Davis Vision Sets Sights on Integrating System z With Open Systems

by Mary E. Shacklett
July 9, 2008

Davis Vision IT continues to look for every opportunity to “table-ize” as many application variables and settings as possible whenever it builds new applications. By using tables, it becomes very easy to simply “turn on” variables to meet a specific user request—without major development change work. 

Reaping the Business Benefits of Application Integration 

Davis Vision started to see end business benefits from its application renovation and integration—but it didn’t happen right away. 

“When we first rolled out browser-based screens for data entry and inquiries, we encountered a lot of resistance from end users who had been with the company a number of years,” says Moore. “They were used to the 3270 green screens, and the efficiencies they had developed with these screens over the years. On the other hand, the portal-based screens were very helpful to our newer people, because we were able to incorporate ‘help’ documentation as well as simplified navigation.” 

With simplified data entry through a browser-based interface, call center training of new hires has gone from months to weeks. Traditionally, most call centers generally experience high turnover, and while Davis Vision has very low turnover, the difference was still very significant.

“With these new browser-based screens, new hires in the call center learn more quickly,” says Moore. “The streamlining of the transaction also gives them less that they have to learn.” 

Davis Vision looks at cost per claim and also at call center metrics such as the number of full-time employees compared to the number of calls, the cost per client, the cost per call, uptime, and transaction time. “We met or exceeded all our metrics last year,” says Thibdeau. “I’ve always found these kinds of tangible returns to the business more valuable than trying to compute a highly complex Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), because what do you choose to amortize? What do you base calculations on? … I would rather take the time to deliver value to the business.” 

Concluding Remarks 

Davis Vision’s exponential growth as a company over the past 10 years has been well-supported by a scalable System z mainframe at its core that’s now complemented with open systems that Web-enable applications. 

“We’re taking an evolutionary approach to our application development,” says Thibdeau. “Our core applications have been around for a long time, and we’re continuing to leverage System z applications across other servers and network architectures. We also recognize that we need relational technology to advance many of our new business intelligence and software applications. We will continue to team mainframe-critical application engines with the open systems environment, and are now in the process of determining where we want to go with the connecting middleware that will be needed to make all this happen.”