FORM INPUT SYSTEM

Using ABBYY FormReader in banking
Finansbank uses ABBYY FormReader for automatic input of credit card application forms
The principal thing we need from a form processing application is input accuracy. No input errors can be tolerated, as its our clients accounts that are at stake. ABBYY FormReader not only provided us with the best input accuracy there is, but it also provided us with a great increase in the speed of input.
Finansbank was founded in 1985 in Istanbul, Turkey and has been rapidly expanding ever since. The number of its branches has grown from just 4 at the beginning of the 1990s to more than 100 and is expected to increase as the bank is planning to open new branches in Istanbul and in many regions of Anatolia. FINANSBANK, Inkilap Mah. Dr. Fazil Kucuk Cad. No:11 Umraniye Istanbul Turkey www.finansbank.com.tr/english
Metin Ornek IT Project Manager, Finansbank (Turkey) When a client wants to obtain a credit card from a bank, he has to complete an application form and to provide some additional documents like the photocopies of his passport or revenue certificate. The information from an application form should be entered into the banks database together with the accompanying documents. At Finansbank, Credit Card & Store Card Application Form Processing employed 80 operators to process forms, and this personnel could handle only 1,000 forms per day. In 2000 the bank was expecting to reach 10,000 forms per day and thus it started to look for an effective form processing solution. IWith the help of technical specialists from Cadet Computer and Electronic Systems Limited, a network solution based on three ABBYY FormReader licenses was installed and the workflow was organized as follows: Bell&Howell 2000 DFB duplex scanners are used to scan application forms and appendices; in order to ensure complete correspondence between paper documents and their scanned images, an endorser is used (printer built into scanner); ABBYY FormReader automatically detects machinereadable forms and recognizes them using its powerful OCR/ICR/OMR/barcode recognition technologies; after that the recognized data are verified, both automatically with the help of automatic validation rules and visually by operators (all this guarantees 100% reliable results) and registered at the NovaManage EDM System; the necessary information is then exported into Oracle RDBMS and the appendices Xerox copies of passports or revenue certificates are saved as image files into a special folder, from which they can be viewed at any moment by the means of the NovaManage EDM System.

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Cadet Computer and Electronic Systems Limited was founded in 1995 to provide its customers with Computer Aided Design platforms, such as electronic design automation (EDA), and has been further expanded to develop Electronic Document and Workflow Management (EDM), as well as Product Data Management solutions (PDM). Gomec Sok. 37/Acibadem, Istanbul, Turkey Tel.: +3273520 www.cadet.com.tr
This automated data input system has exceeded all expectations. It takes the system only 90 seconds to scan, recognize, verify, register and export four A4 pages together with 3 to 5 attachments. As a result, Finansbank have been able to reduce the number of operators from 80 to 10, while increasing the throughput from 1,000 to 10, 000 forms per day. In 2001 Finansbank was able to acquire four additional licenses without making any changes in the overall architecture of the input system, which proves that the system is highly and easily scalable. Finansbank is planning to upgrade its system to ABBYY FormReader Enterprise Edition, which includes some additional features for reliable network processing of multipage forms.

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Case Study

Industry: Healthcare/Government
LA County Tracks STDs with Forms Processing
ABBYY FormReader Combines Excellent Accuracy and Affordability with Enterprise Support
Client: Los Angeles County, Department of Health Services
Program ABBYY FormReader Enterprise 6.0 Average Pages Scanned Per Month 2,000 Expected Time Savings 50 to 75 percent faster than manual entry
odays forms processing software is helping the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services manage its newest task: To track and monitor the instances of sexually transmitted diseases reported at the countys health clinics.
When the Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Program started tracking every STD case in the county, county administrators knew the sheer amount of data they planned to collect would fuel their need for a simple yet sophisticated automated solution to manage the approximately 40 new cases of STDs reported at the countys 14 public clinics each day. Each clinic prepares a two-page hand-printed form per patientmeaning the department must input as many as 2,000 pages or more each month. Each clinic submits a form about each new case daily, but some have special projects and each of those has its own forms as well, says Peter He, Epidemiology Analyst, Information Systems for the County of Los Angeles, STD Program.

The Problem: A Big Job

The STD program, which has more than 100 staff, is tasked with preventing and controlling 25 or more sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis B and others. It uses the daily statistics that it gathers to study the causes and distribution of STDs in order to help control them. The research results help the group design programs and policies and to evaluate their effectiveness. In addition, the division develops and implements new programs to promote safer sexual behaviors in populations in at-risk situations. Despite the complexity of its requirements, program administrators needed a solution that would quickly and accurately input data into its statistical analysis system and one that would not require hiring additional personnel. Every public health clinic issues a report to us every day, and we wanted the software in order to save labor on data entry, He says.
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The Solution: Quick Turn and Return
After researching its available forms processing options, the STD Program selected ABBYYs FormReader Enterprise Edition 6.0, partly because multiple users can share the software. Since the volume of information coming into the STD program will potentially rise as more special programs requiring additional form types are added, program administrators wanted to ensure that the software would be available to multiple workers simultaneously. So far, we have only one start of production so theres not much time-conflict on the scheduling, He says. Later on, we will have five or six people using this technology. The enterprise version of the software has more powerful capacity and six user stations. We anticipate we will need those capabilities soon. Allowing multiple people to simultaneously work on ABBYY FormReader will help the department meet its time and personnel goals. With this program, one user can set up a new survey without interrupting production scanning, says Mike Stuhley, president of FormTran, a Lake Forest, Calif.-based ABBYY reseller. Since it is an enterprise license, users arent locked to the same PC, and the performance is superior since one PC can be dedicated to recognition, while another is scanning and verifying data in order to increase throughput. Once it is scanned into the system, the STD Program transfers the data into a SAS system for data analysis, and then stores it in a shared database that tracks the data for use in research projects. The format also allows the county to readily report the statistics to state and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bureaus.
The Results: Fast and Fabulous
The STD Program immediately experienced accuracy and efficiency boosts. FormReader cuts data entry time for the STD clinic by 75 percent compared with manually entering data for forms using check boxes and is 50 percent faster for hand written forms, says He. As the operators skills improve, the time needed to process forms will be less and less, he adds. ABBYYs recognition engine delivers superior accuracywhich is critical due to the large amount of handwritten data each clinic collects. The computer enforces the same rules on every form which increases data integrity, says Stuhley. ABBYY FormReader does an excellent job of using rules to perfect data from a form. For example, if the department creates a rule that stipulates reports must communicate blood pressure as a ratio, the system will flag a blood pressure entry that contains only a single number, requesting human verification of the data, Stuhley says. The organization worked with FormTran to fine-tune its form and create rules in order to maximize recognition accuracy despite the complexity of recognizing handwritten forms. Accuracy is really important, says He. In fact, it is the most important thing of all. This additional step even further enhanced the solutions data entry process. Finally, the group determined that ABBYYs software was the most affordable choice on the market. Now, the program enables program members to concentrate on their most important task: overcoming the increasingly complex problem of sexually transmitted diseases.