Case Study: Washtenaw County saves $400K and gains in‑house control with Hyland's OnBase

County with ‘Most educated city in the U.S.’ saves $400k by replacing IBM FileNet with OnBase

Washtenaw County, home to Ann Arbor and roughly 350,000 residents, was using an IBM FileNet ECM but faced mounting issues: administration and changes required costly integrator services and custom scripting, legacy Unix servers needed a $100,000 replacement, and FileNet’s complexity kept workflow use limited—only about 20 users across five departments. County IT wanted a Microsoft‑based solution they could maintain in‑house and expand without constant consultants.

The county selected OnBase (implemented by ImageSoft) for roughly the same cost as IBM’s proposed upgrade, migrated all data in five months, and replaced Unix servers with Microsoft. Over 15 months they expanded to 15 departments and 300+ users, deployed 100+ automated workflows, integrated with 50+ line‑of‑business applications without custom code, and eliminated legacy scripting—delivering an immediate $400,000 savings and ongoing reductions in consultant costs (about $50,000/year) while restoring full in‑house control.

Washtenaw County

Dave Wilson

OnBase Administrator