MIP and Corticon – A Case Study
A little about the history of BRM
• You’ve probable heard this, but lets be sure
• Business Rules are those rules that tend to change a lot…
• They change regularly, and they differ between customers
• They cause all sorts of trouble:
• Scope Creep due to unforeseen complexities
• Bespoke Development due to customer uniqueness
• “Brittle” Systems due to resulting complexity of the code
• The evolution of logic technologies:
• We used to write everything in code - it’s all we had
• Then we discovered process, and BPM followed (80s-90s)
• Then we discovered business rules, and BRM followed (2000s)
Practical challenges implementing BRM
• If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
• “But we already have flexible rules in the system”
• “We already do most of that, why change now?”
• “What’s the difference where the rules live?”
• It takes time to get a feel for where this fits best
• We’re still learning - Everyone is really
• Especially challenging when you have a huge system with complex
logic already built in by various means
• The easiest place to tackle this would be in new projects
• With careful analysis it is easier to separate:
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System Logic
Process Logic
Business Rule Logic (step by step)
Our Case Study – Redwood and mobicred
• MIP saw an opportunity as we embarked on a new project
• Using an existing administration platform
• But facing demanding new requirements for rules in real-time
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http://www.progress.com/~/media/Success%20Stories/Corticon-CaseStudy-Redwood-Group.pdf
The challenge, the solution, and the benefits…
CHALLENGE
Develop a one-of-a-kind, online only revolving credit facility on
behalf of a customer, being mobicred, that would compete directly
with major credit cards like Visa and MasterCard and payment
options like PayPal, although more retail aligned and mass market
focused
SOLUTION
Selected the Integrated Lending System (ILS) from Progress partner
MIP Holdings Pty Ltd. built on the Progress Corticon Business Rule
Management System and Progress OpenEdge platform
BENEFIT
Accelerated its time to market, launching the new mobicred system
in just 4 months, from proof of concept to deployment
You want what now?
• What we have:
• MIP has the admin platform for Loans, including revolving Credit
• MIP has BPM / Workflow capabilities
• What’s the gap?
• We needed to fully automate decision making that usually takes
people and plenty of time in banking environments
• Basic information validations (ID #, age, etc)
• Risk assessment (including Credit rating based on history)
• Affordability assessment
• Produce an offer on facility amount and terms, based on risk
• The decision and offer must be “immediate” (sub 5 sec)
Building the solution…
Building the solution…
Only 0.2 seconds
in Corticon.
But this area is out
of our control!
Credit Rating
Trans Union
Corporate
Payer Blacklist
YES! We deliver responses in
time - typically within 3 seconds.
The results have been great!
• Redwood have delivered solutions to other customers
• This now runs at mobicred, Shoprite Checkers, Computicket, …
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Shoprite process >1,500 applications per day, approval rate < 10%
The customers can create their own risk assessment rules
They can design, implement and test them (we do assist in cases)
MIP system code is unaffected by differences in rules
Change is in BPM and BRM only
• We are now considering using Corticon for Projects at:
• Sanlam, PMSA/Profmed, MSO, Legalwise, 1 Life (Auto&General)
• Medical: Hospital pre-authorisations, claim payment, etc
• Investment: Premiums, Risk Assessment, Benefit calculations,
Future value estimations, etc.
• Leads Campaigns: Prioritisation based on lead quality assessment
Stories from the trenches
• MIP did not do everything perfectly  - far from it
• We tried to tough it out – rather get some help
• The interface can be picky
• XML doc must have certain structural elements with the
vocabulary (<WorkDocument>,<decisionServiceName>)
• Some complaints about where to start – others found it OK
• Errors can be a little cryptic
• Don’t try to change project or vocabulary names – no refactoring
• Get help to understand the returned XML doc structure
• Get help from Progress, AIGS, or an experienced partner
• Log/Record interaction times when 3rd parties are involved
Stories from the trenches
• Corticon is “stateless” – does not persist data
• You can audit decisions, but it remains remote from your platform
• MIP created the MIP Decision Service to assist:
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The Service handles service connectivity
Decision templates control the nature of decisions available
Each decision request is recorded in a DB table
The decision is linked back to Application context
Decisions can run sync, or be queued and run async (scheduled)
Data is retrieved using a procedure triggered before the decision
The response is recorded in the DB table
Response handling using a procedure triggered after the decision
MIP’s Decision Service …
Synchronous Application Code
Asynchronous Application Code
Decision Service
Decision Service
Decision Table
Job Scheduler
Decision Table
MIP and Corticon – A Case Study