LBS BW

LBS BW relies on Software from Group 1 to create complex Printed Forms for Dispatch.
With a 35%, market share, the Landesbausparkasse Baden-Württemberg, formed by the merger of LBS Baden and LBS Württemberg in 2000, is the market leader among regional building societies. On average, 70,000 new customers come to LBS each year, of which 40% are younger than 25 years old. Even back in 2002 the LBS Baden-Württemberg had about 1.3M members and paid out approximately €2.14M, thereby helping to finance 56,000 housing schemes.
Higher performance Document generation
In 1998/99, with the background of the upcoming merger, the board of directors had already agreed to introduce common standard software for the various departments and had decided to implement a solution which was already in production at the LBS Münster. The initial objective was to find a formatting tool which would provide higher performance when creating documents. At the end of the year millions of account statements had to be produced which was always a challenge in respect of speed and system stability.
Following a test phase with solutions from various suppliers, a decision was made to go with DOC1 from Group 1. As a system integration and output management specialist and long time Group 1 software partner, RASTERPUNKT was given the job of implementing this highly adaptive formatting tool.
The project included consulting, installation and training the LBS employees. In addition a hotline was established to quickly and competently solve any production issues.
LBS Baden-Württemberg successfully adopts the System
Once the system was successfully put into production in Münster, it was clear that the solution should be made available to other regional building societies such as at the LBS Baden-Württemberg in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.
According to Rainhard Strübel the person responsible for software control and deployment of text systems at the LBS BW in Karlsruhe:
"It had mainly to do with the building society application itself, used in the various departments to automatically process account information. A major part of the application is a host-based text and documentation system for document creation and formatting, connected to the DOC1 software. DOC1 is used to generate documents to keep members informed on account movements”.

Basically the templates necessary to meet the requirements which had to be fulfilled for the LBS Münster had only to be adapted to the LBS BW conventions and internal guidelines before they could be successfully installed. The host-based text processing system for generating letters creates data, this is used as a batch text processing system by DOC1 to produce printed forms which are later merged with letters, stuffed into envelopes and sent to members. "In the first phase we used DOC1 at the end of the year to produce the annual statements. In January we send approximately 2.5M statements to our customers, that includes the state building subsidy, the subsidized pension contribution and miscellaneous enclosures. This is where the main advantage of DOC1 becomes apparent – its speed. Now, to create this large volume of account statements we only need a few days”, explains Strübel.
Alongside the annual dispatch of account statements the software is used on a daily basis to generate printed forms which would otherwise be too complex for the host system. "Let us take for example the loan approval statements. This is in fact a letter informing the member that his loan has been approved. Based on the different constellations of the various loan contracts, an individually adapted printed form is sent with the standard letter put together from single modules. The member simply has to complete the printed form, sign and send it back”, adds Strübel.
Like the DOC1 printed form, the main part of the letter is created during the night in batch processing mode. Because, as a general rule, the attachments to mass mailings such as the annual statement, contract confirmation or loan approvals are pre-printed, this process has been shown to be of real value. Management of these systems requires little effort because after installation and acceptance only small changes are necessary.
Introducing the DOC1 solution together with RASTERPUNKT
By way of introduction a five day workshop was held. The workshop together with the follow on implementation and adaption of the existing application made available from Münster, was conducted by RASTERPUNKT employees from the Grafenau office. "Specifically the RASTERPUNKT people gave us a lot of support in adapting the application. In the meantime we have learned to work independently with the system. If there are any issues of understanding we get can always get short-term competent help from the RASTERPUNKT hotline”, says Strübel.
 
In particular Strübel sees the advantages of the software in the enormous performance improvement in the preparation of mass printing materials in the host environment, meaning that all the data to be processed is available much sooner than print output. Apart from this, the application is well structured logically and easier to understand. Letters or printed forms can be put together quickly and in a user-friendly way, without having to abstain from using highly complex options. What’s more the system has been enhanced with a previewer which displays how a document design will be printed.
"Before we had this solution we had to outsource the preparation and printing of the annual statements at a service company. Now that we do this in-house, we can save both substantial time and costs. Overall, our reaction times are much shorter and we are very pleased with the solution we now have with the DOC1 text and document system”, says Strübel in summary.