Case Study: Washtenaw County saves $400K and rapidly expands ECM adoption with OnBase

County with ‘most educated city in the U.S.’ saves $400,000 by replacing IBM FileNet with OnBase

Washtenaw County, Michigan (pop. ~350,000; county seat Ann Arbor) had deployed IBM FileNet across five departments but ran into rising costs and complexity: FileNet required costly integrator services and custom scripting for nearly every change, its Unix hardware needed a roughly $100,000 refresh, and workflow deployment was prohibitively expensive—leaving only about 20 users and limited ECM use.

The county chose OnBase (via ImageSoft), converting all FileNet data in five months and expanding to 15 departments and 300+ users with more than 100 automated workflows in 15 months. Moving to OnBase on Microsoft servers eliminated custom code, integrated with 50+ line‑of‑business apps, and delivered immediate savings—about $400,000 versus upgrading FileNet—plus ongoing consultant savings (~$50,000/year) and full in‑house administration.

Washtenaw County

Kimberly Wraight

ECM Coordinator