Implementing process automation at Interstate Cargo
Table of contents
Interstate Cargo(opens in a new tab) is a utility trailer dealership and the parent company of the retail store TrailersPlus. With more than 75 stores nationwide, Interstate offers a variety of trailers: utility, cargo, enclosed trailers, and car haulers.
It has a wide range of customers, both business-to-consumer and business-to-business clients. This gives Interstate Cargo the capacity to meet various needs for its growing customer base: families needing a trailer for vacations, or businesses needing to load equipment for a job site.
The challenge
Interstate Cargo is a growing company with multiple new stores and ongoing hiring. As more employees and locations called for both new and updated business processes, the need for process automation quickly became evident.
Most of Interstate Cargo’s existing processes involved a heavy amount of email. One of the ways that email was being abused was employees using it for frequent and painfully simple tasks like getting a quick yes or no answer. These back-and-forth email approval processes were usually disorganized, confusing, and slow.
“The need to get away from these processes being done within emails became more apparent each day. The drive for organized and structured systems naturally came to the forefront as our company grew.”
Why Nutrient Workflow?
Once the need for automation was determined, the search for workflow automation platforms began. The company’s CEO and lead developer started searching, with the following requirements:
- Replace email processes
- Improve efficiency through internal application changes
- Increase company-wide organization
In the process of researching different platforms, Interstate Cargo found Nutrient Workflow. After initial meetings with various software companies, the company learned that Nutrient Workflow checked all its boxes.
Implementation
The first step of implementation began with learning how everything works and answering the question of how Nutrient Workflow and Interstate Cargo’s systems will work together. According to Robert Kiernan, a software developer at Interstate Cargo, the initial implementation of the first workflow was a big step for the company. “Once we had everything set up and our API functioning, it was a pretty smooth process switching from the ‘old way’ to Nutrient Workflow.”
Learning the platform takes some time, as with any software solution. Nutrient Workflow has forms, processes, flows, rules, etc., all of which had to be learned by Kiernan and his team. “With training and usage, the processes we built improved,” he shared.
“Employees really like the user experience we’re able to provide using Nutrient Workflow’s built-in tools.”
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Fortunately, the rollout went well. “Our users have taken to it quite well once they got used to Nutrient Workflow’s interface and saw how the workflows/processes work in a new light,” Kiernan said. User hesitation is expected when throwing the word “new” out to a group. However, Nutrient Workflow was quickly adopted into employees’ day-to-day work life because of the ease of use, productivity, and efficiency gained.
What it has built
Since becoming a customer in 2019, Interstate Cargo has built many workflows, including:
- Check requests
- Customer feedback
- Shipping loads
- Time-off requests
With these active processes and more workflows to come, the team is staying busy.
End users can be anyone within the organization using the platform and processes it has built. For example, if an employee has a vital step in a process or needs visibility into specific workflows, they’re a user.
Its call center employees, store employees, some plant employees, and most corporate employees are also considered end users.
The processes mentioned above were designed to use specific rules that help Interstate Cargo’s organization maintain accountability. Nutrient Workflow has allowed Kiernan and his team to set up specific rules, such as only assigning the needed recipients to each task, rather than leaving it to be an open playing field, which was what had happened in the past. Controlling these rules has also eliminated “spamming” individuals with emails they have nothing to do with, which significantly increases employee satisfaction.
Results
“The results have been great,” Kiernan said, noting that complete visibility enables upper management to see what’s happening inside each store. Nutrient Workflow allowed Interstate Cargo to get the right eyes onto the necessary workflows to ensure tasks and workflows are being appropriately managed.
By using the Nutrient Workflow reports and dashboards feature, upper management has also been able to see bottlenecks that had previously held up operations and get to the root cause of issues along the way. Since implementation, bottlenecks have cleared up and processes have run more smoothly. “KPIs have also been implemented since rolling out Nutrient Workflow,” Kiernan said, sharing that they’re an excellent tool for both him and end users to have the visibility to see how they’re performing in real time and stay “in the green.”
What’s next?
So, what’s next for Interstate Cargo? At the moment, all bases have been covered since coming on board. The need to break away from relying on email processes has been a huge success thus far. The next steps for Kiernan and his team involve identifying remaining email-based processes and building them out in their Nutrient Workflow instance, one workflow at a time.
