A new tool has been launched that claims to help fiduciaries monitor the vital signs of their retirement plans, diagnose problems and efficiently treat them as they arise.

DST Systems in Kansas City, Mo., launched the Retirement Solutions Plan Health Dashboard in March to help 401(k) sponsors and advisors meet their fiduciary responsibilities while creating better participant outcomes.

“Fiduciaries need tools to help identify and implement plan success factors,  and to do that they need to be able to access information that is often difficult to find,” says John Geli, president of DST Retirement Solutions. 

The dashboard makes it easier for plan fiduciaries to monitor, benchmark and adjust elements of the plan, according to the company. The tool measures key plan health indicators, benchmarks them against a plan’s peer group and delivers analytics-based modeling and representation to advisors.

The Plan Health Dashboard is part of DST’s Retirement Intelligence suite of 401(k) tools to help sponsors and advisors improve plans. Retirement Intelligence delivers information, simulations and recommendations to fiduciaries to help then optimize plan participants’ experience.

“It also finds areas for improvement and provides recommendations. If only 30 percent of plan participants are on track for retirement, the tool might give ideas for boosting contribution rates,” says Geli.

Retirement plans can be compared against benchmarks in similar industries and industry segments, of similar size size and demographic participation, and in similar geographies.

Data and insights are delivered to fiduciaries in real-time can be taken from any recordkeeping platform, according to the company.

“Being able to make comparisons gives [advisors] an idea for improving plan structure, their business strategies, and can lead to actionable recommendations for the plan sponsor,” says Geli.

DST says it hopes that sponsors will become primary users of the tool.