GAINS On Podcast: S2E17 – ACR Levels Up Network Strategy

Welcome back, supply chain junkies, operations architects, and efficiency enthusiasts. Joe Davis here, your Friendly Neighborhood podcast host, bringing you another thought-provoking episode of GAIN On, the show that unpacks the evolving world supply chain strategy, planning, and design powered as always by the brilliant minds at GAINS. Today we’re joined by Steve Dorn, senior director of operations at ACR company that has transformed its entire supply chain posture through deliberate strategy, structured experimentation, and a deep commitment to cross-functional collaboration. In this conversation, Steve shares how ACR used their supply chain transformation project, Project Rubik to redefine their network, rethink their constraints, and build a repeatable system for scalable growth. You’ll hear what it’s like to integrate a new acquisition every year, how the team learned to embrace gains as designed and how the company used careful modeling and long range planning to lift, fill rates, cut costs, and build an operational playbook that works across an expanding business. If you’re curious about network design, incremental transformation, and the power of a well-run strategy program, this is an episode packed with insights for you ready to dig in. Welcome to the show, Steve. Thank you so much for coming on. Steve GAINS has a great relationship with ACR. It goes back quite a ways we, we’ve really been, I know one of the things that we worked closely on was Project Rubik, right? Is it Rubik or Rub? Rubik.

Rubik as in the Rubik.

Okay.

Project

Rubik. Can you tell me a little bit about what that was?

Sure, absolutely. So Project Rubik was a network design effort that we undertook in 2021,

(01:52)
And that was also the same year that we went live with the GAINS software application. So we were very ambitious there, but we also knew through COVID this was our opportunity to really change who we were and where we were headed so that we could be better positioned as we came out of, not of GAINS but out of COVID for the benefit of our company. And so we really wanted to develop a comprehensive supply chain strategy. So we desired to increase our knowledge of overall supply chain network, understanding our true cost drivers, our service implications, as well as benchmarking with our customers. And so this led to insights and better understanding of our operations policies. We evaluated several strategic network scenarios addressing our near term profitable growth, as well as our long-term commercial strategies. As this was our company’s first network optimization project, we didn’t have the foresight to know that we were going to do this beyond 2021, but it did turn into a repeatable program for us and our organization. After executing the projects that came out of Project Rubik, the strategy work, it spawned all of these projects that came from there and including our M&A strategy of acquiring a company per year. That has been our pace for the last 10 years. We knew that we had to launch a second Project Rubik, and in 2024, we did just that and we called it Rubik 2.0.

I love it. So the inspiration for that name, was it because it was such a complex puzzle that needed to be worked on?

Exactly the reason the name came to be.

I love it. Are you a puzzle guy?

Well, my kid is. I mean, he could do like 20 of those different Rubiks like seconds. It’s never been my strength, the three by three, and maybe I can do it.

Fair enough, fair enough. I’ve talked to a lot of folks about how they got into supply chain and a lot of folks, I just like solving problems. I like doing puzzles. So has that been part of that? Is that what got you into supply chain?

So I was a trainer, a corporate trainer by trade. My family is in education. They’re all teachers to some degree. I teach adults. And so I came out in the dot boom bust to found a job on the internet, came out to Atlanta, and to this day, never walked in the door of that company because they busted before I could accept the job. So what did I do from there? I found a training role at a company called E3 Corporation, a smaller supply chain solution offering that was later purchased by JDA Software, which is now known as Blue Yonder. And so I went through the training. The only training they had was consultant training. I finished top of my class with another gentleman and they’re like, “You guys are going to be implementation consultants.” And well, thank you, I think, but let’s go. And we haven’t looked back. And so I’ve absolutely loved helping people solve problems with the solutions that are available in front of them. So often they will gravitate towards those bells and those whistles, but we need to focus on that block and tackle because if we can do that right, we can take that in any direction we want to go.

Right. Well, it comes back to fundamentals, right?

(05:12)
Absolutely.

(05:13)
And as it so often does, and when we think about in network design, it really is those very basic questions of what do I want to do? What am I trying to accomplish? Is that the approach that you took is, I know you say you kind of had this unique, I guess unique is the best way anyone’s described the pandemic. You had this unique opportunity to when everything was already in chaos, just say since it’s already broken, let’s fix it now and build it the way we want it to.

We could not boil the ocean. And so with that, the lesson we learned from Rubik, the first one was that we had to smartly define what our constraints were. As an example, we said we are not going for another. We had to work inside of our four walls.

(05:58)
OK

(05:59)
There was a choice that we made to constrain the work that we did. The second one, we allowed that to open up. We wanted to explore. Are we in the right locations? Are we at the right sizing? Do we need to expand? Do we need to move? Do we need to close? That was a second time through, but the first time through, we had constraint that helped us be successful. So really we tackled less of the problem more effectively for a bigger impact of us at the time. And then we kind of opened that up and went a little more broad the second time through.

Well, we talk about incrementalism and like I’ve always say like eating an elephant, right? You take small bites. And so this idea of incrementalism and how everything sort of … Evolution and natural systems all take small gradual changes because there’s less risk. Big sudden changes in nature usually are mutations and they unfortunately pass away. But we have the ability to sort of build these systems from the ground up and to do it little piece at a time. So like the fall isn’t as far. So is that the approach that you took to kind of break it into these little pieces so that you could control it and build that strong foundation and then move from there?

We didn’t want to control the process. We wanted to allow the process to work its way naturally through what we needed to consider, define and explore as we went through the strategy work. And so we worked with Jeff Metersky in helping us define what that could be. So we knew we needed to, as an example, stay within our same footprint, project one, but we were allowing ourselves to be challenged and think of things differently in order to say what’s going to make sense for it, what makes sense today, what might make sense in the future, and what ultimately is going to help us at the end. So we did start a little bit smaller with that footprint. That really expanded the offering of where we could go on the second Rubik project. But with the first one, it was kind of getting our feet wet. Like I said, in 21, we didn’t know we would continually be doing this. We have since done a second one in 24, and if we’re on the same track, we’ll do one in 27, but the world is changing so much, I would not be surprised if we pick it up in 26.

That’s amazing. The speed of change, you mentioned that, and I want to want to pass over something that you mentioned that you guys grow by acquisition a year- that pace?

We do. Acquisition a year.

How do you manage these desperate systems coming in and flowing in? How do you manage that?

Sure. Every company is its own, right? And the way that it wants to present this. So we kind of have this moniker that says one ACR. And so we want to bring these acquisitions in at the right time that doesn’t happen on day one, but at the right time, we start to bring them into our digital ecosystem. And what really is reliant upon GAINS being advantageous is making sure that the integration is inside our ERP system because that’s the gold standard. If it’s in the ERP system, we already have the pipe that goes from S2K to GAINS and then back into S2K. S2K is our ERP system. Gotcha. And so we want them to be integrated digitally before we explore TMS and planning solution and WMS and all of the other pieces that we do offer as a digital product suite for our companies. So once that happens, that’s when we come in and take over

Yeah

(09:59)
And bring them into the GAINS world.

(09:59)
So your 10,000 hours is really building that process to bring in a new company and integrate it fairly seamlessly into the new ecosystem.

We try seamlessly. I won’t promise that it’s seamless, but we do our best and we get better each time that we do an integration. Like I said, over the 11 years that we have been doing this, we are averaging one a year, and the last five years has been one a year. And I would not be surprised if we have another one before this year closes out.

That’s ambitious and good luck with that.

Thank you.

I did want to ask you, you had said when we’d spoken previously, and you mentioned earlier when you were doing Rubik One, you sort of want to let it just kind of take shape and itself. So you set the constraints and then sort of, “Well, it’s this project be you this project.” In that, you said that one thing was important for you is using GAINS as it was designed versus trying to customize everything and build it that way. Can you tell me a little bit what made the decision?

Absolutely. So I have a background in supply chain planning software, and it’s so interesting when you go in to implement a new supply chain solution like GAINSystems, and the first thing they tell you is, “We want GAINS to do what we’ve always done.” Sorry, you’re going to waste your time. That’s not really how it’s designed. So me and the VP of planning, Andrew Kurpiel at the time, we really wanted to understand how GAINS operated. How did GAINS do what it did best? We selected it for a reason. We selected it because of what we saw and what we liked about the product offering. So can we go in with that mindset that says we want to leverage GAINS as designed and should the need come up, we want the ability to expand, to customize, to whatever word you want to put on that, that’s when we wanted to look at those opportunities. But I will say today, we have maintained the majority of the way GAINS is designed to operate and we find that it’s easier to use the application and it’s better in supporting things outside of the standard application like Project Rubik, our network optimization.

So once you’ve launched Rubik One and Rubik Two, what are the signs that this is working? We built the process and we’re seeing results. What was that like for you and your team?

So going back to Rubik One, as with anything that’s cross-functional, multifaceted, large project, we could have gotten our executive chief operating officer, Brett Barnenello to say, “This is what we’re going to do. ” But we just felt that was the wrong way to do it. We really wanted a collaborative partnership across the organization, from finance to commercial, to HR, to all of those touchpoints that can partner with operations in order to develop and design a successful program. And so there was some persuading, there was some encouraging, there was some almost dragging along to say, “Come on, you can do this with us. We really do want your opinion in this process.” Coming to the second one, that was totally different. When we said we were going to launch Rubik Two, hands were raised, and I’m talking VP and executive level going, “How do I sign up? How do I get on that project team?” And we’re like, “Really? This was crazy, but it was awesome.” But why was it that way? One, we had a great program that was run collectively. I’m not saying it was perfect, But it was a well-run program that people understood where we were and what we were trying to achieve. Then when they saw the results, that’s what sold them on this program called Project Rubik. And so we went into Rubik Two, I had the hands raised. We had to actually hold some of the folks back going, “We can’t have a project team that size, but it was really cool because we got the folks in there and they were selling Rubik to the organization. We as a project team and Brett as a sponsor didn’t have to do that. It sold itself.” And so from that perspective, when you talk about success that comes out of this type of work, we had numbers that said fill rates increased up to 98%. We were maybe around 70. So we got up to 98%. Inventory was reduced by 25%. Outbound freight and warehousing expenses fell 27% and split orders where we were filling orders out of multiple warehouses fell to under 10%. Now, all of that to say is we got those success numbers from when we started and still supported 2X in sales. That is our story. That is the benefit of these Rubik projects. And I can promise you, when we do Rubik Three, whenever that happens to be 26 we’re going to be have to beating down these guys to go, “No, we can’t have everybody in the project make sure we’ve got the right folks.”

Well, that’s what I would say. Success is addictive, right?

Yeah.

You get a little bit of taste of that improvement and you’re able to see those numbers and you go, Oh, you get hungry for more. And what we’ve talked about in every one of these sessions is what helps people to evangelize it, to buy-in is to show them what’s in it for them. If what does a 25% savings for you look like? So is that what you’re looking forward to now? You don’t even have to sell it anymore. You just have to send out the email and everybody’s jumping all over it.

That is the case. And sometimes it’s even interesting to hear, Hey, when are we doing the next one and why would we need to do the next one? It’s not that the other two didn’t work, but every year we are bringing a new organization

(16:00)
Absolutely

(16:00)
Into our company. And so things change. They bring new ideas, they bring new locations, they bring new product offerings. It could be a manufacturing plant versus a distribution. So these things will just change the nature and character One ACR. So if we go back for just a second and we talk about this design work, we as a company are really a conglomerate of founder-led, family-owned businesses that care about their customers. So first and foremost, we would do whatever it takes to service our customers. And though that is a noble aspiration, it is the not profitable for sustainable, right?

(16:43)
Fair.

(16:43)
So we really wanted to apply those learnings to really set standards that permeated the company that went across so that we as an organization knew how we were going to respond at any point in time. We had our playbook

(16:57)
And because we were confident in how we were going to react, the customer knew what to expect and there were not any surprises. So it was a two-way street with our customers showing them the benefit of this program. So what are we doing next, right.

(17:13)
Love to.

(17:14)
So right now, what have we done from 21 to 24? We feel like we’ve done a lot, right? We have done system integration in 2021. We did a health check 18 months later with Jeff Gosz that had some tremendous successes for us as an organization using the application. We have done two network optimizations, Rubik and Rubik 2.0, and we continue to do M&A integrations into our organizations. So we are fully on board with GAINS and where GAINS can help us grow and deliver on our commitments to our customers. But what’s next?

(17:14)
Yeah

(17:53)
We have just begun. Last week we kicked off lead time prediction, so we are heading down that path. Great. So that’s a Q4 effort. In Q1, we want to finally upgrade to GAINS X. And then in Q2, we have another acquisition that we want to bring into our organization into GAINS. So it’s in the ERP, but now it’s time to get it into GAINS. Very cool. So then where do we go from there? That’s already enough a lot of simulation, but we are hearing so many great things coming from GAINS at this conference that it’s like, okay, we got to get our heads wrapped around what can be beneficial in what order and start to have our long range plan, one to three years that says, where do we continue to engage with the GAINS application? And the last thing I wanted to leave you with is that when we sought out a supply chain planning solution software provider as GAINS,

(18:52)
We considered five different organizations. And the thing that attracted me most to GAINS is they wanted a collaboration. They wanted to be a partner with us, which is number one in my book. I came from that space and I hated that customers were a number. But with GAINS, we have had a collaborative partnership relationship since day one that every time we engage in some regard just continues to strengthen. We are growing by the way you guys are growing and giving us new functionality and characteristics. You guys are also growing by listening to us. And we heard some great stories this morning about where those partnerships are that we are giving you customer feedback to consider putting into your product offering for the benefit at all. So we just love this. We have been just thrilled that we landed with GAINS and have had such an amazing relationship with you guys.

Yeah. And the feeling is mutual, but I’m not as eloquent as you are. Steve, thanks so much for coming. I appreciate it.

(19:59)
Absolutely.

(19:59)
Steve, everybody. Steve Dorn. And that wraps up our conversation with Steve Dorn from a ACR. A huge thanks to Steve for giving us a behind the scenes look at Project Rubik, Rubik 2.0 and ACR’S ongoing transformation journey. When organizations make space for structured exploration, open collaboration, and clearly defined constraints, they build alignment that lasts. ACR used that approach to unify legacy processes, integrate new acquisitions, raise, fill rates, cut costs, and created a shared playbook that gives every team clarity on the how to respond when conditions shift. The result, a supply chain that’s more adaptable, more connected, and ready for continued growth. If this episode got you thinking about strengthening your own network design strategy, visit gainsystems.com to learn more.

(20:54)
And if you’re enjoying this season of GAINS On, don’t forget to subscribe and share the show with a colleague. Keep learning, keep optimizing and remember in the complex world of supply chain, we’re all in this together. This is Joe Davis signing off from GAINS On. Until next time. Want to stay connected with all things GAINS and continue to explore the exhilarating world of supply chain planning and design? Then don’t forget to follow GAINS on LinkedIn where you can be part of our growing and vibrant professional community. And for more content, engaging posts and updates, don’t forget to like and subscribe to GAINS On on YouTube. Trust us, you won’t want to miss what we’re sharing. If today’s podcast episode left you hungry for even more insights we’ve gotten you covered. Every episode of GAINS On is accompanied by a detailed blog post for those who wish to dive deeper into the topic. Whether you’re looking to expand your knowledge or find that special morsel of information, our blogs are designed with you in mind. Visit gainsystems.com for more. All the links you need to be found at the description below. Thanks once again for tuning into GAINS On. And remember, we are here to help you to code the world of supply chains, one episode at a time.