In a bid to improve efficiency and customer service, the Maintenance Enforcement Program (MEP) of the Alberta Ministry of Justice has taken a service-oriented architecture approach to transform a previously paper-based and error-prone business process to an automated workflow system.
Called the Maintenance Information Management System (MIMS), the Web-based system was developed using BEA Systems Inc.’s WebLogic Server and WebLogic Integration, a set of products that provided the Ministry of Justice new opportunities for customer service improvement, Alain Coulombe, senior manager, strategic business services with the Alberta Ministry of Justice, said in a statement.
MEP provides services that help citizens abide by the terms of court-ordered maintenance and support payments. The program is staffed by 190 personnel in Edmonton and services over 100,000 debtors and creditors.
The move to upgrade came from a decision to replace the ministry’s outdated COBOL IDMS-based mainframe system, which has been running its MEP processes since the 1980s.
Currently, MEP manages approximately 50,000 case files. One of the challenges of the previous system was that MEP employees had to rely on manual data entry and a time-consuming paper-based system to enter and research information, respond to clients, and track individual cases. In addition, the system was slow, inefficient and prone to errors.
In order to match the right technology with their current business processes, MEP developed a framework for the new Web-based system that would also be integrated with an interactive voice response system from Avaya.
