Wayne Transports Inc. safely moves sensitive goods to thousands of customers with Veeam

The business challenge

Wayne Transports Inc. is one of the largest family-owned bulk transportation companies in the Upper Midwest U.S. it was started in 1950 by founder Wayne A. Siemers and has since been passed down to his three sons as the company has expanded to cover more loads, more offices, more drivers and more delivery locations across the U.S.

Much of Wayne Transports Inc.’s profit comes from hauling sensitive loads such as dry-bulk foods, LP gas and chemicals. All these sensitive loads mean that Wayne Transports’ trucks are subject to audits by state and federal agencies like the various state departments of transportation and the FDA. These trailers must be certified and evaluated in order to be able to haul these loads.

“If we have a tanker that falls out of compliance, it can cost thousands to get it recertified,” Bill Holmberg, it director at Wayne Transports Inc. said. “We need all data to be available and accurate — and to be available fast. It’s absolutely critical.”

With all this money at stake, it became problematic that Wayne Transports Inc.’s old backup solution was inefficient and slow. Overly complex backup jobs required looking through all the different types of storage and backup products that Wayne Transports. This process involved contacting the president of the company who was the only one who had access to much of these resources and taking other painstaking steps.

Backups normally took days to perform and involved a complex process, which made it difficult for the Wayne Transports Inc. staff to focus as much time on running their business.

This made it very hard for Wayne Transports Inc. to quickly and effectively produce data to attain certifications as well as making it a long and involved process to backup and restore any amount of data.

“Since we started using Veeam, we’ve been able to get everything backed up really quickly — within hours,” Holmberg said. “It was a simple process, we had no breaches, we didn’t have to pay any advances; it was great. We didn’t have to question whether things were done right, the software is extremely reliable.”

The Veeam solution

Wayne Transports Inc. replaced their old and overly complex backup system with a Cloud Data Management solution based around Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise Plus edition.

Following a trial with Veeam Software, the intuitiveness and simplicity that Veeam provided was welcome and refreshing to Wayne Transports’ business operations.

“Since then, Veeam has become steadily more ingrained into the environment,” Holmberg said. “It lends a low common denominator for administrators to learn — it’s so easy to understand that anyone who basically understands how to use a computer can work it. it has the capacity to deal with complex issues while still being incredibly easy to use.”

Veeam’s intuitive interface, as well as its simple and reliable Cloud Data Management capabilities made it a lot easier for Holmberg’s it team to manage the company’s data and recover quickly from any failures, threats or other events that require backup.

Veeam supports Wayne Transport Inc.’s Transportation Management System and any day-to-day backups and restores for the company. Veeam also helps provide the data needed to keep trucks certified by the FDA and in compliance with other regulations for temperature, storage and equipment required for shipping sensitive freight like LP gas, dry-bulk food and chemicals.

“If a type of food is recalled, for example, the FDA goes all the way down the chain to see where the problem originated. If we were to be the weak link in that chain, it could cost us millions of dollars,” Holmberg said. “So, it’s essential that we have this data, and that this data is accurate and able to be produced quickly.”

Veeam also backs up Wayne Transports Inc.’s GPS tracking system, which enables the company to track their trucks as they are in route to their destinations. This means that if something happens to a truck and it doesn’t make it to the destination, Wayne Transports Inc. can pin-point where that driver is located immediately.

Since adopting Veeam, Wayne Transports Inc. has enjoyed faster and more reliable backups as well as an easier-to-use backup infrastructure on a day-to-day basis, as well as peace of mind with being able to produce data for the FDA and to keep drivers certified and in compliance.

The results

• Faster and more reliable backups, reducing restore times from days to just a few hours, enabling the customer to avoid downtime of essential applications like GPS and logistics systems
  “With Veeam, we are able to get everything up and running really quickly—within hours,” Holmberg said. “It was a simple process, we had no breaches, we didn’t have to pay any advances; it was great. We didn’t have to question whether things were done right, the software is extremely reliable.”
• Increased security with regards to complying with FDA regulations, including temperature, storage and equipment regulations
  “If a type of food is recalled, for example, the FDA goes all the way down the chain to see where the problem originated. If we were to be the weak link in that chain, it could cost us millions of dollars,” Holmberg said. “So, it’s essential that we have this data, and that this data is accurate and able to be produced quickly.”
• A streamlined backup infrastructure, making data more easily and quickly available, allowing Wayne Transports Inc. to be able to produce information quickly and run their business effectively
  “It lends a low common denominator for administrators to learn — it’s so easy to understand that anyone who basically understands how to use a computer can work it. it has the capacity to deal with complex issues while still being incredibly easy to use.”