Case Study by Dr. André Wickenhöfer from Provinzial NordWest AG and Björn Brinkmann from BBHT Beratungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. Provinzial NordWest (PNW) successfully introduced workflow automation with Camunda in 2014. As part of these BPM activities, more than 60 processes have already been automated in the company, mostly integrating customers and other business partners. This talk addresses the technical, organizational and methodological challenges that introducing workflow automation presents, and shows one possible way to mitigate these. It also shows how various customer groups can be reached by smart process design and present the decentralized approach for knowledge exchange and the development of process applications within PNW.

1. The Three Pillars of Workflow Automation at Provinzial
NordWest
Camunda Day Amsterdam, 5 June 2019
Dr. André Wickenhöfer (Provinzial NordWest AG)
Björn Brinkmann (BBHT Beratungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG)

2. Our Business Districts and some KPIs of Provinzial NordWest
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer2
As of 12/2018
Premium
in Mio. EUR 3.464
Equity
in Mio. EUR
Employees
515 1101.299
1.584 370 118 69
3.085 1.690 892 192
135
65
163
1.464
249
71
Our IT Department consists of about 300
Business Analysts, Developers and Operators
5 June 2019

3. Agenda
3
1 Workflow Automation at Provinzial NordWest – Status Quo
2 The Three Pillars of Success – Organisation, Method And Technology
3 Outlook …and Conclusion
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer5 June 2019

4. The Objective (2014): A central workflow automation platform intensifies the process
orientation in our application-portfolio and makes the execution of cross-application and
(semi)-automated processes possible.
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer4
VertragPartner
Rechnungs-
prüfung durch DL Leistung
Exkasso
Text
Regel-
werk
AktivitätenMnt
Schaden-
Meldung
+
Rechnung
Regel-
werk
Leistung
Inkasso
AktivitätenMnt.
Schaden-
Meldung
+
Rechnung
VertragVertrag
Partner AktivitätenMnt AktivitätenMnt
Exkasso
Text
Leistung
Rechnungs-
prüfung durch DL Leistung
LeistungLeistung Inkasso
Workflow Automation with Camunda
functional
orientation
process
aorientation Project Team
„Workflow Automation“ (2014)
5 June 2019
x

5. Milestone I: Automating the cross-division process „Request for Insurance Documents“ for
both sales agents and back office workers
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer5
version 1.0 (2014)
 used by sales agents and back office workers
 11 document types (e.g. Certificate of Contribution)
latest version (2018)
 extended for customers to be used as a self-service
 13 document types
iterative and incremental improvement
5 June 2019

6. Prüfung beauftragen
und Bericht
empfangen
Milestone II: The second process „Leistungsfall bearbeiten für Kraftfahrt-Glasbruch“ was used
to fill in existing technology gaps and to build up know-how in the team
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer6
Vertrag
identifizieren
Deckung und
Doppelanlage
prüfen
Schaden
anlegen
Werkstatt als
Schadenpartner
finden/ anlegen
Leistungs-
art zuordnen
Schadensach-
verhalt prüfen
autom. Zahlung
prüfen und
durchführen
Schaden
schließen
Invoice
(=damage
claim)
audit
request
audit
report
Dienstleister-
integration
Integration of
external service
providers
Business Rule
Management
User-Task-
Handling
Handling of
unavailability of
webservices
5 June 2019

7. Status Quo (2019): Besides automating „classical“ insurance processes, we also use Camunda
BPM for creating our outbound correspondence with M/Text
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer7
2
7
36
41
56
68
2
25
71
124
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
# Processes # Business Rules
Camunda DMN is
replacing our existing
Business Rule Engine
and is very well
accepted
2016 2017 2018 2019 (Forecast)
FNI1 49.908.045 88.822.752 492.198.053 ~550.000.000
EDE2 303.120 41.713.100 855.023.438 ~3.200.000.000
1Flow Nodes Instances
2Executed Decision Elements
5 June 2019

8. Agenda
8
1 Workflow Automation at Provinzial NordWest – Status Quo
2 The Three Pillars of Success – Organisation, Method And Technology
3 Outlook …and Conclusion
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer5 June 2019

9. An essential factor of success is the triad of Organisation, Method and Technology
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer9
Organisation
MethodTechnology
5 June 2019

10. The development of the processes takes place decentrally in the respective departments
(Business-IT-Alignment). Methodical and technical support is provided centrally from IT
Architecture / Central Development.
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer10
Leistung
Komposit
Workflow
Vertrag Angebot
Berechtigung
Vertrag
Allgemein/
Komposit/Leben
Kommunikation
…
Partner
…
…
…
…
…
…
IT-Arch./
Central Dev.
3
13
10
8
11
10
1
?
??
Allgemeines Anliegen mitteilen
Bankverbindung ändern
Name/Adresse ändern
SEPA-Mandat erteilen
Vollmacht erteilen/widerrufen
…
(Kunden-)Registrierung durchführen
(Kunden-)Account aktivieren/sperren/
entsperren/löschen
Mobilfunknummer/Kennwort/Benutzername
ändern/zurücksetzen
…
Schaden mitteilen/anlegen
Schaden regulieren
Betrugserkennung durchführen
Geldeingang verarbeiten
Wetteranfrage durchführen
…
Sicherungsbestätigung verarbeiten
Vertragsänderung mitteilen
Vertrag beenden
Versicherungsunterlagen anfordern
Jahresfahrleistung verarbeiten
Digitales Notfallmanagement einrichten
…
Organisation
MethodTechnology
5 June 2019

11. We established a bpm@pnw-Community to bring together Business Specialists, Business
Analysts and Developers.
BPM
Blog
BPM
Training Courses
BPM
Community Day
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer11
About 40 posts/year
2 courses of 5 modules per year,
about 30-40 participants
1 day, 2 parallel tracks,
most talks from project teams
Organisation
MethodTechnology
5 June 2019

12. 3 weeks
Process applications are developed agile. We support that with our own
lightweight BPM-Framework.
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer12
Sprint
Backlog
specification
implemen-
tation
test
modelling
Product
Backlog
Product
24 h
Organisation
MethodTechnology

13. Modeling Guidelines
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer13
The guidelines contain standards for
■ the usage of BPMN 2 notation elements
■ naming conventions
■ appreance aspects like direction, sizes, etc.
and Design-Patterns and Best-Practices like
■ Usage of error–boundary events vs.
evaluating results in gateways
■ How to avoid redundant processinstances
(idempotency)
Comfortably readable and comparable process models are
a key success factor for Business-IT-Alignment.
specification
implemen-
tation
test
modelling
Organisation
MethodTechnology

14. Specification guidelines – A process application is more than the
process model
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer14
Process application
Process
Model
Service-
Integra-
tion
Spec.
search policy
[Web-Service]
Siebel-
Activity
Spec.
Start Process
[Process interface]
Web-
Service-
Contract
Process context
DWH
Process-
context
Spec.
Authori-
zation-
concept
User-
Task-
Spec.
Business-
Rule-
Spec.
DMN-
Model
House-
keeping
Spec.
specification
implemen-
tation
test
modelling
Organisation
MethodTechnology

15. Implementation Guidelines & Best Practices
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer15
Homogeneous Development-Environment
Naming & coding conventions
Versioning of Java code in process applications
Usage of Callactivities
Usage of Scripts-Tasks vs. Java-Delegates
Since Camunda is very lightweight there is no need for
complex Implementation Guidelines.
specification
implemen-
tation
test
modelling
Organisation
MethodTechnology

16. Testing Guidelines help to reduce the quantity of test-cases
5 June 201916
access channel
channel-integration-layer
backend-integration-layer
backend
Schadenmeldung
WebApp
PART Kompas Leistung Vivako
…
System WoWi
automated
Level
Schadenmeldung
REST-API
Schaden-WoWi
FTP
Partner
SOAP-API
Leistung
SOAP-API
Vertrag
SOAP-API
manual
Component-
Test
Schadenmeldung Prozessanwendung
Unit-
Test
Integration-
Test
End-2-
End-Test
Test automization is the fundament for continous process
improvement.
specification
implemen-
tation
test
modelling
Organisation
MethodTechnology
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer

17. Camunda allows a seamlessly integration in the application-portfolio of
the Provinzial NordWest
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer17
modeling/
develop-
ment/
test
staging/
deploy-
ment
runtime
tasklist/
usertask-
interfaces
integra-
tion
(Service-
task)
business
rules
(DMN)
reporting/
monito-
ring
authori-
zation
adminis-
tration
Part of Camunda BPM
extension to the standard/
integration in application portfolio
Organisation
MethodTechnology

18. The Excel-Driven-Integration-Tests and the DMN-Testtool are important
tools for test-automization appart from unit-tests
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer18
modelling/
development/
test
DMN-Testtool
Excel-Driven-
Integration-Test
Backendintegration
Backend
PART Kompas Leistung Vivako
…
Partner
SOAP-API
Leistung
SOAP-API
Vertrag
SOAP-API
Schadenmeldung Prozessanwendung
Organisation
MethodTechnology

19. The integration architecture facilitates a channel and user group
comprehensive usage of process applications
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer19
integration
(Service-task)
private
customer
insurance
broker
Sparkasse
(reseller)
accomodation
broker
Process claim notification
FTP
REST-Layer
WebApp WebApp WebApp
website broker portal OSPlusERP-systemKanal
User group bank
mail/fax
Sicherungs-
bestätigung
verarbeiten
Data extraction (AI)
Scannen
The integration of different user groups in the same
process is essentially for efficient workflow automation.
Organisation
MethodTechnology

20. tasklist/
usertask-
interfaces
1
Integrating all user groups into the User-Task-Management creates
customer experience and allows to reduce processing time.
By integrating the user groups „customers“ and
„insureance broker“
■ the process transparency has raised,
■ media breaks are avoided,
■ processing time is optimized
■ and overall process costs are reduced.
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer20
customer
customer portal
Insurance
broker
broker portal
sales agent backoffice
Prolive
Organisation
MethodTechnology

21. Low-hanging fruits are croped with Camunda Optimize
- higher ones with DWH-integration
5 June 2019 Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer21
reporting/
monitoring
automization
user tasks
analysis
Optimize
Organisation
MethodTechnology

22. Inhalt
22
1 Workflow Automation at Provinzial NordWest – Status Quo
2 The Three Pillars of Success – Organisation, Method And Technology
3 Outlook …and Conclusion
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer5 June 2019

23. The roadmap for the further development of the platform is closely coordinated with the
users.
The Next Milestones:
Establish Camunda Optimize
Integrate AI, e.g. for making automated decisions
„Camunda in a box“: Using Container and
Cloud Technology
Establishing Embedded Engines (both BPM and DMN)
Replace Signavio with Cawemo On-Premise
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer23
+ 1 Year + 2 Years 3-5 Years Target
5 June 2019

24. BPM has successfully established at Provinzial NordWest and excites both Business and IT
Departments
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer24
Organisation Method Technology Successful
BPM
5 June 2019
x x x

25. Thank You For Your Attention!
Any Questions?
Camunda Day Amsterdam // Brinkmann / Wickenhöfer25
Dr. André Wickenhöfer // Abteilungsleiter IT-Architektur / Zentrale Entwicklung // andre.wickenhoefer@provinzial.de
Björn Brinkmann // Enterprise Architect, Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter // bjoern.brinkmann@bbht.de
5 June 2019