CASE STUDY

Gunderson Cleaners Success Story

A family-owned business with over sixty years of experience enlisted the help of HBS when they realized their production software was not being utilized to its full capabilities.

Background 

Gunderson Cleaners, a family-owned business, has over sixty years of experience and is the expert in dry cleaning, laundry, fabric restoration, and professional image.  

Gunderson enlisted the help of HBS for business consulting services when they realized their production software, LinenMaster, was not being utilized to its full capabilities. They believed they could maximize the value of their software but did not have the time and knowledge of LinenMaster to do so. Gunderson Cleaners looked to HBS to provide a fresh perspective from technical professionals with a variety of experiences.   

Goals 

Gunderson cleaners considered the following to be their primary goals: 

  • Gain insight from data to make impactful business decisions.  
  • Keep track of inventory going out and coming back into the plant. The team wanted to better account for missing revenue in cases of missing returns.  
  • Utilize the production software to its full potential and account for any data gaps. 
  • Educate and engage the leadership team on LinenMaster. 

Challenges 

  • The production software was not being utilized to its full capabilities.  
  • In a survey of the leadership team, it was revealed that only a few of nine individuals were casual users of the LinenMaster software at best. None of the Gunderson employees possessed expertise on the software and could not take ownership of the process. This created disconnects that led to data gaps in day-to-day operations. 

Why HBS? 

  • Gunderson Cleaners looked to HBS for a fresh perspective and solution because of our technical professionals with a variety of experiences and insights. 

 Solution 

  • HBS used Discovery and Analysis to learn the foundation of Gunderson Cleaners’ environment  
  • Long-term part-time staff engagement 
  • HBS brought forward identified opportunities for prioritization and scoping. This is a continuous process as goals are achieved, and the customer is ready to move to the next level of maturity. 
  • Utilized Power BI to gain insight into Gunderson Cleaners’ data and assess where change could be made.

Business Outcomes 

  • Increased internal engagement by engaging a wider audience on the executive team using business cases to provide understanding of the problems, processes, and benefits. 
  • Created executive scoreboards for each vertical, resulting in informed daily business decisions.   
  • Clear data metrics 
  • Eased barriers by aligning production system tracking with accounting system tracking (GL consistency). 
  • Production process improved. 
  • Consolidated delivery center in Southeast Wisconsin, resulting in 57% fleet and labor costs  
  • Business Case to integrate companies: Gunderson had been considering the integration but wasn’t fully evaluating the ROI   
  • Savings achieved through reduced physical footprint and internal operating costs resulted in 8-month ROI  
  • Improved customer satisfaction and profitability/sales 
  • Estimated 15% improvement in delivery accuracy 
  • Gunderson can now recognize revenue from loss as it occurs 
  • Contract reviews and compliance measurement resulted in revenue growth 

Technology 

  • Power BI  
  • LinenMaster 
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