Automating document processing for Maidstone Borough Council

  • Customer
  • Industry
  • Service
  • Segment
  • Author
  • Maidstone Borough Council
  • Government
  • AI/ML
  • Public Sector
  • Jodie Rhodes
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At a glance

Maidstone Borough Council provides core services for Maidstone, UK, including benefits, recycling, council tax, and more.

Challenge

Maidstone Borough Council faced the challenge of processing a high volume of physical and digital documents manually, which was costly, error-prone, and non-compliant with council standards.

Solution

Firemind developed a three-pronged approach using AWS services to automate the document processing workflow, simplifying the process and reducing costs.

Services used
  • Amazon Comprehend 
  • Amazon Textract
  • Amazon Translate
  • AWS Lambda
Outcomes
  • £40,000 annual savings, freeing up resources
  • Improved compliance and consistency
  • Reduced errors, boosted client satisfaction
Business challenges

Maidstone Borough Council's document processing challenges

As Maidstone Borough Council provides vital services for close to 200,000 residents in the borough, the need for a more modern and cloud powered document processing flow was high on the agenda.

Both physical and digital forms arrived in abundance and the usual method of manual, human led processing was costly, error prone and often non-compliant with council standards.

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Solution

Firemind's AI-powered document processing solution

We developed and launched a three pronged approach:

  • Using a natural-language processing service (NLP) called Amazon Comprehend to simplify the document processing workflow. Extracting the relevant text and details from forms and using machine learning to find the connections.
  • Perfecting an Amazon Textract process that enabled printed text as well as handwriting extraction, working in unison with Amazon Comprehend.
  • Allowing for language translation within scanned documents by using Amazon Translate.

More time

Turning human processes into an AI & ML automation freed up valuable time for staff to work on other projects and add further value to the many varied services offered by the Council.

Compliance

Using a machine learned model for accurate processing ensured all form scans and submissions were measured at the same consistent level. With consistency comes compliance. Providing a workflow that followed exact rules and parameters.

Human error

The reduction in human error could be seen within less than a week, highlighting the benefits of a cloud solution that didn’t get tired, lose focus or make submission errors.

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