Infineon Technologies AG has implemented a comprehensive Regulation Management System, which controls the approval and publication of binding policies across the corporation. With clearly structured documents that are easy to find in their respective work contexts, the system effectively communicates policy contents. The new system promotes compliance in an efficient manner and meets the complex requirements of a growing international company.
The Corporate Regulation Management System consists of two main processes: The first process involves the creation, approval, and publication of a policy, which is technically represented by a workflow component. The second process concerns the searching and finding of published policies in a central Regulation Database, requiring a powerful search engine. Both processes can be perfectly represented using the Microsoft SharePoint Server, which is widely used at Infineon in various areas.
For a large and globally positioned company like Infineon, it is natural to conduct business processes electronically. To implement numerous workflows, the company opted to develop a custom workflow engine based on Microsoft SharePoint. The high user acceptance of SharePoint, as well as its scalability and flexibility, were decisive factors. The new Corporate Regulation Workflow could build on the groundwork laid by previous implementations.
To implement the search functionality within the Regulation Database, a custom interface was developed based on SharePoint 2013 search. This interface allows users to search for defined attributes of policies as well as conduct free searches for terms present in the content of the policies.
The main focus during the implementation of the Corporate Regulation Management System was on providing the necessary steps for the creation and approval of policies. Three different types of regulatory documents were considered: the main policy, various translations of this policy, and associated supplementary documents. All three types must not only be created but also approved, modified, revalidated, and, if necessary, withdrawn. Overall, this requirement resulted in seven different workflows, which are often similar in individual steps but differ in their overall flow.
For solving this task, it was very advantageous to be able to rely on the specially developed workflow engine. With this engine, workflow processes and the corresponding interface elements can be configured using SharePoint lists. Additionally, it features simple and clear rights management, multilingual support, and reporting capabilities.
The clear separation between the creation and approval of policies in the workflow engine on one side and the searching and finding of policies in the Regulation Database on the other side was a cornerstone of the project’s success.
Our implementation partner Alight has distinguished themselves with a very transparent approach and convinced us with high flexibility and quality. We were able to realize the project in just three months in this way.
Chuay Peng Ng
IT project lead
