post to the General Ledger. Additionally, HSB had recently implemented PeopleSoft Projects, Receivables and Billing. HSB wanted a single integrated PeopleSoft environment to facilitate the flow of engineering time and expenses for revenue tracking and also to Payables for employee travel reimbursement.
Subsequently, although HSB was in a good position to upgrade, having implemented a vanilla version while taking advantage of PeopleSoft robust functionality, they didn’t have the people or machine resources to perform their upgrade.
The Solution
HSB selected Beacon Application Services (Beacon) as the implementation partner due to our knowledge of their existing Millennium systems, our strong presence in the financial services industry, and our ability to rapidly implement improved business processes through the use of PeopleSoft systems. Beacon staffed the project with a relatively small and very knowledgeable team of professionals to ensure that HSB’s requirements would be understood and designed into the new system.
The initial engagement provided for project planning, requirements gathering and fit/gap analysis to be completed – complemented by prototyping as needed to show the HSB staff how the system would meet their requirements. Beacon facilitated JAD sessions to support an understanding of new system capabilities for an expanded chartfield key; management, Statutory, and GAAP reporting; allocations and budgeting. Prototyping the redesigned chartfield structure with sample conversion data provided necessary proof of concept for reports and showed users the ease of report development and tree maintenance. The demonstrations also highlighted automation of manual processes, thereby eliminating re-keying of data, reducing paper flow and implementing a generally streamlined closing process.
The Transition and Deploy phases delivered a system that met business requirements and ensured smooth deployment with minimal business interruption. Beacon’s experience allowed us to specify conversion rules against legacy data with minimum impact to operational legacy system support staff. In addition, we used extract, transform, and load tools to facilitate the data migration process.
HSB would turn once again to Beacon to assist with the upgrade to the new PeopleSoft, web-enabled version 8.4. Delivering an innovative approach to the upgrade entailed a partnership with Rollcage Technology for remote hosting of the upgrade, elminating the need for additional hardware purchases and strained DBA and technical resources. Beacon also led the functional development activities needed to prepare the users. Beacon evaluated the enhanced PeopleSoft functionality in context of the HSB environment and made recommendations for further streamlined business processes. In addition, Beacon updated and developed test scripts and training materials customized to HSB.
Benefits
In the initial implementation with PeopleSoft General Ledger and using nVision for management reporting, HSB was able to eliminate the separate management reporting system and related dual system maintenance and redundant data. This alone shaved days off the close process. Automating manual processes and replacing the standalone fixed asset system allowed HSB to reduce errors through system integration, help make daily processing more efficient and further streamline the closing process. Through the introduction of an automated purchasing system, requisitioning was no longer a paper-based activity and the extended buyer community was able to take advantage of item catalogue information and preferred vendor rates.
In the ensuing upgrade, HSB replaced a custom journal spreadsheet upload program and its customized chartfields with newly delivered ones. Beacon developed a process to recast hundreds of journal spreadsheets and nVision reports to reflect the new journal process and chartfields. There was a smooth transition to production with knowledgeable users of General Ledger, Payables, Purchasing, Projects, Asset Management, Receivables and Billing modules. Using a hosted upgrade approach, Beacon delivered a production ready environment for a fraction of the cost of typical upgrades.
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