Who is Wherley?

Wherley Moving & Storage (WMS) owns and operates United Van Lines and Mayflower moving franchises in five cities within the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. They move thousands of households every year. As one might expect, managing the logistics of so many moves requires communicating a great deal of information between the customers, salespeople, customer service personnel, dispatchers, bookkeepers, accountants, drivers and crew members.

The Move Management System has completely changed the way we do business." Matt Dixon, CFO - Wherley Moving & Storage

The Problem

As of the year 2002, WMS was managing their information through a home-grown system consisting of a database program accessed through expensive and slow dedicated data connections, spreadsheets, paper calendars, and paper forms. Much of the communication was by phone calls, faxes and emails. Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) were constantly faxing and emailing information back and forth between offices. Some dispatchers had as many as five different calendars open on their desk. To accomplish any one move, the information about that move had to be retyped and/or rewritten as many as twelve times. This was fraught with room for error as well as very time consuming. When management wanted to produce a report analyzing a particular aspect of their business, they would typically create another spreadsheet, typing all of the data in from some other paper report.

Integrity Design to the Rescue

In the fall of 2002, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of WMS met the President of Integrity Design at a Chamber of Commerce event. In the ensuing weeks, they began to brainstorm about ways to improve the way that WMS practiced business. The management of WMS had been looking at various options for automating their business. After a few months of analysis, WMS determined that no existing software system would solve their problem. They also determined that Integrity Design had the experience, background and expertise to build such a system for them.

The Solution

It was determined that the new Move Management System (MMS) should be completely web-based. This would reduce or remove the need for expensive telecommunications lines, instead using the basic internet connections. It would also remove the need to continually update the hardware and software on each persons’ workstation. Users could use their normal web browser for all activities.

"The Move Management System has completely changed the way we do business." Matt Dixon, CFO - Wherley Moving & Storage

The first step was for Integrity Design to understand the business process of WMS. Integrity Design readily dove into the task by interviewing a variety of personnel at WMS. They needed to understand the roles of each type of employee. The next step was to design a data model that fit the business information. Then, they needed to design screens that fit the various perspectives of each type of employee. Finally, they needed to support the flow of information between various departments.

After a few short months, Integrity Design had completed the initial version of the Move Management System (MMS) that went into production in August of 2003. Development continued and MMS was extended as both WMS management and Integrity Design came to a better understanding of the company’s business process and information flow.

The Move Management System has been an unqualified success thanks to the close and long-term working relationship between Wherley Moving & Storage and Integrity Design.

 Business in the New World

Today, WMS runs smoother because of the MMS. Information about any particular move is readily available from any one of the WMS offices. There is no data redundancy to cause confusion. Management is able to analyze the company’s productivity much more easily through a variety of reports.

The Move Management System has been an unqualified success thanks to the close and long-term working relationship between Wherley Moving & Storage and Integrity Design.

Before Integrity Design

• MS Access Database
• Paper Calendars
• Many Phone Calls
• Many Faxes
• Retyping data into multiple spreadsheets
• Data repetition - error prone
• No means of analyzing company performance
• Manual management of vehicles and teams
• Expensive secure telecommunications lines to access database and programs

After Integrity Design

• Completed over 6,000 moves in the first year
• Extensibe - room for growth
• Forced a better understanding of the business processes
• Information available to any employee at any city, home, or office 24/7
• One consistant data model
• Centralized data repository
• No redundant data
• Full access to programs and database over normal internet
• Full access via standard web browser
• Email notification of important events
• Minimal faxing
• Reduced phone calls
• Automatic reporting of company performance - no retyping data into spreadsheets
• Elimination of paper calendars
• Able to assign equipment and crewmembers to move events (e.g., packing, loading, hauling, unloading, etc.)
• Eliminates expensive telecommunication lines
• Easy financial analysis
• Less confusion
• Happier Employees