Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Polish Printing Company Chooses HP and Transforms Country-Wide Process
Overview
Country or Region: Poland
Industry:Government
Customer Profile
Leading Polish Printing Works Polska Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych (PWPW) personalises driving licence and car registration documents on behalf of the Polish Government.
Business Situation
PWPW wanted to provide an infrastructure to support the fast and accurate exchange of information between its disparate county offices and help the Ministry of Internal Affairs reference up-to-date car registration details quickly and easily.
Solution
Microsoft and HP worked together to design and implement an integrated solution for the fast and effective exchange of information between PWPW’’s 400 county offices, its head office, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The solution is based on Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2002, SQL Server™ 2000, Webservices, and the.NET Framework.
Benefits
Safer and more accurate car registration process
Clearer view of car registration details helps tackle car crime
Complies with EU regulations
Microsoft and HP work together to deliver a high-performance solution
Return on investment within three years / “Thanks to Microsoft and HP, we now have an IT infrastructure on which we can depend, and we expect to see a full return on our investment within just three years. It was definitely an investment worth making.”
Andrzej Pawlak, Director of Documents Centre, PWPW
Polish printing works company PWPW employs more than 2,000 staff, 200 of which need to process around 30,000 new documents a day. With 400 county offices in 16 independently-governed regions, or voivodeships, 40 disparate, locally-developed systems were being used. PWPW realised that it needed to implement an integrated IT infrastructure so that clerks in county offices could exchange car registration information more quickly and efficiently. PWPW decided to embark on a similar project for the personalisation of car registration documents. The company engaged with solution and services provider HP, which updated and extended the solution, based on Microsoft® technology. The central database at PWPW is also connected to the Central Registry of Drivers and Cars database (CEPIK) at the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MSWiA). Now PWPW and MSWiA receive accurate and up-to-date car registration details from local county office locations. As a result of the project, the ministry is now better placed to deal with the rising problem of car crime in Poland, and PWPW can provide its end customers with a significantly improved service.
Situation
As a new member of the European Union, Poland must embrace a number of initiatives that aim to speed up business processes across Europe. For the last few years, a number of Polish companies have been striving to adopt processes that support e-communications. With electronic documents fast becoming a must across Europe, this was certainly the case for Polish Security Printing Works Polska Wytwórnia Papierów Wartościowych (PWPW).
The state-owned company works alongside the Ministry of Infrastructure to personalise vehicle registration and driving licence documents for customers across Poland. Following the successful implementation of a system for the central personalisation of driving licence documents, PWPW wanted to implement a similar system for vehicle registration documents.
The project was also fully supported by the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MSWiA) as it could potentially support a key government objective called Safe Poland, which aims to reduce car theft. Andrzej Pawlak, Director of Documents Centre, PWPW, says: “We had a common goal to extend the existing driving licence system and worked together closely to ensure the success of the project.
“More than 3,000 clerks in county offices collect information from its 400 disparate independent offices. There was no central approach to collecting car registrations in the past. It was all done at a local level, which meant that we couldn’t ensure that all the same details were always collected in every office, in the same way.
“Local county offices looked after their own registrations and used their own systems to record the information. It was very disjointed. We needed to integrate the databases that held the details from over 40 disparate local systems and feed that information into one centralised database.”
Prior to the implementation of the centralised vehicle registration solution, PWPW produced blank documents, which were then localised by the county offices. Pawlak says: “We deal with up to 30,000 new documents a day. Using manual processes to do this was no longer an option.
“We needed to minimise errors, speed up the process, and look for an application that could help us integrate, transfer, and export data in the correct format.”
Solution
PWPW approached leading solution provider HP to manage, implement, and support an integrated solution based on Microsoft® technology. Pawlak says: “We have a four-year history of working with HP and HP has a good understanding of our business needs. Not only did HP implement the previous driving licence solution, but its hardware, training, and support offerings are excellent.”
Now each of the 400 local county office systems are based on Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 databases and use Microsoft BizTalk®Server 2002 to connect to a central BizTalk Server 2002 and SQL Server 2000–based central communication and integration hub.
To ensure historical car records were available, HP migrated information on 16 million vehicles from the previous systems. The new document management application is based on three layers:
•Client application—clerks in the county offices use this interface to access and input vehicle registration information into the uniform local databases based on SQL Server 2000.
•Transport layer—this runs on BizTalk Server 2002 Partner Edition in the county offices and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 Enterprise Edition at the central site. It ensures the timely, secure, and reliable transfer of vehicle data from the county offices to a central buffer database at the PWPW head office.
•Data exchange technology—the PWPW central site is responsible for delivering data from the central buffer database to a production database for document printing, or to the MSWiA central database using Microsoft .NET services. The MSWiA database holds information relating to car and registration details.
Pawlak says: “Now that new car registration information can be fed directly into the ministry database, ministry staff have a clearer view of car ownership and can keep tighter control over car theft across Poland.”
The solution was built using Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2002 development system and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Thanks to pre-built code libraries, HP could quickly integrate different elements of the solution without significant recoding. Using the .NET Framework also means that new applications can be added quickly and easily in the future.
Pawlak says: “We were certainly impressed by the speed with which HP was able to implement the solution. We received approval for the project in May 2004, implementation began in September 2004 and the solution was complete by October 2004. That’s a very fast turnaround time. Now, we have a much faster and more efficient process.”
Benefits
Faster and More Accurate Registration Process
Prior to the implementation, each of the disparate county offices personalised their own car registration forms. Now, PWPW works with one standard form that all the offices can use. Pawlak says: “With a centralised data repository and a standardised way of working, we’ve reduced the number of manual errors made and rendered the whole process of vehicle registration much safer.
“As a result of these improvements, we’ve found that we have greatly improved our relationships with our end customers who are much more satisfied with the service we provide. It’s a real step forward for us, and one that we hope to build on in the future.”
Clearer View of Car Registration Details Helps Tackle Car Crime
It was vital that PWPW could exchange vehicle registration information with MSWiA staff quickly and easily. Pawlak says: “One of the key requirements for the ministry was to reduce the incidences of car crime in Poland.
“Thanks to the implementation of these systems at each site, PWPW staff can send information relating to new vehicle registrations directly to the ministry. As a result, MSWiA staff have greater confidence that the information in their database is up-to-date and accurate.”
Security was also a key issue for PWPW. Pawlak says: “As organisations begin to realise the importance of integrated systems, they also become more aware of the need for security. Our new infrastructure has been designed in such a way that users can only log into their system with smart cards. That way, we can be sure that no one can access information they shouldn’t see.”
Complies with EU Regulations
With greater emphasis being placed on e-government and e-business throughoutEurope, Polish organisations have been keen to keep pace. Pawlak says: “E-communication is vital for companies who want to optimise their processes and provide a more effective service to their customers.
“By implementing a secure and integrated infrastructure across county offices, PWPW, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we’ve completely transformed our mission-critical operations. And because we’ve standardised our IT environment, we’ll be better placed to exchange information digitally with other government organisations both inside and outside of Poland.”
Industry-Leading Support
As well as completing the implementation of the new solution, HP continues to support and manage the technology. Pawlak says: “The fact that HP provides such a comprehensive service was very important to us. We don’t have the in-house technical expertise or the time to worry about the administration of our technology infrastructure. Thanks to HP, we don’t have to.
“And thanks to Microsoft’s reliable suite of products, we have a robust and secure technology solution that just works—if there were to be any problem with it, we have the peace of mind of knowing that HP will be on hand to quickly sort it out.”
Microsoft and HP Deliver a High-Performance Solution
The majority of PWPW revenue comes from the company’s driving licence and car registration service. With so much importance attached to its personalisation service, PWPW needed to be sure that its technology partners could provide a secure and high-performance supporting system.
Pawlak says: “After Poland joined the EU, the number of used cars being imported into the country grew ten-fold. With that comes increased administration and more applications to be processed for PWPW. Around 70 per cent of PWPW revenue is generated from the personalisation of driving licences and car registration so we have to make sure we get it right.
“Thanks to Microsoft and HP, we now have an IT infrastructure on which we can depend, and we expect to see a full return on our investment within just three years. It was definitely an investment worth making.”
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System™ is a comprehensive, integrated, and interoperable server infrastructure that helps reduce the complexity and costs of building, deploying, connecting, and operating agile business solutions. Windows Server System helps customers create new value for their business through the strategic use of their IT assets. With the Windows Server™ operating system as its foundation, Windows Server System delivers dependable infrastructure for data management and analysis; enterprise integration; customer, partner, and employee portals; business process automation; communications and collaboration; and core IT operations including security, deployment, and systems management. For more information about Windows Server System, go to: