After a tornado devastated Western Express’s three-building headquarters — and the data they relied on for essential fleet decisions — the company had to act fast. They needed to put disaster recovery plans into action and had to do so against the backdrop of a quickly and severely emerging global pandemic. Facing these disruptions amidst increasing, evolving competition, Western Express recognized the urgency to  improve the robustness around how they capture, manage, and analyze data. Requiring a strong foundation, they turned to UDig to help them build a powerful data engine to enable them on their data journey. 

For truckload carriers with large fleets, data is central to keeping operations humming. From knowing each truck’s location to tracking efficiency and beyond, data drives a day’s work. Western Express captured vast amounts of data on their fleets, which were rapidly growing. Over the years, a team of highly capable power users were supporting them well by extracting information from their data. However, the loss of their headquarters disrupted this process. Further, the increasingly competitive business environment that the pandemic created was challenging their ability to keep up with information demands.  

The technology team had many pressing obstacles to overcome, such as:  

• Many manual and time-draining processes that dragged down productivity 
• Existing reporting tools that burdened production systems 
• Some key operational metrics that were difficult to monitor 

Since Western Express relied on having near real-time data updates to know crucial details around truck profitability and efficiency, they had no time to waste. They knew they needed a better way to turn their data into information by reducing maintenance burdens and enabling greater agility. Responding to the pandemic’s changing business environment while rebuilding their headquarters and supporting faster, more accurate reporting and analysis was crucial to their future.