Innovative System for National Assembly for Wales Built by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young UK plc using ILOG and FileNet BPM Technologies

Bracknell, UK and Paris – November 4, 2003 – The National Assembly for Wales (NAfW) has adopted an innovative system built by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young UK, and based on technology from ILOG® (NASDAQ: ILOG; Euronext; ILO, ISIN: FR0004042364) and FileNet® (NASDAQ: FILE) to streamline and automate the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidy award process. The pioneering solution, built using ILOG JRules™ Business Rule Management System and FileNet Enterprise Content Management product, shortens the process of awarding claims to Welsh farmers, making them the first farmers in the UK to receive CAP payments. In addition to enhancing process efficiency and customer service, the new solution also allows the NAfW Agricultural Department to stay compliant with the thousands of new and amended EU rules and regulations enacted each year.

In the first live use of the system, NAfW was able to pass on new subsidies to sheep and cattle farmers in record time. Just one day after the opening of the European Commission payment window on October 16, more than 90 percent of Sheep Annual Premium Scheme claimants had received their payments. Prior to the new system, it took several weeks to receive payment.

The EU CAP provides annual subsidies of more than £160 million for the 16,000 farmers in Wales. As a major source of income for the Welsh economy, it is vital that CAP subsidies are processed as quickly and efficiently as possible. Replacing the previous manual and paper-based claims process, the new system speeds up the claims process for recipients while allowing program administrators to implement rule and regulation changes quickly and easily.

Nick Lilley, Head of CAP IT at the Welsh Assembly, said: “ILOG’s BRMS has helped the Welsh Assembly to increase our agility and provide a flexible, cost-efficient service to Welsh farmers. Its ability to process the multitude of new rules and regulations coming out of Brussels each year was essential for us. Equally, by automatically processing the vast majority of the CAP claims, we are now able to pass on even more of the subsidies to our farmers.”

Using the new Cap Gemini Ernst & Young built system based on advanced business rule management and ECM features from the industry leaders, NAfW automated the claims process, freeing staff to focus attention on exception cases, in which claims fail the rules-based data validation step. Efficiency is increased by clearly highlighting why the claim has failed, making it easier for the Agricultural Department staff to rectify the problem as quickly as possible. The result is a dramatically shortened claims process, as well as a better realization of the program’s purpose through end-to-end process automation.

The ILOG JRules business rule management system also streamlines and simplifies the complex task of incorporating the 2,500 CAP rules and regulations that change each year. This is because ILOG JRules allows changes to be made in a matter of minutes rather than weeks by the non-technical business users within the Agricultural Department of Wales, through a simple point-and-click interface that uses common terminology, rather than a programming language. This eliminates the need for software specialists to write new software for new regulatory updates. The system is also able to deal with the occasionally ambiguous rules and regulations that require complex logic.

About ILOG
For more than 10 years, ILOG's innovative enterprise-class software components and services have helped companies maximise their business agility and improve operating efficiency. Over 1000 global corporations and more than 300 leading software vendors rely on ILOG's business rules, optimisation and visualisation technologies to achieve dramatic returns on investment, create market-defining products and services, and sharpen their competitive edge. For more details, please visit www.ilog.fr.

ILOG is a registered trademark, and ILOG JRules is a trademark, of ILOG. FileNet is a registered trademark of FileNet Corporation. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.