Customer Profile

Kyphon is a $400M global leading spinal medical device company.  Since its founding in 1994, Kyphon has been dedicated to improving patient quality of life through restoration of spinal function with minimally invasive therapies. More than 11,000 physicians in 40 countries have been trained to perform balloon kyphoplasty, a standard of care for vertebral compression fractures with 310,000 patients treated to date. 

Kyphon takes seriously its commitment to 1,100 employees around the world.  Named one of the 50 Best Small & Medium Places To Work in 2005, Kyphon’s own corporate values state its commitment to employee empowerment, “Give employees the ability to make it happen. Provide continuous learning opportunities. Reward success.” 

Problem 

With a performance-driven and values-based corporate culture, Kyphon’s Human Resource department sought to automate ad hoc workflows for processes encapsulating document-based operations.  Kyphon required that these processes touch people, systems and processes at multiple points within the organization, including internationally. Kyphon initially engaged Netwoven to help with employee change of status process automation, later expanding the scope of the project to its spot bonus awards process as well.  The main goal of automation was to enable these processes online and to reduce significantly the overhead cost of paper.  Any solution also needed to provide automatic routing for approvals and to enable error checking, updates backend databases, process visibility, and tracking.

Solution 

In addressing Kyphon’s requirements, Netwoven’s Business Process Integration solutions leveraged the workflow offerings of K2.net, the leading business process management products for Microsoft’s .Net development platform.  Netwoven realized that its solution needed to extend the automated processes not just within HR but across multiple departments such as Field Sales and Finance.  All tolled, Netwoven’s BPI solution automated numerous paper-driven processes – including spot bonus and change of status as extensive as departmental realignment/ reorganization – with online workflows that route the required forms from request to appropriate approvals, with necessary notifications and multiple levels of escalation along the way.

Results

Netwoven did not simply deliver standard linear worklows to Kyphon.  For example, the employee change of status request process supported multiple levels of intricacy – including changes to position, pay, or commission structure of the employees. The spot bonus process allows the requester to choose the effective payroll date for the bonus and supports an option for issuing gift cards instead of cash. The automated workflows enable increased process visibility with tracking, error checking, database and directory updates, reporting, and audit ability.  K2.net even offers specialized reporting that helps Kyphon automate standards and regulatory compliance.