Legacy System Challenges
RPMS - Retirement Planning Management System
Solution for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education
Case Study
Organizational Background
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Department of Higher Education (DHE) operates and administers the state’s Optional Retirement Plan (ORP). The program became effective in October 1995 and covers roughly 6,000 participants, across the state’s 31 institutions of public higher education and the DHE itself. It has $765M in Assets Under Management. The ORP was developed as a portable alternative to the state’s traditional pension. Eligible employees may elect to participate in either the state employees’ pension (MSERS) or the ORP, which is a defined contribution plan. The Plan’s governing statute specifies the amount of both Employee and Employer Contributions. Participants select the Provider in which they will invest both the state’s and their own contribution.
"The Commonwealth engaged AI in Gov, Inc to design, create and implement an automated and enhanced solution to address our needs in operating and administering the Plan (Optional Retirement Plan), and achieved remarkable results with far-reaching implications. The AI in Gov platform has also greatly enhanced the DHE’s ability to ensure compliant operation of the Optional Retirement Plan."
- Project Stakeholder at Massachusetts DHE
Legacy System Background
The DHE ran their Optional Retirement Program (ORP) on a desktop-based MS Access Database called “ORP2000”. It was the basis for calculating the Plan’s Employer Contributions, creating and delivering contribution allocation files to Providers, calculating and remitting premiums for life and long term disability insurances. Separately, the database maintained important information about each participant’s status in the Plan.
$765 Million Assets Under Management
Approximately 6,000 active users
31 state colleges and campuses
Legacy System Challenges
Eroding User Satisfaction - Paper-based enrollment and participant profiles. The lack of a self-service portal resulted in lengthy delays in participant enrollment.
1.
Manual Processes - Manual reporting to investment companies. Manual systems interfaces leading to delays, errors, and poor visibility to transactional and programmatic performance.
2.
Visibility - Limited view of overall process and system performance. Commonwealth access to program management, performance, and admin. was limited by manual data collection and reporting.
3.
Reconciliation - Issues between two different state-wide payroll systems; risk of non-compliance with Internal Revenue Code. Manual and paper-based reconciliation process for a large system.
4.
Information Security - Production environment management no longer met the Commonwealth standards.
5.
The Solution
The Commonwealth engaged AIinGov, a Boston based AI company focused exclusively on Digital Transformation and Legacy Modernization for State Governments in the US. The charter was to take an end to end view of the Retirement Planning operation, broaden the system view to include all elements critical to the effective functioning of the operation and ensure that the solution is generalized and flexible enough to accommodate future changes and expansion to adjacent functions. Enabling real time, self-service participation, and improved management & reporting were key requirements.
Delivered in Less than 90 Days
In 90 days RPMS (Retirement Planning and Management Solution) an Enterprise wide, cloud based, scalable solution comprising a Plan administrator portal, ORP Participant portal and HR/Campus portal was ready for deployment. Core processes such as data capture, data validation, enrollment, processing (e.g. contribution calculations and allocations), interfaces, reconciliation, email communications were automated and integrated as required with DHE and partner systems. RPMS conclusively addressed the four issues identified by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology and more. It even has a built-in ORP email campaign system for driving awareness and program expansion
RPMS was modeled on AIinGov’s proprietary AI enabled PRISM platform that automates business application development, from requirements modeling and design to code generation. All process logic, screens, and interfaces for RPMS were modeled on PRISM with very limited coding. Any future change to RPMS, trivial or significant, will be a configuration change on the PRISM platform, making the solution perpetually flexible with the rapid deployment of error free changes.
The Difference
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Legacy System Challenges: Eroding User Satisfaction
RPMS Solution: Digital portals for access to real-time plan information for DHE admin, campuses, and participant self-service portal.
Legacy System Challenges: Manual Processes
RPMS Solution: Automated calculation of employer investment and retirement insurance contributions. Automated generation and delivery of allocation reports to investment providers.
Legacy System Challenges: Visibility
RPMS Solution: End-to-end drill down to any specific function or transaction in RPMS. Comprehensive, configurable data management and reporting dashboard.
Legacy System Challenges: Reconciliation
RPMS Solution: RPMS solution offers built-in record level reconciliation features across different agencies and accounts.
Legacy System Challenges: Information Security
RPMS Solution: State of the art AWS cloud based production environment, with monitoring tools, built in ticketing system, and email alerts. Meets all EOTSS’ security compliance standards
Impact
Accuracy & Efficiency
This system has the potential to deliver a 75% increase in system-wide operational efficiency
Speed
Calculation time reduced from 3 hours to just
5 minutes
Data Fragmentation
100% Elimination of data silos