Replacing an antiquated paper-based process with a real-time, online managed process.

An important component of the Australian Track Rail Corporation’s (ARTC) culture and values is Safety. As such, Safety related working procedures and processes to support this is paramount. One of these processes is the Incident Investigation Report and covers everything from major train-related incidents to minor office related incidents. For many years, the Incident Investigation Report Process was paper based. This proved to be cumbersome and error prone. The document was passed to reviewers via email, with a spreadsheet being used to record the status and whereabouts of the document as the investigation progressed. In addition, the paper-based process lacked visibility and transparency that made it hard to monitor and manage. The steps within the process were manual with workloads and priorities being managed by individuals rather than systems. This created an inconsistent approach with a significant performance difference between teams and team members. The process was subject to delays in correspondence and required follow-ups for updated information.

Approach

ARTC chose the Incident Investigation Report Process as one of their first business processes to automate using the Appian BPM (Business Process Management) Suite. ARTC engaged Innodev (now Dialog), to implement a workflow driven, customisable BPM solution. Dialog migrated the paper based process to a digital, online BPM solution that can grow and expand as the business grows.

Solution

• The overall solution involved: An analysis of ARTC’s existing process and complete Appian BPM solution that replaced their existing paper based process;
• On-site training, including documentation and weekly video updates to assist in ARTC’s learning of the Appian BPM Suite;
• SQL scripts used to populate lookup reference tables in the MySQL Appian database and XSD’s used to generate the Data Types used in Appian; &
• Images and instructions on how Dialog modified the Appian Tempo look and feel to better reflect the ARTC corporate image.

Benefits/Outcome

ARTC now have a more accurate and transparent highly regulated process. This electronic process also allows them to report more consistently which is of high importance due to regulatory requirements.