Origen Picks Thunderhead

Origen Financial, a national provider of manufactured housing loans, has picked the Thunderhead multichannel enterprise communication platform to automate, streamline, and control loan product documentation.A major consideration was the fact that the Thunderhead platform integrates with the IBM FileNet ECM Suite. Origen, a real estate investment trust based in Southfield, Mich., said it had been plagued by significant personnel and opportunity costs to implement any changes in its loan documentation, frequently encountering delays of up to nine months. The company said its old proprietary document engine employed hard-coded clauses to maintain document consistency, and authorized edits to document templates had to be made by Origen's IT staff. Origen said the new system, based on XML and open standards, relieved bottlenecks and enabled a 30% reduction in required staff, empowering business users to modify document templates rather than IT. Changes to documents now routinely take two to three days, Origen reported. The companies can be found online at http://www.origenfinancial.com and http://www.thunderhead.com.