Enterprise Solutions providing process innovation

1. Gulf Insurance Group
With Help from KnowledgeWare's Construction
Workstation-GUI, Gulf Insurance Group Seizes
the Moment to Migrate to Client/Server
It was an instance when timing meant everything. Urgent user needs, the
introduction of KnowledgeWare's Construction Workstation-GUI, and
a switch to client/server technology all came together at once.
For Glen White, vice president of Information Systems at Gulf Insurance
Group, the convergence meant the perfect opportunity to build the ideal
information system from the ground up.
To accomplish the task, White turned to KnowledgeWare's Application
Development Workbench8, an integrated CASE solution that provides
complete life-cycle support for information engineering.
From the Traditional to the Totally New
Until the late ' 80s, Gulf Insurance Group, a large regional company,
carried traditional lines of insurance business. Its underwriting was typi-
cally straightforward, relatively uncomplicated and highly regulated.
The status quo changed dramatically in 1988, when the firm decided
to place greater emphasis on specialty insurance. With the formation of
Glen White, vice president of Commercial Insurance Resources, Inc. (CIRI), Gulf Insurance Group embraced
Information Systems, chose a mission to seek out highly profitable niche markets.
KnowledgeWare's Construction
In these largely non-regulated arenas, the underwriting process becomes very
Workstation-GUI to rapidly complex. It involves a complicated mixture of reinsurance contracts supported
develop a client/server-based by multiple reinsurers. The entrepreneurial underwriters at CIRI were more
information system that than capable of handling the intricacies. Unfortunately, their mainframe-based
provides quick response to information system wasn't.
business changes.
There was little automation and no integration. Clerks spent countless hours
rekeying data. Even with this massive effort, there was still a great deal of in-
formation the underwriters simply couldn't access. Kent Ziegler, vice president
of finance, summed up the problem: "We knew that the system we had would
never build this business."

2. Kent Ziegler (I), vice president of
finance, and Beth Lee, business
analyst, find the integrated data-
bases of their new Construction
Workstation-GUI developed
application mean a tremendous
savings in employee hours.
Management wanted CIRI to continue its fast-paced growth, but without an expo-
nential increase in staff. White's challenge was to develop an information solution
that offered quick response to business conditions, while simultaneously supporting
rapid volume increases.
Switch to Client/Server and Graphical User Interface
His strategy was to design a system with graphical window layouts that would
access company databases. White felt strongly that the system should be oriented
toward staff professionals instead of data entry clerks. He wanted underwriters
to be able to point and click — no typing skills needed — to easily perform their
business tasks. The system would help automate the entire insuring process, from
the first customer contact through the policy renewal. Information entered once
would never have to be reentered.
"We have to support everything from a one- or two-person office to a large branch with more than 200
users. We felt we could do that better with client/server."
White decided to migrate CIRI to a client/server environment, with communications
programs acting as go-betweens among a host system in Fort Worth and work-
stations connected to local LANs at offices scattered from New York to Texas.
Client/server technology was chosen for three primary reasons: to put more com-
puting power into the underwriters' hands; to facilitate application development;
and to provide quick reaction to business needs. "We have to support everything
from a one- or two-person office to a large branch with more than 200 users. We
felt that we could do that better with client/server, and from my perspective, I feel
that it's less expensive than building on the mainframe," White said.
Bringing KnowledgeWare into the Process
To simplify the development process, the IS team turned to KnowledgeWare.
Gulf Insurance Group was committed to IBM's AD/Cycle and application deve-
lopment on the OS/2 platform. The Application Development Workbench was the
first AD/Cycle-compliant CASE toolset to take advantage of OS/2 and Presentation

3. Manager, IBM's graphical user interface. The evaluation team was also confi-
dent that KnowledgeWare would sustain the toolset with quality support and
product innovation.
Planning sessions for the project got underway in September 1990. By December,
the team put together an information engineering proposal. JAD sessions started
in March 1991. Using the Planning and Analysis Workstations, White's staff did
high-level data and process modeling, defining critical success factors and busi-
ness objectives. Their application development plan pinpointed seven areas that
would yield the best business benefits in the least amount of time.
"Basically, we were up with the first application in 12 months, which we considered very impressive."
"Basically, we were up with the first application in 12 months, which we consid-
ered very impressive," said Chris Dostal, systems manager and co-manager of the
Application Development Workbench development project.
Emergence of the Construction Workstation-GUI
Gulf Insurance Group was in the process of building an inquiry application when
it decided to utilize KnowledgeWare's Construction Workstation-GUI to aid in its
development. The Construction Workstation-GUI tool helps streamline develop-
ment of client/server and cooperative applications running on intelligent worksta-
tions, network file servers and mainframe hosts.
The Construction Workstation-GUI offers two diagrammers — a GUI layout dia-
grammer and an online help diagrammer — which are integrated with the Design
Workstation. From design specifications, the Construction Workstation-GUI gen-
erates COBOL source code and resource files, which are needed to implement
applications with graphical user interfaces.
Time savings were dramatic using the Construction Workstation-GUI, according
to White. "We got the tool in, did the evaluation and were able to pull in all the
components we needed within six weeks," he said.
The GUI diagrammer helps define Presentation Manager windows and dialogs.
Using special toolboxes, developers can easily add controls such as push buttons,
scroll boxes, radio buttons, bit-map graphics and icons.
Through a series of dialogs, the Construction Workstation-GUI defines user events,
such as a button click, a mouse move, or other similar activities that are tied to a
specific process. These definitions are accomplished using the module action dia-
grammer and enriched COBOL, both provided by the KnowledgeWare product.
Gulf Insurance Group's Construction Workstation-GUI project was a pilot to deter-
mine the tool's capabilities. Questions needed to be answered. Would the tool place
limitations on the developers? Would it interact with programs previously written
in Presentation Manager? According to developers who worked on the pilot, the
KnowledgeWare solution was easy to learn, integrated well with the previous
applications and generated excellent code. The pilot went into production.

4. Julie Evans, IS analyst, found the tool to be strong on screen painting. "The en-
riched syntax on the Construction Workstation-GUI product is outstanding," she
said. "Instead of having to write 20 lines of code, you can retrieve data from a
window by writing a single 'get' statement."
The enriched COBOL verbs also help define edit and validation logic. In addition,
the online help diagrammer allows developers to build appropriate help subsys-
tems, which can be accessed through menu or control selections. When the appli-
cation has been completely defined, the Construction Workstation-GUI generates
the GUI resource files, COBOL programs and supporting help files.
According to Dostal, the developers were glad to see that the Construction Work-
station-GUI tool was consistent with the way they had already been working. For
instance, they had developed a documentation format for the technical design of
windows. The format was very structured; each designer had to decide how each
object on the window reacted to each stimulus. "When the Construction Work-
station-GUI tool came out and we had some of the early demos, it was interesting
to see that much of what we were putting in as we built the windows were things
that we had been documenting," Dostal said.
Chris Dostal (I), systems
manager, and Harold Hinkhouse,
information systems engineer,
were impressed that Construction
Workstation-GUI allowed them to
have their first application up and
running in 12 months.
The goal at Gulf Insurance Group is to use the Construction Workstation-GUI
solution as much as possible, and to standardize development through the use
of templates. The developers have had success using templates for background
programs dealing with database access, error checking and calculations. In much
the same way, they're planning to use GUI templates to speed development of
graphic interfaces.
A Decision With Beneficial Results
From Ziegler's viewpoint, both developers and users have decidedly benefitted
from information engineering and the move to client/server. Although it's difficult
to quantify, he feels that integration alone enables the firm to get contracts out
more quickly. "In the past, people kept different databases and spec sheets that
didn't connect," he said. "All that has changed now. Everything is integrated. It
will mean a tremendous savings in terms of hours."

5. Over the years, Gulf Insurance Group's enterprise data model has grown and been
adjusted, but the essence of it hasn't changed. "This is really tremendous," said
Dostal. "Nowhere before in our company had we had that volume of information
about the entire enterprise in one spot."
According to Dostal, the way the firm's process decomposition is defined, much
of the highest level of information is untouched and remains the same. "It's easy
to know where to add subsequent lines of business," she said. "We have a prece-
dent for going forward. The consistent format leads to very smooth progress."
The developers didn't expect to see time savings in the first application. But they
did, in the form of reduced maintenance requirements. Significant gains became
apparent during the second phase of development, which built on the initial analy-
sis. According to Beth Lee, business analyst, this ready resource makes subsequent
application development easier. "I'll say from start to finish we'll have the second
line of business applications up in four to five months, with user buy-in for their
time — which to me is incredible," she said.
(L-R) Information systems analysts
Kathy Rogers, Gregg Birdsall and
Julie Evans found the enriched
syntax of Construction Workstation-
GUI to be outstanding.
Change Management, the Largest Challenge
The biggest challenge at Gulf Insurance Group? Overwhelmingly, from anyone
involved in the migration, the response is "managing change." Not only did the
company change the way it worked internally, but it altered its technology platform
as well. The IS group was simultaneously retooling developers, educating users
and establishing new work flows throughout the organization.
The familiar, but counterproductive, methods were replaced with a better way
of doing business. "We told users, 'Don't tell us what you're doing now, because
you're limited by the system. Tell us what you want to do,'" said White. This forced

6. the users to think. "They'd say, This would be really nice.' And that's what we
did. We built the nice," he added.
It was a tall order. But totally within the mission of IS. White believes strongly
that his department should be the agent of change. His view of the not-too-distant
future is that the planning module — really the model of the business — will go to
a business person. Basically, application development will require more knowledge
of the business, and good technicians, but not coders. That's where White sees the
radical transformations taking place.
One thing, however, will remain constant: the business perspective. "If we can't
participate in the business needs, we're not doing our jobs well," White said. "We
didn't do anything for the sake of technology, but to support the business."
In 1987, the CIRI organization was writing $0 in premiums. By 1993, CIRI under-
writers were writing $195 million with a staff of fewer than 60, in an industry
where 100 people are often needed to support $50 million in premiums. By all
accounts, IS support is serving the business well.
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