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Computerworld - British Airways PLC, a London-based airline, flies high-tech airplanes that carry passengers across the Atlantic in less than seven hours. Calculating wages for its 3,000 North American employees takes considerably longer because of an inefficient system that processes time cards by hand, says Steve Pruneau, a project manager at British Airways' U.S. headquarters in Jackson Heights, New York.
Pruneau hopes to change that with the help of Workbrain Inc., a Burlington, Mass.-based vendor of employee management applications. After a three-month pilot project involving one airport and one call center location, British Airways is ready to roll out Workbrain Employee Relationship Management (ERM) Solutions to its employees.
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Pruneau says Workbrain got the job at British Airways because its rules engine is flexible enough to handle the arcane wage-calculation algorithms based on Federal Aviation Administration regulations and labor union contracts.

WORKBRAIN CEO David Ossip says his company’s forte is handling a company’s “high-volume, high-value” transactions. Workbrain Inc. Location: 880 Winter St., Suite 130 Waltham, Mass. 02451 Telephone: (781) 890-3208 Web: www.workbrain.com The technology: Web-based self-service human resources applications, including time-and-attendance modules. The software, built using Enterprise Java Beans and XML, also supports wireless connections. Company officers: • David Ossip, founder and CEO • Scott Morrell, vice president of technology • David Stein, vice president of sales Milestones: • Dec. 1999: Company founded • April 2000: First product released • May 2001: Raised $20 million in second- round funding • June 2001: Version 2.5 released Employees: 105 Products/pricing: Workbrain ERM Solutions; $50 to $200 per seat Burn Money: $25 million from NB Capital Venture Partners, ABS Ventures, Accenture Technology Ventures and private investors Customers: British Airways, Russell Corp., Tennessee Valley Authority Red flags for IT: •The product requires a significant effort to set up rules and forms. • Established human resources software vendors are working on adding similar tools.

David Ossip, founder and CEO of Workbrain, says that flexibility comes from the product's technical foundation as a messaging application. Everything in Workbrain ERM is a form with workflow and business rules attached, he says. This approach means that the rules are separate from the form objects, so changing, updating or deleting rules doesn't affect the rest of the customer's application. Workbrain also integrates with back-end payroll and human resources systems.
Another key technology in Workbrain is its Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based Web implementation, says Paul Hamerman, research director at consultancy Giga Information Group Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. This feature gives it the advantages of rapid deployment and the ability to work with many devices, such as PCs, kiosks, handheld computers and wireless phones.
The Workbrain ERM system contains several modules, including