Distributed Scanning of Archive and Backlog Files

This is the DXC WebScan story of the Public Prosecutor's offices in the state of
Baden-Württemberg

Purpose

Having successfully operated DXC WebScan within the courts in the state of Baden-Württemberg (program “eJustice WebScan”) the decision was taken to roll out the software to all the Public Prosecutor's offices in Baden-Württemberg. However, before doing so, DXC WebScan had to prove that a reliable and well-performing service was feasible to scan large stacks of documents simultaneously in the distributed scan locations.

Solution

Understanding the Public Prosecutor's requirements regarding the operational aspects of the solution for their offices, the decision was made to implement a DXC WebScan environment, that was sperate to the already existing one for the courts. This allowed for both load- and performance-testing of the service without interfering with the “eJustice” program.

The results of the testing carried out led to key, measurable improvements that could easily be addressed due to a combination of the modular architecture of DXC WebScan and the introduction of server clustering capabilities.

Context

In January 2015 the program “eJustice” started with the goal to transform the way working in the courts and public prosecutor's offices of the state of Baden-Württemberg away from a paper based into a fully digital environment. This transformation would enable 2.5 million legal proceedings (per annum) to move away from paper files and letters by scanning both incoming documents and document archives with the software “eJustice WebScan” as the entry point for future digital solutions introduced within the overall program.

Challenges

Two major reasons led to the decision to introduce a separate project for the Public Prosecutor's offices in parallel to that already running DXC WebScan-project for the courts.

Firstly, the project for the courts had already reached the rollout-phase in 2018 and was aligned with the rollout of an e-folder-solution*, while the Public Prosecutor's offices intended to use DXC WebScan primarily to scan Archive and Backlog Files. The e-folder rollout had to progress without interruption.

Secondly, with an estimated volume of 900 batches consisting of 500-1500 pages each, scanned in 19 distributed locations per day, the expected size and scale of the batches exceeded the references of all other known DXC WebScan projects, that where live at that stage. To ensure a well-performing service, load- and performance-testing needed to be completed successfully before the start of any productive use.

Success Factors

The key to the project’s success lay in the modular architecture of DXC WebScan.

Each step in the DXC WebScan-process is separate within the software and both the configuration and interfaces are interchangeable. This meant that the DXC WebScan-team could precisely target certain aspects of the software and a continuous process of analysis and software improvements could be established.

This led to performance improvements in each process step and an overall extension of the underlying architecture, such as the introduction of multi-threading features. The processing of batches, documents and pages could now be run in parallel and distributed over a cluster of application servers. These improvements meant that DXC WebScan could scale both vertically, by increasing the hardware performance, and horizontally by adding new server nodes into the cluster.

After implementing and testing the new features all load- and performance-tests have been passed successfully leading to a go-live of the DXC WebScan for the Public Prosecutor's offices.

All changes implemented since the ‘go-live’ have been incorporated into the DXC WebScan product and are therefore available to all customers. The process of performance analysis and optimisation, which had been started within this project, is still part of the current product development cycles and has resulted in additional improvements since its initial success.

*e-folder is the name for a public sector specific document management system