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Customer Stories > Dairy Farmers of America

Modernizing 3,500 Drivers Without Missing a Beat:

How DFA Transformed Frontline Tech and Cut Deployment Costs With Skyllful 

$1.5M

Estimated savings in the first year

75%

Reduction in deployment training costs

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About

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) is a leading national dairy cooperative owned by nearly 11,000 family farmers. The organization manages every step of the dairy supply chain, from farm to consumer, producing, marketing, and distributing milk and dairy products across the United States and internationally.

Industry

Food & Beverage

Use Case

Tech Deployment

Software

AFS by Telus

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Summary

In 2020, DFA Dairy Brands set out to modernize the mobile tech used by 3,500+ drivers. The challenge? Replace a fragmented, outdated in-cab system with a single mobile platform, DSD AFS by Telus, without disrupting daily operations or inflating deployment costs. 

They needed to move fast, stay lean, and eliminate the expensive, manual training cycles that had weighed them down in the past. That’s when they turned to Skyllful. 

"“If we had to go and put boots on the ground at all of those locations, our timeframe to roll out DSDi would’ve been extended way beyond what we needed. We needed to find a new and innovative way to get the training into the hands of our resources.” 

Mike Yeates
IT Director, Business Analysis at DFA Dairy Brands

The Challenge

Old Tech, Inefficient Training, and No Room for Delay

DFA was dealing with: 

  • Billing and workflow inefficiencies caused by legacy software and overlapping systems from multiple acquisitions
  • Three separate in-cab devices, each requiring its own process and training
  • A manual training model that relied on field trainers, PowerPoint decks, and in-person ride-alongs, an approach that was costly and hard to keep consistent 

Adding to the challenge, the team had accepted that retraining was inevitable, even building “cycle-back training” into their project plans. 

The Solution

Mobile Training in the Flow of Work

Skyllful replaced DFA’s legacy training with a fully digital experience: 

  • Role-specific lessons delivered directly to drivers’ mobile devices
  • Self-paced content that could be accessed in the flow of work, like during unscheduled (or unplanned) downtime at customer sites
  • A remote-first rollout that required little onsite IT presence or travel 

This not only enabled the deployment to stay on track during COVID, it helped DFA scale faster and smarter than ever before. 

“The main purpose of bringing Skyllful in was to get the project done with fewer people and T&E. Better, faster—and we are achieving that.” 

Mike Yeates
IT Director, Business Analysis at DFA Dairy Brands

The Validated ROI

75% Cost Reduction and Major Savings Across the Board

Before becoming a customer, DFA went through Skyllful’s Business Impact Validation process. Together, we mapped their current-state costs against Skyllful’s model and identified opportunities for major savings. 

The results:

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$476,000 Saved on Training Resources

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$651,000 Saved on Travel and Lodging

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$480,000 Saved in Reduced Tech Support & Downtime Costs

Content

Training Downtime Costs Reduced to $0

All this, plus faster onboarding, giving new hires the same launch experience as tenured drivers without multi-day ride-alongs.

At Skyllful, we never want to sell to customers who won’t see value. That’s why we validate the ROI with a business impact validation. These results were just estimates, but DFA saw the savings for this deployment, and they’ve been a customer ever since. 

Continued Support

From One Deployment to an Ongoing Partnership 

What began as a project to support a major tech rollout has since grown into a long-term relationship. Today, Skyllful helps DFA train and support drivers across a broader mobile tech stack, including: 

  • GreenMile by Descartes
  • Samsara
  • DSD AFS by Telus 

We’ve also expanded to support health and safety training, helping DFA reduce incidents, improve compliance, and onboard new drivers faster, all without ever needing to bring them into a classroom. 

“When I realized drivers were taking Skyllful training at places like Target before a delivery, because that site had special instructions, that was the turning point. It was clear this wasn’t just ‘check-the-box’ training. It was making a difference.” 

Tom Ehrman
VP at DFA Dairy Brands

Results at a Glance

  • 75% reduction in deployment training costs
  • $1.5M+ estimated total savings in the first year
  • Eliminated need for ride-alongs and onsite trainers
  • Reduced support burden on supervisors
  • Enabled in-the-moment learning for frontline teams
  • Still in use 5 years later, now spanning tech and safety training 

Ready to see how Skyllful could help your next frontline tech deployment? Get a demo.

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