The following illustrates how RulesTec can engage with its clients at all stages of a project to introduce rules based applications.

In this example, an insurance company is looking to improve its process for dealing with insurance claims.

The Board has been following trends in the business that are impacting their profitability. Firstly, the value of claims being processed continues to rise. Although balanced out by increased premiums, there is a feeling that current business processes are not coping well with the changing attitudes of consumers towards claiming on their insurance policy. Furthermore, the senior managers in the business feel uneasy that they cannot easily verify the accuracy of the business rules that are implemented their IT applications. Various options are under review by the company, both their IT Department and the Claims Processing Department are exploring potential solutions, one of which is to introduce a rules-based solution.

Consultancy from RulesTec is commissioned, to explore the options available to the insurance company and to make recommendations on the way forward. As a product independent Company, we are able to advise the insurance company on the most relevant products. Discussions and demonstrations are arranged with both the IT and Claims Processing staff and eventually a decision is taken to invest in rules technology

A RulesTec Consultant works with members of the insurance company’s management team to elicit the exact business rules that will need to be implemented. Most of the rules are easy to identify and gain unanimous agreement on. The rest require lengthy debate and reflection, but agreement is reached on their definition in time to avoid delaying the project.

RulesTec Consultants design the rules repository and enter the defined business rules into the Rules Engine. The remainder of the Claims Processing application is developed, including links to data sources and audit logs, and integrated with the Rules Engine.

Following a final review of the business rules by senior management, the system goes through a series of testing and verification phases, to ensure the new rules based solution makes the same decisions and recommendations as the existing application. Differences are investigated to ensure no errors exist in the new rules based solution.

Once in live operation, the rules engine will need little maintenance until the business evolves again and the underlying business rules have to change. By using the tools supplied by the rules engine vendor, members of the Claims Processing Department can make the necessary amendments, with a small amount of input from the IT Department to modify the procedural code as necessary.