about us at miller&associates

Greg Miller is founder of Miller & Associates, Ltd., an agricultural software and consulting firm located in rural Metamora near Peoria, Illinois.  Mr. Miller is a 1983 graduate of Southern Illinois University (BA, Economics) and a  1984 graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a Master of Agricultural Extension Economics.  Mr. Miller began his career as a designer and  programmer for two grain industry software providers, Vertical Software, Inc. of Peoria, IL and Comptrol, Inc. of Indianapolis, IN.

 In 1990, Mr. Miller began working with grain warehouse licensing agencies in Kansas and Illinois to develop software to assist warehouse examiners with their oversight responsibilities as statutory requirements were becoming increasingly complex. A unique software system called "ExamHand" was borne of this work that analyzed regulatory compliance in a comprehensive fashion by using the very same merchandising and accounting tools used by industry rather than narrowly by the 'letter of the law'.  

Slowly, but surely, more licensing agencies saw the need for ExamHand through Mr. Miller's work as a long-standing associate member of the Association of American Warehouse Control Officials (AAWCO).  Mr. Miller is a former board member and chaired the AAWCO Special Subcommittee on the implementation of Electronic Warehouse Receipts for Grain.  Currently, Mr. Miller sits on the Technology committee.

In 1995, Mr. Miller played a role in establishing and implementing AAWCO's successful EDI standard.  This was a 100% voluntary effort to begin the process of standardizing examination data across the industry and licensing agencies.  It was a daunting task that involved industry, regulators, and grain accounting software vendors coming together.  AAWCO's EDI established a single, uniform data standard where licensees can deliver examination data that on-site examiners can accept and read electronically saving hours of data entry.  Today, AAWCO's EDI standard is now used in approximately one half of state licensing agency examinations and audits.

By the year 2000, ExamHand was in use at 10 state regulatory agencies and several large grain companies and CPA firms.  With the AAWCO EDI standard in place, the fruits of uniformity were beginning to appear but there was much work yet to do.  The ExamHand software systems had to be custom-developed for each individual licensing agency because, initially, there were large disparities among examination methods and procedures.  Gradually though, over 10 years of interaction, sharing, and consulting between ExamHand customers, the 10 different ExamHands began to look alike!  A consensus of good procedures and practices had boiled to the top.  By 2000, Mr. Miller saw the need and the way clear for a single, uniform ExamHand source code that brought all licensing agencies together under a single software program.  We call that program "ExamHand Unified".

First implemented in August of 2002, ExamHand Unified, or "Uni" as it's affectionately known, is now in 6 of 10 states with plans underway for the other 4 to change over as soon as possible.  With Uni, we've completed the task first undertaken in 1990 by bringing together all licensing agencies to use a single, uniform software system to conduct grain warehouse examinations and audits.

Today, over two thirds of all state grain warehouse/buyer examinations and audits are performed using ExamHand representing over  2.2 billion bushels of licensed storage capacity.  But still more work needs to be done. 

Building upon the hard work of all our client agencies, it is Mr. Miller's intention to offer the grain warehouse licensing agency community a secure, low-cost, and easy method for sharing examination data and outcomes between agencies. 

Our system is called 'CEFS' (Central Examination Filing System) and it is built upon the knowledge that grain warehousing and merchandising is a complex business with many programs and licensing agencies (both federal and state).  

The grain industry needs to be able to efficiently cross-license to respond to markets both local and global and to efficiently operate in multiple states.   Therefore, licensing agencies need to be able to co-ordinate oversight efforts to minimize or eliminate duplicate efforts and keep regulatory costs as low as possible.  That's what CEFS is all about.  By Fall of 2005, CEFS will available to open yet another new chapter for licensing agencies.