Case Study
Turning Process Intelligence into a Capacity & Automation Roadmap
A large U.S. retirement provider needed more productivity in Corrections without more headcount. Cognitio turned raw task-mining data into a validated, three-tier roadmap that cut case handling time by up to 80%.
The Challenge
Corrections is nuanced, judgment-heavy work spanning 100+ people and several systems of record. Most context lives in free-text fields, so case complexity is rarely captured anywhere structured. High-level metrics showed throughput but no view into day-to-day mechanics. Leadership needed answers:
- Where is processing capacity being lost?
- Why do handling times vary so widely?
- Where can automation cut manual lookups and data entry?
- How can the operation scale without more headcount?
The Diagnostic
Task-mining technology captured real processor interactions across Express Processing, Salesforce, RIS, and Mainframe over 40 working days, establishing the operation’s first reliable baseline.
- 27 processors across Contributions and Distributions teams
- 1,381 completed cases observed
- 41.6 min average processing time per completed case
- ~4 hrs per day spent in process applications (vs. 6-hr expectation)
- ~6.5 hrs per day total active time (vs. 8-hr standard workday)
Important to note: lower utilization did not mean low effort. Case complexity, not individual performance, was the dominant driver of time variation.
The Roadmap
Working with the client’s SMEs, Cognitio translated the findings into a progressive roadmap, from quick wins to a full agentic redesign.
- TIER 1: Team Capacity & Best Practices
Closing the gap between average and top performers, no system changes required.
+18% more cases per quarter with no added headcount - TIER 2: Targeted Automation & Integration
Removing the manual, repetitive work task mining exposed in the process flow.
-43% reduction in handling time per case - TIER 3: Agentic Redesign
A four-agent model with human approval gates, reimagining the process end to end.
-80% reduction in average case handling time
The Results
The conversation shifted from comparing people to redesigning the work, from manual research to automation, and from generalist processing to agent-assisted execution. For the first time, the organization had a complete, data-backed view of its operations and a clear roadmap forward.