Murphy-Hoffman Company

Background

Murphy-Hoffman Company (MHC), founded in 1975 and based in Kansas City, Mo., owns and operates a 10-state network of 39 Kenworth truck dealerships that offer more than 40,000 customers a full range of services. Another 22 MHC locations lease and service all makes of trucks.

MHC has grown rapidly, building a reputation for going the extra mile to keep customers’ trucks operating at peak performance with minimal downtime. However, by 2007, mountains of paper records were threatening MHC’s ability to provide prompt, complete customer service.

Today, MHC is managing customer information efficiently with a distributed document-imaging system including Datacap Taskmaster Web software and designed by Kansas City-based solutions provider Cutting Edge Solutions (CES). The solution has boosted productivity and customer satisfaction.

The Challenge

MHC branch employees need instant access to high volumes of documents that drive operations. The dealerships and leasing locations generate about 10,000 pages of paper a day in counter tickets (for parts purchases) and repair orders alone. A repair order generally contains 10 to 20 documents.

Before MHC turned to CES and Datacap, the branches handled only paper records. Dealerships stored paperwork on site or off site, while leasing branches retained active documents and eventually overnight-mailed them to headquarters for processing and filing.

Wasted time, work delays and frustration ensued. A warranty manager in a large branch typically spent two hours a day searching for paper records. Documents often were misplaced, or rendered unreadable by repair-shop grime. When a customer needed to see a signature confirming a parts delivery or authorizing repair work, for example, forms had to be mailed or picked up at a branch.

MHC decided to pursue a digital solution. Capture software needed to be flexible, scalable, robust, customizable, and easy for mechanics and counter staff to use.

The Solution

In March 2007, MHC selected CES as “the leader in developing document-imaging systems for companies in the Midwest,” says Scott Courson, an MHC business systems analyst responsible for document imaging. CES recommended Datacap for its best-in-class capture software.

Solutions for scanning, routing, retrieving and storing images of counter tickets and repair orders were implemented in August 2007 and October 2007, respectively. Applications integrate Datacap Taskmaster Web with Fujitsu 5120 and 6140 scanners, Kofax VirtualReScan (VRS) software, and Hyland Software’s OnBase® enterprise content management software.

Branch employees scan documents into the system, where they become available right away. Dealerships then discard paper, and leasing branches soon will do the same as a leasing-workflow application is installed.

The Result

“Everyone is raving about the retrieval capabilities, and customer service has improved, which makes us more competitive,” Courson says. “Our people just double-click to get the information they need. They can answer customer questions immediately and, if necessary, e-mail a customer a document.”

Despite rugged handling, repair orders rarely need to be verified.

MHC estimates initial cost reductions of more than $442,000 annually, including document-retrieval time, as well as storage-related time and space.    

More benefits lie ahead. Halting the mailing of repair orders will cut postage costs and enable faster billing. MHC also is working with CES to extend automated data capture to hiring and accounts payable processes.  

For more information, contact Datacap.