Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance

---

Shared Document Management System

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance built a shared document management system that creates documentsused in insurance services and processes them up to the time of publication. Insurance services uses a large amount of documents, such as covenants or sales manuals related to insurance goods. Deregulation of financial services exacerbated competition in marketing, thus there is a greater need to create and modify documents. These documents must also be expeditiously distributed to branch offices, related companies, and agencies in concert with the release of any new product.
The creation of an XML document management system made document creation more efficient and speeded up the publication of new documents, making simultaneous publication with related companies and agencies possible.

Original document creation process

Originally, the creation of documents up to publication was as follows:

1.Document creation
A document creator created the document with a word processor.
2.Proofreading and printing (bookbinding)
Documents were proofread and printed for publication and binding.
Note that documents occasionally had to be modified during this process. If so, the printing company had to modify the latest master manuscript. This meant that the master document had to be kept and managed at the printing company, rather than at the company that created the document.
3.Distribution to branch offices, related companies, and agencies, and publication
A delivery company was engaged to distribute the bookbinded document to agencies all over Japan and the publication time may not be synchronized.
4.Document maintenance
Because of insurance fee changes for example, documents must be constantly revised. Each time this was necessary, the printing company was asked to modify the master manuscript.

About the new system concept

Using the above system was not efficient when documents had to be revised often. Even for small changes, like changing one chapter or phrase, the whole document had to be modified in a labor intensive manner.
Add to this the time for delivery and the entire process from creation to publication would take one or two months. Even then, there was no guarantee that all documents were simultaneously published and the cost of delivery had to be considered.

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance considered using XML to create and implement a system that would solve these problems and meet future system requirements necessary for future business strategies.

Implementation of an XML-based shared document management system

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance built a shared document management system that drastically speeded up publication and solved logistics and maintenance problems. This system is described below.
The benefits of this system were not just to simplify the process of digitalizing documents; it not only uses XML format to create and edit master manuscripts it also uses XML technology to allow an extensible workflow.

Managing master manuscripts in XML format
Documents are created in an RTF format with a word processor then converted to an XML format to be the master manuscript. The master manuscript is managed in an XML format with a hierarchical structure.

Creating, modifying, and viewing documents is now more flexible
- Creating documents
Documents can be created with no limit on chapter units, phrase units, and special terms.

- Modifying/revising documents
Before, to ensure that the pages lined up it was necessary to modify the whole document even for small changes. Now, an editor only needs to modify the original document in RTF format, then a tool converts the updated RTF file into XML format. In this way, editors do not need to modify a master manuscript.
Because the document is managed in a hierarchical structure, only the part to be modified needs to be edited.
Also, any changes can be viewed or downloaded with a Web browser.

- Viewing documents
Documents can be converted to HTML format to be viewed. This conversion is done with a selected tool. This tool can be calibrated to divide the document into separate HTML files, so that no one file is too large to load quickly or needs to be scrolled too much to easily view.

High speed simultaneous publication
Because the master manuscript is converted to HTML format, it can be quickly sent to all recipients, cutting logistics and printing costs.
The time previously taken to publicize a document has been cut from one to two months to the same day, because branches and related companies can receive the document via the Internet.
Once received, the master document can be converted to PDF format and printed on demand.

Features of shared document management system

The shared document management system has following features:

The time taken to publish documents has been drastically cut
XML has been used to provide a system whereby the a document can be automatically distributed via the Internet and published on the same day. Time no longer has to be spent proofreading, bookbinding, and delivering paper documents.

Adds flexibility to the document process
Because the master manuscript is in XML format, it can be stored in a hierarchical structure and easily be converted to other formats. Both computers and humans can easily read or modify the master manuscript.

Drastic reduction in cost
Because it is no longer necessary to delivery paper documents and each branch and agent can use existing facilities (the Internet, computers, and Web browsers, for example) to receive, view, and print documents, the cost of publishing documents has been dramatically reduced.

Results

Using XML technology has helped efficiency in the following ways:

• Amazing speed of publication (by automating work and cutting logistics)
• Flexible document process (by creating an XML master manuscript and using XML related technologies)
• Reducing costs (by automating processes, cutting logistics, and using the Internet)

Additional efficiency:

Promoting document standardization

Before XML was implemented, it was difficult to ensure that all document creators adhered to the same standards. The shared document management system makes it easy to regulate the structure and pagination of documents. This is a benefit of converting RTF documents to XML.

Reference data

Name: Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co,. Ltd.
Head Office: 27-2,shinkawa 2-Chome Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-8252, Japan
Founded: October, 2001
Sales Branches: 350
Service centers: 266
Domestic Agents: About 90,000
Assets: About 720 billion million yen
URL : http://www.ms-ins.com/english/index.html