How Bob Mills Furniture Outgrew Their CMMS and Found the Vendor Coverage They Were Missing
Sep 25, 2026
Bob Mills Furniture outgrew a lightweight CMMS as it expanded into new markets. Upgrading to Umbrava gave them the vendor coverage and operational control they were missing.
The challenge
Bob Mills Furniture has been in business for over 55 years, operating retail locations and a distribution center across Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. Their facilities team is two people: Josiah Schorsch, Director of Facilities and Risk Management, and Samuel Peraza, Facilities Assistant.
Their previous CMMS worked when the operation was smaller. But as Bob Mills expanded into new markets, two problems surfaced. The platform had no way to help them find and vet vendors in unfamiliar territories, and the system itself wasn’t built for the complexity of a multi-state operation.
“We opened a location in a brand-new market and had no support,” Josiah said. “We were working with vendors that were not capable and did not have a proven track record. The first six to eight months were very frustrating.”
Samuel saw the same limits: “Our previous system was simply too lightweight for our growing operational needs.”
They needed a platform that could do three things: work for both their internal team and their vendors, help them find reliable trades in any market, and keep communication in one place.
The switch
Store-level users adjusted to Umbrava without issues. Vendors adopted the platform quickly. The team’s day-to-day work order and preventive maintenance workflows carried over without disruption.
The vendor network filled the gap that had made new market expansion so difficult. With an 87.5% first trip resolution rate and an 11.7-day average completion time, the trades coming through the platform are delivering.
For Josiah, the vendor coverage was the most significant change.
When you’re opening in a new market and you don’t know anyone, having a platform that can connect you with proven vendors changes everything. That’s what made the switch worth it for us.
— Josiah Schorsch • Director of Facilities and Risk Management
What changed
For Samuel, who manages facilities day-to-day, the biggest upgrades were capabilities their previous platform didn’t have at all.
“The auto-dispatch feature has been a massive time-saver,” Samuel said. “And the ability to email external managers directly from work order notes is highly useful. It lets us keep people in the loop without granting full user permissions.”
Auto-dispatch routes work orders to vendors automatically based on trade and location. The email-from-notes feature solves a permissions problem. Because auto-dispatching commits spend, Bob Mills is selective about full platform access, and this lets company managers stay informed without it.
For Samuel, the upgrade wasn’t incremental. It was a shift in what the platform could do.
Trading a lightweight system for a more formal, robust platform gave us the operational control we were missing. Gaining access to features like auto-dispatch made the transition completely worthwhile.
— Samuel Peraza • Facilities Assistant
What’s next
Bob Mills is continuing to build out their preventive maintenance workflows and expand vendor coverage as they grow into new markets.
