THE CUSTOMER

Riviana Foods is a leading rice company and marketer of wild rice. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ebro Foods, which operates in the rice sector across the globe through an extensive network of subsidiaries and brands in more than 80 countries spanning Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.

THE PROVIDER

Franklin, Tennessee-based ProvisionAi offers sophisticated suites of optimization tools for load building and transportation load leveling that reduce total supply chain costs.

Like many companies over the past few years, Riviana has faced challenges when looking for trucking capacity, especially when demand spikes. One way companies can address this, even when capacity tightens, is to ensure all truckloads are optimized to their maximum legal capacity when they leave a facility.

To help its supply chain organization meet this goal, Riviana turned to Auto02 (Automatic Order Optimization), a load-building solution from ProvisionAi.

Selling a Broad Profile

As a large rice processor—its plant in Memphis, Tennessee moves more than 10,500 shipments annually—Riviana sells a wide range of products to retailers, industrial companies, and food service organizations, among other clients.

Shipments can vary from small, lightweight rice cups to 20-pound bags of rice geared to food service operations. “It’s a broad profile,” says Jennifer Phillips, Riviana’s director of transportation. Shipments generally travel by box car, intermodal, and truckload.

Riviana Foods is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ebro Foods, a global leader in the rice vertical. Ebro Foods’ network of subsidiaries and brands spans more than 80 countries across Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.

The range of products and weights Riviana ships can present challenges when trying to load a truck so all the space within the trailer is fully utilized. Riviana had been using a load planning solution, but even so, trucks would often ‘weigh out’ before they ‘cubed out’, says Zachary Dale, Riviana’s supply chain continuous improvement manager.

Optimizing Truckloads

In the United States, most truckload shipments travel on 53-foot trailers that provide a bit more than 4,000 square feet of capacity, says Tom Moore, founder and CEO of ProvisionAi.

Most trucks traveling on highways can haul between 45,000 and 50,000 pounds. Because many of Riviana’s products—like sacks of rice—are heavy, shipments often meet the weight capacity of the truck before they’ve actually filled the space available.

The breadth of products Riviana offers and the range of pallet weights can also make it challenging to train new employees to properly load trucks.

“More efficient loading and better truck utilization could cut both the number of trucks on the road, as well as transportation costs,” Phillips says.

Generally, when shipping a variety of product sizes and weights, combining products of varying weights on a truck, rather than filling it with a single product, more efficiently uses the legal weight and space available. Even when dealing with slight differences in weight, there are opportunities to take advantage of that difference in the load design.

A Good Fit

When shipping a range of product sizes and weights, like Riviana does, combining products of varying weights on a truck, rather than filling it with a single product, more efficiently uses the legal weight and space available.

To help optimize truck capacity, Riviana began working with ProvisionAi. As Dale had been researching sustainability, a key initiative at Riviana, he came across information on the AutoO2 solution from ProvisionAi. “It sounded like a good fit and referenced a lot of the issues we were having,” he adds.

Auto02 load building software uses machine learning to optimize shipments, while it also considers more than 300 parameters, including product and customer-specific loading rules, among others.

For instance, a shipper may require that all shipments of a specific product family be placed in the tail of the truck, or that all pallets be shipped on the narrow dimension. The software can accommodate this. It has been deployed by companies around the globe and across verticals.

Along with enabling companies to fit more products on fewer trucks, the Auto02 solution manages the placement of pallets so that lighter weight products are placed on top of heavier ones—“eggs on top of bricks,” as Moore says.

In addition, pallets are placed so that they’re supported when, for instance, a truck must turn sharply. This helps eliminate much of the damage that can occur during transit and from material handling.

AutoO2 bolts on to companies’ enterprise resource planning and warehouse management systems, so it can create and guide large orders through execution. It also creates diagrams workers can follow to guide them as they load shipments onto the trucks. This helps ensure that what is planned actually is loaded, and that the resulting shipments comply with relevant regulations and are protected against most damage.

ROI In Weeks

In some cases, the solution has cut deployment freight expenditure by more than 10%. Many shippers see a return on their investment within a few weeks of going live, the company says.

As Riviana worked to implement the Auto 02 solution, Dale and his team sought input from multiple departments across the organization, including the warehouse, information technology, packaging, and transportation planning teams. This helped ensure all gained a solid understanding of the solution, its potential impact, and how it could help them load more efficiently.

“This helped with the success of the implementation,” Dale says. “Everyone was on the same page and understood the goals.”

Step-By-Step Implementation

The implementation process ran about four months, Dale says. Steps included cleaning the data, and some development in SAP. Among other actions, the teams needed to develop a way to electronically send information, such as the item master with the dimensional and weight data for each product.

In addition, the solution needed to transmit the requirements that the supply planning systems needed to ensure enough inventory would be on hand in customer-facing distribution centers.

For instance, a requirement might say that Location A needs 200 cases of wild rice. Most of the development used standard SAP functionality, Moore says.

Through the connection with Riviana’s supply planning system, Auto02 knows which items are headed to which distribution center. Based on this information, Auto02 can develop truckloads that are both legal and optimized.

When Auto02 went live in late 2022, most operators quickly learned how to use the load diagrams, Dale says. The Auto02 solution reduced the learning curve for new loaders by about 80%, Phillips adds.

Almost as soon as operators can read load patterns, they’re ready to begin loading; they don’t need to first become experts in the products themselves, as well as which are stackable and which aren’t.

Riviana’s supervisors can run the programs to create loads when operators come in each day. If the inventory of loads starts running low during their shift, the supervisors can generate additional plans.

Since implementing Auto02, Riviana has seen about a 3.5% increase in weight per truck. Because freight costs fluctuate, it’s difficult to attribute changes in overall freight expense to the software. However, the increase in weight per truck, “adds up in terms of cost savings,” Dale says.

Suggestions for Improvement

The ProvisionAi team has been flexible and open to suggestions that can improve the solution, Phillips says.

For instance, ProvisionAi helped Riviana streamline the process of importing Excel files for times when demand might veer from what was expected. This could occur when a special promotion is planned that will drive demand in specific locations, and the Riviana operations planning team needs to manually tell the system where to ship products.

Now, the system will still produce a loading diagram, even though the load has been created manually. “They’re helpful in coming up with solutions for any issues or for improving the system,” Dale says.

The ProvisionAi team also has offered suggestions to help Riviana continue to leverage the solution. For instance, the team suggested weighing trucks to understand “weight per load goals.” Because the total legal weight that can be driven on U.S. highways is 80,000 pounds, if a truck weighs 35,000 pounds, as many have, the payload can be 45,000 pounds.

Weighing the Options

Over the past several years, trucks have tended to become lighter, as manufacturers try to increase mileage and allow for higher payloads. However, a loader who is used to working with the heavier trucks of the past might assume a truck weighs more than it actually does.

“By taking the time to weigh each truck, rather than relying on memory, loaders might learn that some are 32,000 pounds,” Moore says. “This means they can increase payload targets to 48,000 pounds.”

Riviana currently has plans to implement Auto02 at its plant in Freeport, Texas, which is the company’s second-largest plant.

Case Study: Taking Up Space

Challenges:

Riviana needed to optimize truckloads to use as much trailer space as possible, cutting costs and number of trucks on the road.

Solution:

Implement Auto02 load optimization software from ProvisionAi.

Results:

An average increase in weight per truck of 3.5% and an 80% reduction in the training time many new loaders require.

Next Steps:

Implement Auto02 in Riviana’s Freeport, Texas plant.

EXPERIENCE: Vice president, operations; operations manager; and engineering manager, all with Pompeian; continuous improvement intern with Colgate-Palmolive.

EDUCATION: Université de Technologie de Compiégne (UTC); mechanical engineering, industrial reliability, and quality.

I was born and raised in Morocco, and then graduated from college in France. I came to the United States and joined Pompeian in September 2013 when I was 23 years old.

I came to the United States thinking I spoke decent English, but I really didn’t. I started in the maintenance department on a team of experienced mechanics, where I had no experience and a language barrier. The company trusted me, but gaining the trust of the department was more of a challenge.

To gain their trust, I focused on consistent, hard work combined with pride and love. Every day I worked longer hours, as I wasn’t yet thinking about having kids or buying a house.

I did this because I wholeheartedly agreed with Pompeian’s values. We offer a good, healthful product and are doing good for farmers, consumers, our employees, and the planet.

In this company, every employee matters. Knowing all of this means I can go through challenges and difficult days with pride. When I return home, I still smile and feel the same satisfaction as when I started. I was lucky that I was given a challenge and I embraced it.

Before Pompeian, I held an internship with Colgate in France, where I was able to see a large-scale production operation. Colgate also inspired me, when I was choosing my career path, to look at what I like to do and what type of businesses will remain meaningful and continuously do good for people. Food is one. People will always eat and drink, and value can always be added there.

It’s also easy to become passionate about the food industry, especially olive oil because it has a long history and provides many health benefits. In many countries, it’s on the table like salt and pepper.

Additionally, manufacturing skills can transfer from one company to another. I think of engineering as learning how to solve things. That’s the part I enjoy, as well as systems and process changes. These are also what drew me to supply chain.

There have been a lot of positive changes and growth across Pompeian. The company is family-oriented and culture-driven. We care about families, food and the planet, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Salim Benjelloun Answers the Big Questions

1. What are one or two things you wished you’d known before starting your current role?

Without hesitation, it’s English. Speaking the language is an important requirement when coming to an English-speaking country.

Another thing is the American mentality about work and how much we focus on it. In Europe and Morocco, there’s a different mindset and balance. It wasn’t too difficult to adjust to the differences, but I would have been a little more efficient if I knew the American culture coming in. Yet, there is also the beauty of discovering it.

2. What kind of student and teen were you during your high school years?

One thing that made me who I am today when it comes to approaching challenges is that I was lucky to have parents that would not say no to anything. It doesn’t mean they always approved of what I was doing, but they left the responsibility to me.

My dad would say, ‘You’re going to keep going, hit the wall, and then come back. You have to measure the risk.’ So as a teen, I could sleep at a friend’s house even on school nights, but it was on me to make it to school the next day. This helped me to learn not to be scared of making my own decisions.

At the same time, making decisions can be exhausting. I would wear the same pajamas and socks each day so I didn’t have to think about choosing them. I then kept my thoughts for bigger decisions.

3. What motivates you to get you out of bed every morning?

The people I work with. Before I think about my job, I think about who I will be working with during my day.
What also gets me out of bed is the anticipation of uncovering new possibilities, and the excitement of turning potential into reality and embracing the day’s untapped opportunities.

Lastly, gratitude for the gift of a new day and the well-being to experience it.

Dave Bozeman, CEO, C.H. Robinson

Soon after Dave Bozeman joined C.H. Robinson as CEO in 2023, he launched a company-wide challenge called What’s Impeding Your Speed? “I asked everyone, ‘What is keeping you from doing your job or going faster in your work?’” he says.

Bozeman expected to send about 345 handwritten notes thanking the global 3PL’s employees for their responses. “But I received 3,400 ideas from more than 2,400 employees,” he says. “That told me we have a speak-up culture, full of people who want to win. It was all very rich data.”

Gaining insights from rank-and-file employees is a signature strategy for Bozeman, who has also held executive positions at Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, Amazon, and Ford Motor. He recently talked with us about his leadership philosophy and recent efforts to foster continuous improvement at CH Robinson, which is one of the world’s largest logistics platform, offering logistics services, a multimodal transportation management system, and insight from supply chain experts.

IL: What was one event early in your career that helped to shape you as a leader?

When I came to Harley-Davidson in 1992 as an entry-level manufacturing engineer, I badly wanted to carry a two-way radio on the job. Only supervisors carried radios, but I wanted it so much, my superintendent finally handed me one. That obliged me not only to do engineering work, but also to spend time on the floor with the people who worked on the flywheel truing line.

I took a pounding from those people, because they saw me as management. But at the end of several weeks, a few of them said, “We like the way you listen to us and respect us.”

This taught me always to get close to the work and respect the people who do it. When the time came to introduce new processes on the floor, people were cooperative. I’ve carried that lesson throughout my career.

IL: What did you learn from serving as vice president of Amazon Transportation Services during the pandemic?

It was a crazy time for ecommerce. We worked long hours and handled surging volumes with reduced capacity, since everyone had to be six feet apart. I learned never to underestimate the power of innovation and people. We had to innovate quickly and remember that it’s okay to fail. I tell my teams now, you fail, get up, learn fast, and keep moving.

When I look back on that time, I wonder how we made it through. But we became stronger, and we made some important discoveries.

IL: You’re a lean practitioner. How have you been implementing lean principles at C.H. Robinson?

You can’t just walk in and say, “Today we’re going to do lean.” You need to make sure everyone speaks the same language. Maybe people don’t know anything about lean, but if I say I want to reduce waste in all the processes within a company—waste of information, waste of movement—people understand that.

That’s the approach I took at the beginning, walking through discussions of continuous improvement and helping people at Robinson adopt that mindset.

Also, I like to use a lean practice called gemba, which means “go see.” Just as in my Harley-Davidson days, I like to get close to the work. As a leader, that lets me base decisions on actual data and things I have witnessed.

IL: What’s an example of an improvement Robinson has made by implementing lean principles?

We have approximately 100,000 customers. Some of the largest have IT systems that connect directly to our IT systems, allowing for seamless transactions, for example, when they need a quote.

But many other customers, even quite large ones, communicate with us via unstructured data, which generally means email. Then a human needs to do the research and get back to that customer with a quote.

But if you examine that process through the lean framework, you ask how we can take waste out of that system using technology such as generative AI and large language models.

With some of that technology, we can deal with 500,000 unstructured data points daily. The system retrieves the right information, and in some cases it talks back to the customer in a conversational way. Our bar, which we’re hitting, is to get that quote back to them in less than one minute.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I hope the people who work around me will say that I’m authentic. I like to communicate consistently and effectively.

Driving the development of others is my responsibility, and it gives me satisfaction. Solving problems through the use of data is very important. So is driving a high bar to take people where they didn’t think they could go.

IL: What’s the hardest aspect of your job?

It’s not lost on me that when I make decisions and take actions, I’m responsible for more than 15,000 employees. We’re in a freight recession right now. People deserve to have leaders who make them feel confident, assuring them that we have a plan to get them through these trying times.

IL: What books do you like to recommend to others?

I gave the whole organization a book called The Lean Turnaround by Art Byrne. As an easy read that gives insights into what lean is, it provided the Rosetta Stone our organization needed, so we could all talk the same language.

On a personal level, one book I love is The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.

IL: When you’re not working, how do you spend your time?

Spending time with family is the big thing. My wife and I have been married for almost 31 years. We met in college, and now we have five children ranging in age from 15 to 30—four are out of college, two work in Florida, one is in law school in Oregon, and one works in Arizona.

Also, I’ve become a big-time foodie. I like to cook, and as I have traveled around the world I’ve come to appreciate the power of food to help people connect.

Disruption and Opportunity

Two closely related concerns make C.H. Robinson’s customers especially anxious these days. “Number one is the unknown and number two is variability,” says Dave Bozeman.

Since the pandemic, shippers have been riding a roller coaster, trying to get their supply chains and inventories back to the right levels while dealing with a freight recession. “Customers are thinking, ‘I certainly don’t want to experience the pain I had when I over-ordered during the pandemic,’” says Bozeman. “There were shipping and logistics issues, and a lot of customers were stuck with inventory.

“And it was tough to move goods around the world,” he adds. “So I think they’re being cautious about how and when they order.”

Global turmoil—including attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and disruptions at the U.S.-Mexico border—compound challenges for shippers. For example, as workers at the Big Three automakers ended their recent labor strike, the tight border made it hard for tier one suppliers in Mexico to speed auto parts back into the pipeline. C.H. Robinson helped with creative solutions, such as shifting some shipments to air freight.

“We thrive in disruption,” Bozeman says.

THE CUSTOMER:

Musco Family Olive Co. is the country’s largest producer of black ripe olives. After more than eight decades in business, the third-generation, family-owned California company now works with more than 450 farmers and runs the first food-processing plant in the world to achieve a Level 2 Safe Quality Food ethical sourcing certification.

THE PROVIDER:

Founded in 1982, AFS Logistics, based in Shreveport, Louisiana, provides differentiated logistics services to more than 1,800 customers and employs more than 380 employees across seven locations.

Musco, which boasts eight decades of history, is the largest producer of black ripe olives in the United States. The company works with more than 450 California farmers, providing olives that are transported to four warehouses in the United States and then distributed to retailers across the country.

Musco’s olive-processing plant in California is a near-zero-waste facility and the first food-processing plant in the world to achieve a Level 2 Safe Quality Food ethical sourcing certification.

Despite its robust operations, Musco is still a relatively small, third-generation, family-run company. It doesn’t have extra resources it can easily allocate to areas outside its functional expertise—namely, olives.

Working within those constraints, Lin set several supply chain and logistics objectives: reduce manual processes, enhance the freight audit process, and boost the company’s ability to identify location and arrival times of in-transit freight so it could more proactively address customer questions and continue to provide quality service. Achieving these goals would also help Musco scale its operations and offset increasing logistics costs.

Lin kickstarted a partnership with AFS Logistics, with whom he’d worked at a previous company. Based in Shreveport, Louisiana, AFS provides logistics services, including freight audit and payment, as well as parcel, less-than-truckload, and transportation management services to more than 1,800 clients.

Revamping the Carrier Dynamic

The two companies first collaborated on a domestic managed transportation program, says Andy Dyer, president, transportation management for AFS.

At the time, Musco was working with a number of incumbent carriers. While Lin didn’t want to drop them, he wanted to make sure they were meeting Musco’s business needs, had solid safety records, and were reliable and cost-effective.

Through carrier reviews, Musco and AFS were able to confirm that the incumbent carriers would continue to provide optimal service.

In addition, AFS provided Musco with access to a range of additional carriers from across the country. As a result, Musco doubled its carrier mix.

ENSURING STRONG RELATIONSHIPS

The AFS team also guided Musco on the benefits of building relationships with carriers. Strong relationships help ensure Musco can maintain its partners not just in good times, but also when the business encounters challenges. “We stay loyal to our carriers as long as they’re within reason, while also introducing other carriers. Having that access has been huge,” Lin says.

As they accumulate data on carriers’ service levels, the partners also engage in network analysis. For instance, Musco and AFS work together to assess if it makes sense to adjust forward stocking locations, given changes in demand or customer demographics.

Musco previously lacked a coordinated process for tendering shipments. This occasionally led to double- or triple-brokering loads. And, some brokers would re-broker freight to asset-based carriers, prompting concerns about maintaining integrity in the chain of custody.

AFS now coordinates Musco’s annual freight bids. AFS only considers asset-based providers for the carrier network, reducing the likelihood of shipments being brokered multiple times. To ensure Musco can leverage cost-effective shipment options, AFS receives outbound freight shipment notices via electronic transmission. AFS can then access competitive rates from a national pool of vetted carriers.

Once a shipment is booked, the transaction automatically loads into Musco’s ERP system, streamlining the billing process and enabling shipment tracking. This reduces the amount of time previously spent on tasks like manually coordinating and managing shipments.

The managed transportation service from AFS also helps Musco adjust to market changes by providing information that helps to optimize the transportation mode for each shipment.

Branching out With Track and Trace, visibility

Before working with AFS, Musco’s lack of an effective track-and-trace system limited its visibility to shipments. Now, by using the AFS transportation management system (TMS), Musco has access to visibility on shipment location, as well as costs and carrier operating performance. This data enables Musco to address issues as they arise, so it can continue to maintain quality service.

This data also aids in reducing customer chargebacks, which Dyer says is a key capability for Musco. Retailers, and particularly grocers, can impose significant penalties when a supplier makes a mistake. Working with AFS, Musco is able to receive data from carriers on arrival and wait times that it previously could not access. With this data, Musco can challenge claims that, for instance, deliveries arrived after the scheduled delivery time.

In addition, because Musco hadn’t been rigorously auditing its less-than-truckload, truckload, or intermodal freight, management couldn’t ensure billing accuracy. And with limited visibility into freight costs and load status data, it was difficult to dispute claims on issues like on-time in-full, as well as customer deduction claims. As a result, Musco was at risk of overpaying accessorial charges.

Getting Serious About Audits

Musco Family Olive Co.’s processing plant in California is a near-zero-waste facility and the world’s first food-processing plant to achieve a Level 2 Safe Quality Food ethical sourcing certification.

To help Musco exert more control over fees and surcharges, AFS implemented an invoice audit process across all transportation modes. By providing a comprehensive review of every bill, Musco can recover many overcharges and minimize the risk of overpaying. Without this information and process, fighting fines and fees often becomes time consuming and cumbersome, Lin says.

The invoice audit process also consolidates Musco’s weekly bills into one invoice, providing timely insight into transportation costs.

Musco also worked with AFS to streamline its order fulfillment process. Now, Musco sends order details to AFS via an SQL (structured query language) download, which then feeds into the AFS TMS. AFS also provides a gateway to exchange files and messages with other external trading partners, such as carriers.

Now, when orders drop, Musco no longer needs to manually disseminate information across the company and enter it into the system, Lin says.

Over time, the relationship between Musco and AFS has expanded to include imported containers as well. On these international shipments, AFS acts as Musco’s advocate in the market.

Musco’s network of warehouses also underwent analysis as part of the new partnership with AFS. By reviewing the network’s costs and services, Musco determined it could consolidate some facilities, reducing overall inventory levels. The two companies continue to periodically tweak the network.

“Quarterly business reviews are a great opportunity to flesh out other opportunities from a service or from a cost standpoint,” Lin says. This also enables Musco to redeploy employees who’d previously been dedicated toward freight, he adds.

Enjoying Process-Driven Results

By implementing more efficient processes and technology, Musco lowered its total transportation spending by more than 10% in the first year of its partnership with AFS. It also identified additional opportunities for cost reduction, leading to another $50,000 in savings, also during the first year. Subsequent reviews have led to warehouse network optimization opportunities that Musco is currently pursuing, Lin adds.

Leveraging technology for gains

Musco also was able to double its carrier mix. And through the partnership, Musco has leveraged technology that helps it adopt a process-driven approach.

Becoming more aggressive about pursuing different shipping options is the next big frontier for Musco, Lin says. This could mean reducing the number of containers or even taking trucks off the road by shifting from a less-than-truckload to a multi-stop approach.

“We’re peeling back the onion and asking, ‘What exactly are we doing? And is there a different way versus just being efficient with what we’re doing?’” Lin explains.

Whatever strategies Musco decides to pursue, Lin says AFS is key to achieving their goals. “The AFS operations team is in constant communication with us when things are good, and they’re in front of it when there are hiccups,” he says. “We get talented people who know what they’re doing and can drive value in our decision making.”

Case Study: Growing the Grove

The Challenge

Introducing greater rigor and automation to Musco’s logistics and supply chain processes, with a goal of maintaining quality service and offsetting rising transportation costs.

The Solution

Musco partnered with AFS Logistics, leveraging the 3PL’s managed transportation service and implementing both its freight bill audit and payment and order fulfillment solutions. AFS also introduced greater structure to carrier relationships and regularly assesses the company’s logistics network.

The Results

Among other benefits, Musco lowered its transportation expense by more than 10% in the first year of the partnership, while identifying opportunities to gain an additional $50,000 in cost reduction, also during the first year of the partnership. It doubled its carrier mix and restructured roles and responsibilities to improve the value contributed by employees.

Next Steps

Evaluate different means of shipping to further cut costs and boost efficiencies.

EXPERIENCE: President; senior vice president of product management and marketing; vice president of product management and marketing; vice president of sales and marketing; and vice president of procurement and marketing, all with Industrial Supply Company.

EDUCATION: University of Utah, B.A., history and anthropology.

I went to college to be a high school history teacher. While I was applying to master’s programs, my dad asked me to come work for the family business. I did and after a few months, I knew I was in the right place. I never did get my master’s degree.

Instead, I started in our warehouse. Over the past 25 years, I’ve done a little bit of everything in the company. It was when I took over procurement that I really learned the business—learning about supplier relationships and how to get products to our customers in a timely fashion.

Today, I oversee the movement of products, ensuring we have the right inventory for our customers in each location. I also manage our 240 employees.

I’m part of the fourth generation of this family business. Family businesses are complicated and challenging, especially for a woman. For 107 years, a man has run Industrial Supply. And in Utah, we don’t have a lot of women in professional roles.

I wouldn’t call myself a feminist by any means, but we do have to work harder. There has been a lot of progress for women in the work world, but not enough.

In my role as a board member for the Industrial Supply Association, I learned an awful lot by working with people from across the country who also run businesses. And it was good for my confidence because I was able to contribute and make a difference to our association and our industry.

We’re in the process of moving two branch locations to better serve our customers. It’s hard enough to move one at a time, but moving two is very challenging, as we are trying not to shut down our customers at the same time.

And about two years ago, we moved to a different Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. We jumped from a DOS-based green screen to the cloud, without a stop in the middle. That also was challenging. But technology is one of our strategic pillars.

We think about what’s coming next and how technologies like artificial intelligence will impact our business.

It’s challenging to move to new systems. For people who are having a hard time adopting, we train, train, train and make sure they’re comfortable asking questions. It’s also important to explain the ‘why’ behind the changes. In this case, the vendor was going to sunset the software, so we didn’t have a choice, but it also happened to be the right move. This helped people get behind it.

Plus, these changes are strong signals that our company is investing in the resources that will take us into the future. Employees know we’re not going anywhere.

At times, when I’ve been dealing with business challenges, I’ve thought maybe this is too much of a headache; that maybe I should have been a history teacher. But I’m in the right place. My great-grandfather started this business and I listened to my dad talk about the company growing up. I attended meetings with him. We entertained customers and suppliers at our house.

And it’s a fun business. Distribution is not exactly sexy, but it’s wonderful. Salt of the earth people work in industrial distribution. I love the people here.

Jessica Yurgaitis Answers the Big Questions

1. What are the first three things you check about the business when you wake up?

The first three things I check are the previous day’s sales, the cash balance, and the inventory.

2. If you could travel anywhere, without being constrained by time or money, where would you go?

I’d go to Italy again and again and again. It has a nice vibe and wonderful food. My husband is Italian and I love his cooking.

3. If you could throw a dinner party for anyone in the world—living or not—who would you invite?

Jesus. I’d love to have him over and see what he thinks of the mess we’re living in right now.

4. What would you tell your 18-year-old self?

You’re smarter than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can. Keep trying.

Moid Alwy, Chief Supply Chain Officer, American Tire Distributors

After nearly 20 years in supply chain roles at Target, Moid Alwy welcomed a new set of challenges in 2022, when he became executive vice president and chief supply chain officer at American Tire Distributors (ATD).

“The areas that added complexity at Target have to do with the breadth of the assortment,” Alwy says. “We were moving lipstick, bicycles, rugs, apparel. Here at ATD, our products are tires. And they’re round.”

A simpler range of products eases some aspects of logistics. But wholesale distribution poses other kinds of puzzles. “Our complexity here is around our customers’ different delivery needs and preferences,” he says.

Alwy recently gave us a look at what it takes to keep those 80,000 customers—auto repair and tire replacement shops throughout the United States—happily supplied with the products they need to run their businesses.

IL: When you first came to ATD, what items were at the top of your agenda?

The company wasn’t keeping as much data then, or doing all the analytics we do today, to measure performance and understand where we want to go. I launched a comprehensive review of the business, using some metrics I’d used in my previous life.

Also, I got out in the field—both in our buildings to talk with our teams and in our customers’ retail shops—to see how they interacted with ATD.

IL: Describe an event from your early career that helped to shape you as a leader.

I went to school for mathematics and computer science, and in my first job at Target I did modeling to help determine where to put new distribution centers. I enjoyed the supply chain and wanted to learn more, so my mentor suggested I become a front line leader in a DC. That new assignment put me in charge of the inbound day shift at a DC in rural Wisconsin, with 100 people reporting to me.

In my first three months, I probably made all the mistakes a leader can make. I’m lucky that I had strong leadership to coach me and tell me it was okay to make those mistakes. Stepping out of my comfort zone was the best thing I could have done, because that role was where I learned and grew the most.

IL: What lessons did you learn working at Target during the pandemic?

The pandemic supercharged our ability to be more nimble—for example, by diverting product from one place to another as needed. It also highlighted the value of the work we did in understanding, at a detailed level, where product was flowing and where there were going to be issues. We could communicate to our stores and customers exactly when to expect the products they were looking for.

IL: How do those lessons influence your work at ATD?

There are still disruptions and a lot of volatility in whether supply is coming from our vendors, as well as volatility in demand. It’s important to get an early indication of where disruptions will happen and then quickly adjust our plans.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of diverse experiences in my career, both in front line leadership and in being responsible for strategic priorities and projects. I’ve learned the importance of building a strong team—with the right people in the right roles—and forging a good connection, understanding what makes them tick and what motivates them.

Also, it’s important to have a compelling vision of where you’re going and why that matters. One of the first things I did at ATD was to put on paper what a good supply chain looks like and where ATD’s supply chain is going.

IL: How do you nurture talent on your team?

I’m a big fan of continuous growth, and of assignments that challenge the individual to think differently and/or ask for help. That could mean moving someone who’s really comfortable with what they do into a new job, in a field where they’re not already an expert. Or it might mean giving them an additional project, or a new role, to help them understand more broadly how the organization is connected.

Throughout that process, I have to provide the right coaching and mentoring and give them the grace to be able to make some mistakes. I also make sure people understand that asking for help is not a bad thing. When I meet with my team, I always ask, “What help do you need, where can I help, and what help are others providing?”

IL: What are you doing at ATD that’s new and interesting?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a focus across our supply chain—how we order, how we plan our inventory, how we manage transportation. With help from AI, our team can spend less time finding problems and more time developing solutions.

We’re also growing our last-mile delivery platform. We want to use the 1,400 vans and trucks operating in our top metro areas to make deliveries that ordinarily we would not make. That could mean delivering products we don’t carry ourselves for other parts suppliers who also serve our customers. We could also help retailers in the market with deliveries to consumers and businesses.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I spend a big chunk of it cooking, and I spend a lot of time working out at my gym. I played college tennis, and now I play semi-competitive tennis a few times a week.

What’s Cooking?

Kiran Alwy was eight years old when she told her father Moid that she was done serving merely as his helper in the kitchen. “She said, ‘I don’t want to just grab things out of the cupboard; I want to cook,’” says Alwy, who briefly attended culinary school and has remained an avid home chef.

As Kiran grew, so did her passion for the kitchen and her confidence in her skills. At 13, she won a spot on the Food Network show Chopped Junior and came in second in the competition. Then, in 2021, Kiran and her dad entered the world of competitive cooking as a team, appearing together on Bravo’s Top Chef Family Style.

With COVID still a big concern, father and daughter spent six weeks shut in an apartment when they weren’t in the TV studio. “As a result, we spent a lot of quality time together,” Alwy says. “She’s 17 now, and she’s one of my best friends.”

Although they didn’t win Top Chef, the pair had a terrific time on the show. “We met some amazing people with whom she’s still friends,” Alwy says. “We got to meet some amazing chefs. And we got to keep the aprons and knives, which is awesome.”

THE CUSTOMER

Bon Bon Bon, a 10-year-old artisan chocolate company with stores in Michigan and an ecommerce arm, creates bonbons with clever flavor combinations and eye-catching designs.

THE PROVIDER

Evans Distribution Systems is a full-service third-party logistics provider that offers warehousing, fulfillment, value-added, transportation, and staffing solutions.

From its start in the back room of a diner about a decade ago, Detroit-based Bon Bon Bon, which offers “the goodest goodies and sweetest sweets,” now operates a manufactory and four brick-and-mortar locations, has a presence at local markets, and ships across the United States and internationally.

Yet even as Bon Bon Bon has grown, its internal shipping department remained small—no more than a handful of employees. So, Bon Bon Bon partnered with Evans Distribution Systems, a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, also based in Michigan.

“We never would have been able to offer shipping solutions at the level of expertise that Evans has been able to,” says Alessandra Rodriguez, head of marketing for Bon Bon Bon.

A Life of Chocolate

At 19 years old, Alexandra Clark, Bon Bon Bon’s founder and head chocolatier, decided to dedicate her life to chocolate. With $32,000 she received from a taxi accident—it occurred as she was leaving a chocolate show—she opened a chocolate shop near Bon Bon Bon’s current manufactory.

Initially, the shop was open only on Saturday. Fast forward to 2024, and the company has multiple locations and is in action seven days a week, with operations significantly ramping up between Thanksgiving and Valentines Day.

Before Bon Bon Bon connected with Evans, a “small and mighty team of employees,” according to Rodriguez, filled and packaged online orders, among other responsibilities.

Along with the challenges of managing the growing volume of orders were the challenges of the chocolate itself, which is perishable and requires a temperature-controlled environment. What’s more, each order can be customized, including with a handwritten note and a choice of packaging tape designs.

Finding a Partner

In 2023, Bon Bon Bon began its partnership with Evans Distribution Systems. The team at Bon Bon Bon knew of Evans in part from its work with vegan cosmetics and skincare brand, The Lip Bar (TLB), whose flagship store is also in Detroit.

A 90-year-old company, Evans operates more than three million square feet of warehousing space in Michigan. Bon Bon Bon uses Evans’ fulfillment, shipping, logistics, warehousing, and product storage services.

Evans’ handling of these functions enables Bon Bon Bon to focus on its core competency—making great chocolate—as well as increasing sales and expanding to other markets, says Leslie Delekta, director of customer solutions with Evans.

Evans direct-ships online and corporate orders. To ensure a temperature-controlled environment, Evans has located a refrigerated container within its warehouse. The 3PL is able to add staff to the Bon Bon Bon account to manage the holiday increase in sales. As volume tapers off, Evans can shift those employees to other clients.

Bon Bon Bon and Evans are electronically connected through Shopify, which transmits most orders to Evans; currently, corporate and other large orders are handled separately. Once Evans receives the order within its warehouse management system (WMS), employees kit the product and place it into custom boxes, says Rich Huziak, senior operations manager with Evans.

When developing customized solutions for Evans’ clients, verbal explanations typically go only so far, Huziak says. To gain a thorough understanding of Bon Bon Bon’s operations, the Evans team toured its manufacturing facility and stores. Evans then built a solution that considered the processes already in place.

For instance, when Bon Bon Bon delivers inventory to Evans, it’s in trays of single bon bons. These are recorded in the Evans WMS. Evans developed a kitting process so employees know which chocolates to pull for each order.

Customized Fulfillment

Evans helps manage Bon Bon Bon’s fulfillment process, which is challenging because the chocolate is perishable and requires a temperature-controlled environment. The 3PL also helps with additional labor when orders rise dramatically between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day.

Many packages are finished with colorful wrapping tape; customers can choose from several designs. They also can request a handwritten note to accompany their orders. The WMS lets Evans employees know which packages will include these embellishments, as well the card, message, and tape to include. The employee who packs the box also initials and dates it before sending it on its way.

Depending on the destination and time of year, the order may be packed in ice. “It’s a very custom experience,” Delekta says.

Handing responsibility for packing customers’ orders and creating handwritten notes means entrusting another company to accurately represent the Bon Bon Bon brand. “It’s a big thing,” Rodriguez says.

When Bon Bon Bon receives very large orders—say, from corporate clients—it currently emails the information to Evans. This allows Bon Bon Bon to designate specific products for these customized orders.

Evans receives Bon Bon Bon inventory anywhere from several times each week, to almost daily during the busiest season. Because Bon Bon Bon’s products are perishable and custom-made, it’s not feasible to stockpile inventory in advance.

Getting up and running with the Evans team was fairly rapid, Rodriguez says. The longest piece of the puzzle was redesigning the website and creating new stock-keeping units. “It was almost as though we created a new store,” Rodriguez says.

The benefit? Setting up a new website and new SKUs from the beginning of the partnership minimized the need for Bon Bon Bon to retroactively adjust any information.

Once the new website was complete, testing took a couple of months. The teams mapped out multiple scenarios so everyone could be prepared for any type of order.

For instance, team members needed to learn what an order would look like, operationally, if it included multiples of one item, plus an item from another category or a gift card.

Similarly, if a customer ordered a box of bonbons with one tape design and another box with a different tape design, Bon Bon Bon and Evans needed to understand how the person packing the order would know which design went with which box. “We were able to work together on that,” Rodriguez says. “It was a collaborative effort.”

The Evans team needed to make sure the processes were functional, while also taking care that Bon Bon Bon’s website would be customer-friendly and provide a strong user experience. Through their combined efforts, the companies ultimately improved both the customer experience and internal operations.

More Efficient Order Processing

For example, orders can be filled more quickly than was possible previously, even with Bon Bon Bon’s dedicated internal team. One reason is Evans’ technology, which offers a step-by-step guide for processing orders. The systems in place for the fulfillment and packing teams make it easy for them to work efficiently, as they don’t have to figure out how best to process each order before they begin filling them.

This is key, as the faster rate at which orders are filled means customers have a longer time to enjoy their handmade bon bons, Rodriguez says.

The speedier processes are especially valuable with larger orders. Previously, handling a very large order could delay other orders. Now, Bon Bon Bon is able to manage all sizes of orders at the same time. Being able to accept more large orders, instead of being constrained by operational limitations “is largely beneficial,” Rodriguez says.

Tackling New Challenges

As soon as the two companies were up and running with regular orders, they began working on new opportunities, Rodriguez says. One was developing an effective pre-sale system. This allows customers to, for instance, place Valentine’s Day orders in January, but delay shipment until early February.

Later in 2024, Bon Bon Bon plans to release two new extensions to its website. One is a “box builder.” This will allow customers to select exactly which bon bons they want in their box. Bon Bon Bon actually offered this capability years ago, but it didn’t have the back-end operations ironed out. Now, through its partnership with Evans, Bon Bon Bon will be able to offer this feature to its customers, while also being confident it will work operationally.

Building Large and Customized Orders

Bon Bon Bon and Evans also are working on a large-order builder. Customers placing large—often custom—orders will be able to complete their transactions with several clicks.

If Bon Bon Bon was working with any other company, management probably would be more nervous about embarking on multiple new initiatives at the same time. “But Evans has already proven to us that they can handle it and that they’re willing to figure out how we can offer these things,” Rodriguez says.

The Bon Bon Bon team hails from across the city, as well as the world, and they are united in their belief that good people deserve good chocolate, Rodriguez says. “The Evans team has joined our efforts in accomplishing this mission in the most genuine and collaborative way,” she adds.

Casebook Study: How Sweet It Is

The Challenges

Finding a way to effectively and efficiently manage order fulfillment and shipping as Bon Bon Bon grew to encompass multiple locations and national and international shipments, while still creating quality chocolate.

The Solution

Partner with Evans Distribution to handle fulfillment, shipping, logistics, warehousing, and product storage.

The Results

A significant reduction in order processing time and greater ability to handle large orders.

Next Steps

Working on extensions to Bon Bon Bon’s website, including a pre-order feature and the ability to enable customers to create large orders with several clicks.

THE CUSTOMER

Branch Basics, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a non-toxic cleaning products company founded by three health-conscious women. Its mission is to help people toss the toxins and live healthy lives.

THE PROVIDER

ODW Logistics, based in Columbus, Ohio, is a third-party logistics provider offering supply chain design, e-commerce fulfillment, warehousing and distribution, and transportation management solutions across a range of industries nationwide.

Originally founded in 2012 before being relaunched in 2017, Branch Basics’ product line centers around a fragrance-free, multi-purpose cleaning concentrate. The all-in-one formula can be diluted to various concentrations to meet all cleaning needs.

Branch Basics’ founders Marilee Nelson, Allison Evans, and Kelly Love were prompted by their own health challenges, or those of family members, to start their company.

“The women will tell you they never set out to sell soap,” says Greg Bastian, Branch Basics president and chief financial officer. “They were on a mission to create a healthy home and it holds true. In fact, that has become the company’s tag line.”

As a mission-based company, Branch Basics provides numerous resources to create a healthy home including a blog, a podcast, various guides, and a Toss the Toxins course, which are all accessible through its website.

“To some extent we’re an education platform,” Bastian explains. “We just happen to sell cleaning products as the economic engine to drive our growth and to be able to create content centered around healthy living.”

The 2017 relaunch occurred because Branch Basics did not previously own the formula for their cleaning concentrate. The founders wanted to be 100% transparent in terms of ingredients and thus the company now owns the formula that creates the basis for its signature product.

Culturally in Sync

Recently, a critical milestone tied to a promotion, as well as the company’s overall plans for the future, led Branch Basics to do some reconnaissance. Pleased as they were by a particularly successful 2022 Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaign, the company faced challenges moving the resulting volume.

They’re also aware their strategic growth plan is likely to include sales through different and still-to-be-determined channels. There was plenty of impetus to start looking for an experienced 3PL to help them scale operations.

Being part of a tight-knit community of entrepreneurs made deciding who to work with that much easier.

“We leaned into our network, asking other DTC companies: ‘Who is doing this for you? What 3PLs have these capabilities?’” says Karen Lowery, Branch Basic’s chief operations officer. “Our business model is a different world than shipping into retail, or even into Amazon.”

When shopping the Branch Basics website, customers have the opportunity to order varying configurations of product. It was essential that any 3PL the company decided to partner with have the experience to deliver that need. The eco-friendly cleaning brand also wanted real-time visibility into its inbound and outbound shipments.

The Right Fit

Enter ODW Logistics. Right from the start, the two companies proved to be a cultural fit.

“There’s a spirit and a direct level plus a relationship mindset that we always look for in our partners,” says Casey Nofziger, vice president of client solutions at ODW Logistics. “Branch Basics checked that box for us instantaneously.”

ODW Logistics is appreciative of Branch Basic’s conscious effort to make an impact. “The products speak to people and the company has a huge following and a history of strong growth. As much as determining how we can help, our belief in a company and its products factors into decisions to partner as well,” says Nofziger.

To help Branch Basics meet demand, ODW Logistics provides a holistic supply chain solution that includes a diverse e-commerce fulfillment program, cost effective transportation management, and the ability to scale as the business grows.

Transition Period

Efficiency is often achieved in a smaller footprint. Prior to partnering with ODW, Branch Basics had been operating out of three warehouses.

“Going to a single node wasn’t even in our thought processes, but ODW laid out the value,” says Bastian. The 3PL’s capabilities convinced the eco-friendly company that they could reduce inventory complexities and still meet customer expectations in terms of timing.

Not having to implement processes in triplicate made the transition period that much simpler. Organizationally, the partners aligned on efficiencies such as standardizing case labeling to achieve an effective flow within the single node. They also agreed it was essential to create an item master that acknowledged changes in SKUs and how things are packaged.

Leading up to the go-live date, there were technological integrations to manage and inbound inventory dates to meet. “We did a lot of testing,” says Joe Atkinson, manager of finance and operations at Branch Basics, acknowledging ODW’s dedication in that regard. As predicted, having a good master SKU list came in handy when Branch Basics started loading in inventory.

There was also customer service and portal training for Branch Basics’ roughly 22 employees from brand and warehouse managers to pick-pack workers and kitters. “It was all very structured. We met our timelines and our go-live date, which is always a huge deal,” says Atkinson.

Slippery Moments

It was a juggling act for Branch Basics to keep the incumbent 3PL at their three original warehouses set with inventory while filling up ODW and transitioning to a single node. “It was a challenge making the whole matrix of our co-manufacturers, suppliers, with all the lead times and SKUs we have, fit,” says Atkinson. The company ended up bringing one of their lower volume SKUs off the site for a few weeks.

“Some of the lead times were tough and we had to take a small hit,” he adds.

As for ongoing challenges, Atkinson references the importance of addressing “edge cases.”

“If 99% of your business is clean and simple, you spend the rest of your time handling that last 1% shipping to remote locations and P.O. boxes, or just odd orders,” he explains. Branch Basics has been focused on cleaning up those edge cases since the go-live date.

Healthy and Happy

Implementing standardization provides plenty of perks. As a result of partnering with ODW, Branch Basics is grateful to now have a document detailing their operations moving forward.

“ODW Logistics understands our business—how we kit, how we pick and pack, all the freight routing,” says Atkinson. “It’s great to have everything documented and on paper. Prior to this we had just tribal knowledge building over the years.”

Atkinson also appreciates ODW’s freight brokerage services. “I’ve gone from sourcing freight on my own to handing off the details to the ODW LTL team,” he says. “The process couldn’t be smoother.”

In addition to achieving real-time visibility, all products are now barcoded. “It’s a clean process,” says Lowery. “I don’t think our prior process would have been sustainable. Going with a more sophisticated operation is going to benefit us as we grow.”

This is reassuring to a company that brought in nearly $27 million in revenue in 2022 and now touts a 50% customer repeat rate. Branch Basics’ gross sales grew by around 57% year-over-year from 2021 to 2022.

Accelerating Future Growth

For its part, ODW Logistics equates being able to provide expertise in the omnichannel world with thinking larger.

“The management team has a mindset of continuing to accelerate business growth,” says Nofziger. Branch Basics may introduce new products or consider manufacturing in different ways across the United States or potentially get into the retail channel long term.

“As much as our partnership is about helping Branch Basics in today’s world improve on the areas they called out, it’s also about assuring them that ODW Logistics has anything they need to help them grow in the future,” Nofziger says.

Case Study: Journey to Health

The Challenge

Branch Basics, a direct-to-consumer, non-toxic cleaning products company, needed an experienced third-partner logistics provider to help them manage their distribution, fulfillment, and transportation services.

The Solution

Branch Basics partnered with 3PL provider ODW Logistics to streamline operations and gain real-time visibility into their inbound and outbound shipping. They achieved greater efficiency by downsizing from three warehouses to a single node.

The Results

The company acquired a master SKU list, all products are now barcoded, and inventory complexities have been reduced. Customer expectations are still being met. Instead of having to rely on tribal knowledge, Branch Basics now has a comprehensive document detailing their operations moving forward.

Next Steps

Handling Black Friday/Cyber Monday surges with greater efficiency. Expanding the product line in response to customer requests for new solutions on how to remove toxins from their homes. Considering exploring the omnichannel world.

EXPERIENCE: Chief technology officer, Kohl’s and DICK’S Sporting Goods; senior vice president, The Home Depot; chief operating officer, Desktone; executive vice president, supply chain, and chief information officer, Staples; senior vice president, technology, Charles Schwab & Co.; chief executive officer and president, Website Pros; executive vice president, Office Depot; multiple director positions.

EDUCATION: Harvard University, graduate work, psychology; Harvard University, A.B., computer science.

I have spent the past decade with large retail companies and played key roles in helping them modernize their approaches to technology. My biggest insight? Businesses need to build their technology for the actual end users, such as customers and frontline associates.

As an example, at one company, we designed an order picking system. But when we observed the best pickers, they didn’t use the system. The people who should have been using the system were ignoring it and had figured out a better way to complete their tasks. It takes some humility, but you come to grips with the idea that maybe we should stop building systems this way.

Enterprise technology often is built for people who spend most of their lives in offices. When you focus on the needs of frontline workers and customers, you end up building software that people actually enjoy using.

I’m bringing that mindset to Omni. My team and I want to understand, for instance, what drivers actually do. How much of what we’re asking them to do makes their life easier? Or do they get their work done, and then figure out how to get it reflected in the system? I’ll be taking some truck rides to find out.

Omni is good at moving physical goods across every mode. We have smart people working to understand our customers’ needs and figuring out the best mode for their shipments.

My team and I want to do more combining of smart people and smart algorithms. This might mean analyzing, for instance, current traffic versus historical patterns, among other factors, to come up with more scientific predictions of actual arrival times. There’s a lot of opportunity in the transportation and logistics space to apply more predictive science.

I’ve always been interested in software and how it can make things better. Then I became interested in what makes people tick. The intersection of those is operations.

For one employer, I advocated for and then ran a large supply chain transformation. It turned out to be less about the correct answers to optimizing the supply chain, and more about changing participants’ hearts and minds and getting them oriented to a different view of success.

The first step is building tools that help the people doing the work, rather than focusing on a theoretical best practice.

The second step is figuring out if everyone is working toward the right goal. Complex supply chains encompass many links and each has its own idea of operations excellence.

People understandably take pride in their personal performance and often gravitate toward siloed metrics. You have to win their hearts to get them to think about the bigger prize.

Too often, there are conflicts between the best outcome for a single link in the supply chain and the best outcome for the whole supply chain.

I’m excited because Omni Logistics does a great job for our customers and it’s a great place to work. Being more effective at digital optimization offers all upside. It’s great to say, ‘Everything can actually be better.’”

Paul Gaffney Answers the Big Questions

1. From a professional perspective, what movie or TV show resonates with you?

Holmes on Homes or Holmes to the Rescue on HGTV. The host, Mike Holmes, understands how a house should be built, and he’s often called into situations where you wonder, ‘How did this happen?’ The same thing happens a lot with software.

2. If you could accelerate the development of one supply-chain-disrupting technology, what would you choose?

A Star Trek transporter beam would be super effective. The more serious version of that would be advances in 3D printing. Instead of shipping goods, we’d make them where they’re needed. It’s largely in the movement of goods that things get chaotic.

3. What would you tell your 18-year-old self?

Spend more time understanding how people make decisions and less time figuring out what the right answer is. Even when the answer is in the spreadsheet, implementing it often has more to do with understanding people.

Akash Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder, GreyOrange

Akash Gupta and Samay Kohli were barely out of college when they co-founded robotics and AI firm GreyOrange. From that start in 2012, the company, now based in Atlanta, has become a major force in supply chain automation, with operations across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

“In 2012, supply chain was not as sexy as it is today,” says Gupta, who took over from Kohli as CEO of GreyOrange in 2023. “It was still a back-end function and a pure bottom-line driver rather than a top-line driver.” The world has changed since then, and demand for GreyOrange’s solutions has soared.

Gupta filled us in on the company’s history and recent activities and shared some insight into his leadership.

IL: When you and Samay Kohli founded your robotics business, why did you choose logistics as its focus?

In 2012, digitization was transforming manufacturing just as ecommerce was revolutionizing consumer behavior. We predicted that the supply chain, which connects the manufacturing and consumer ecosystems, would have to evolve quickly as well. That was a global problem.

Also, we realized that warehouses badly needed to be automated in two ways: to reduce manual labor and walking, and to become less dependent on human decisionmaking. We were intrigued to find an industry that needed a combination of robotic automation and software automation.

IL: Tell us about an event early in your career that taught you an important lesson.

Our first product was a sortation system. The launch was beautifully successful; it took just a few months to sell systems to two large companies in India. But then we had to spend 12 to 18 months refining those systems, because what you think you have on paper is very different from what happens in the warehouse. That experience taught us a lot of things that two engineers getting out of college needed to know.

And those lessons paid off extremely well. One of our first customers was the ecommerce company Flipkart. We worked very hard to make sure their peak season went well, and they turned into an amazing customer reference for us. The next season, we sold 37 sortation systems and went from $500,000 in revenue to between $10 million and $12 million.

IL: What keeps your customers awake at night?

Three things. First is how to develop a technology platform that will give their customers the right experience. Second is, once they’ve identified how to deliver that experience, how do they quickly scale up the solution to cover the whole enterprise? Third, how do they stay agile, so they can respond to any sort of event, from a pandemic to unexpected changes in consumer demand?

IL: Do customers bring any unusual challenges to GreyOrange?

One customer was shipping 80% of its volume to retail stores and 20% to ecommerce consumers from one facility. We designed a system to support that volume. Then COVID hit, and they asked us to flip the system to 80% ecommerce and 20% retail.

That was a drastic request, but fortunately we had been designing our solutions to accommodate a change in channel mix. We were able to reconfigure their system in a few days.

IL: What would we see if we followed you around at work?

I spend 50% of my time with current and prospective customers; I try to visit three or four customer sites every 15 days. Another 30% of my time I spend talking to folks in the company, including my direct reports and people at the execution level. And I probably spend 20% of my time putting out fires and making sure we keep the lights on.

IL: How would you describe your leadership style?

I’m fairly detail-oriented. I try to be as intellectually honest as possible, and I want everybody to do the same. I like to hear bad news as quickly as possible, so we can do something about it. Once we make a commitment to a customer, I go very far to make sure we keep that commitment.

IL: How do you nurture talent on your team?

Because it’s so important to understand our customers and their problems, I encourage team members to visit customer sites. I make sure that they feel comfortable trying new things and making mistakes, but also that they have a clear view of what is important, what is reversible, and what is irreversible.

These people have attained their roles because they’re capable, but through all the chaos of running a business, they need to be self-aware. It’s important to help them with that.

IL: What’s new and interesting at GreyOrange these days?

We’re making sure that each member of our leadership team spends time in one of our customers’ warehouses. And we’ve recently expanded the focus of our solutions from just the warehouse to the larger challenge of omnichannel execution, including in-store inventory.

IL: How have you been influenced by a mentor or role model?

I’ve had several mentors, but one who taught me a particularly interesting lesson was Thomas Chance, the CEO of C&C Technologies, where Samay and I did internships. We worked closely with him on a few projects, and he was kind enough to tell us about his experiences. He emphasized that you have to respect Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong then it will go wrong, so it’s important to be well prepared.

IL: Is there something you believed strongly at the start of your career that you’ve changed your mind about?

When you start out, what’s most important is to get the technology or the product right. But the crucial thing is to get the people right. The value of having people who align on the company’s vision, culture, and behavior is even greater than the value of a good product or technology.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I love taking drives to remote places. I also love attending all kinds of musical performances. And spending as much time as possible with family is always on my priority list.

Keep Moving Forward

Looking back at his entrepreneurial journey so far, the characteristic that strikes Akash Gupta as most important is a bias toward action.

“You start your day with 10 decisions to be made,” Gupta explains. “No matter what happens, a few of those decisions will be wrong.”

But you can’t let fear of those inevitable errors keep you from moving forward. “You’ll never have enough information to make the perfect decision,” he says. “You just need to trust that you are making more right decisions than wrong ones.”