Pros to Know: Saddle Creek Logistics’ Grady Martin Talks the Value of WES

As Saddle Creek’s COO, Grady Martin oversees operations for 50 locations nationwide, encompassing 33 million square feet of warehousing and distribution space. He is responsible for setting the strategic direction for the $1 billion company, establishing and managing budgets, and developing Saddle Creek’s roadmap for innovation and implementation. Martin is regularly involved in business development efforts, meeting with prospective clients and presenting solutions, and heading up the company’s Lean Six Sigma program, helping to build on the company’s deep-seated commitment to continuous improvement. With more than 25 years of supply chain experience, Martin joined Saddle Creek as director of supply chain in 2015 and has since been promoted to positions of increasing responsibility, as VP, engineering in 2021, SVP in 2023 (a role which doubled his team) and his current CEO role in July 2024. Over the years, Martin has streamlined solutions process, built a collaborative enterprise-wide engineering team, established the Innovation Leadership Team, and has played a key role in developing and facilitating the strategic planning process. Previously, he held supply chain management roles at Promega, Jarden Corporation and Allison Transmission, among others. 

Over the past year, Martin has overseen a number of pilot programs to evaluate new technologies, including humanoid robots; automated pick-and-pack robotic arms for multi-packs; autonomous case loading/unloading; robotic kitting; robotic palletizers/de-palletizers; and automated yard trucks. Of these, 75% are already moving to the next stage. In addition, Martin’s teams have implemented numerous initiatives that were previously pilots. For example, Saddle Creek expanded its use of Locus autonomous mobile robots to support both e-commerce and retail fulfillment. Saddle Creek’s AI-enabled real-time labor planning tool, DAILYdemand, has proven to help improve the accuracy of client forecasts by as much as 30%. 3D mobile dimensioners are now being deployed in multiple Saddle Creek locations. And, Saddle Creek now uses automated forklifts for unloading and loading in select locations, among other projects. With Martin’s guidance, Saddle Creek also expanded its information systems in 2024, implementing a new out-of-the-box warehouse execution system (WES) across all Saddle Creek locations; implementing a new labor management system (LMS ) to help determine where associates are spending time, identify inefficiencies and training opportunities and establish best practices; and spearheading Saddle Creek’s strategic planning process, helping to determine the optimal structure to drive growth and scale the business. Under Martin’s direction, Saddle Creek opened two new warehouses in the past year to support the needs of new and existing clients and is on track to open a location in Phoenix, a new market for the company, in February. Martin has also been integrally involved in developing and rolling out Saddle Creek’s new client success program, establishing a repeatable process to manage client relationships more effectively and consistently across the organization. 

Looking ahead, Martin aims to enhance the client experience; improve the associate experience; and better leverage information. 

We talked exclusively with Grady about leveraging labor management systems, making those technology investments and discovering the value in warehouse execution systems.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: Let’s first talk about you. Tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey to get to this current stage in your career?

Grady Martin: Growing up in Indiana farm country, one of my first jobs was packaging pints of blueberries on an assembly line. When you're packing thousands and thousands of pints a day, you start to wonder, “How can we make this better? How can we do it faster and more efficiently?” That’s just how my brain works. That's the fun stuff for me.

I was drawn to the supply chain field because I saw the opportunity to make improvements that could make a real difference in people’s lives. I earned my degree in Industrial Engineering at Purdue and spent about 15 years in supply chain management before joining Saddle Creek in 2015.

Working for a 3PL really appeals to me because you can have an impact across so many different industries and help to get products to people across the country. And when you can make an associate’s job easier or more rewarding, that's especially exciting for me.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: One of the things outlined in your submission is how you’ve overseen a number of pilot programs to evaluate new technologies. Why is doing so important? And what technologies are making the biggest impact in logistics right now?

Martin: Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace today. It’s critical to stay on top of all the new developments to ensure we’re providing the best possible service for our clients. We really focus our technology investments on solving their challenges – removing any barriers that might prevent them from achieving their business goals.

Systems and software can help to improve visibility and generate efficiencies. Automation and robotics can drive productivity, scale for spikes in volume, and reduce operational costs, particularly through labor savings.

In addition to solving our clients’ challenges, we also focus on making work life better for our associates. Many of our robotic implementations provide alternatives to physically demanding, repetitive, or undesirable tasks – helping to improve job satisfaction and labor retention.

In the past year or so, AI has been driving remarkable improvements in robotics. Robots are getting faster and moving more smoothly. The programming, which often incorporates AI, is getting better. Robots’ dexterity is also improving as AI-enabled vision systems are advancing.

Today, we’re seeing strong use cases for automated pick-and-pack robotic arms for beverage multi-packs, robotic kitting, picking arms for loading and unloading trailers, robotic palletizers/de-palletizers, and more.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: Also outlined in your nomination form is how you and your teams implemented numerous initiatives that were previously pilots. Tell us more about these different projects.

Martin: On the systems side, we’re finding a lot of value in our new warehouse execution system (WES). Its ability to optimize and automate order waving, integrate with our robotics and automation, and incorporate task interleaving has helped increase productivity by 15-20%.

The WES has optimized how we’re doing some of the work, and then we have robotics and automation on the other end to optimize the work itself.

We’ve expanded our use of autonomous mobile robots to support both e-commerce and retail fulfillment, including order picking, put-away and replenishment. As a result, our operations can accommodate 200-400% increases in order volume with the same headcount.

We’ve increased our use of light technologies. Pick-to-light with automated pack-out, for example, allows associates to pack orders without touching the computer screen and automatically triggers label printing when the last item is packed. The initial installation saw a 55% improvement in productivity.

We’ve also installed lighted pick/put walls that are integrated with our WMS, avoiding any middleware and streamlining systems activity. They allow us to handle a high volume of orders for multiple clients from a small footprint, minimizing the time associates spend walking in the warehouse when picking orders. We’re already seeing 15-20% efficiency gains, as well as improvements in accuracy.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: Looking ahead, you’re looking to better leverage information. What does this mean? And what are the benefits in doing so?

Martin: Our environment is becoming more and more dynamic. We need to be able to anticipate and adjust to changing demands quickly.

We’ve spent a lot of time and effort building our data lake house. The goal is to get that information in the hands of our decision makers to help them make good, timely decisions and be more proactive.

Our labor management system (LMS), real-time production-monitoring dashboards, and telematics put information at our fingertips and improve visibility over operations. As a result, we’re better able to identify inefficiencies and get out in front of potential problem areas.

We’re also looking at trends and helping our clients understand what some of the trends are in their businesses. Our AI-enabled real-time labor planning tool can improve the accuracy of client forecasts by as much as 30% and calculates the labor hours required to fulfill demand.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: If you could have a conversation with your younger self, what would you tell him?

Martin: I would tell my younger self to embrace every challenge as an opportunity to learn. Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, and trust that the skills you develop through adversity will shape your future success. In supply chain, it’s not just about the technical aspects – it’s about building relationships, communicating effectively, and always striving for continuous improvement. The journey may not always be smooth, but it’s all part of the process of growth and leadership.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive: The Leaders in Excellence category honors company leaders who’ve made outstanding contributions to the supply chain space. What advice do you have for other leaders in the industry as well as young professionals entering the supply chain space?

Martin: One of the things I talk a lot about with my teams and our leaders is the value in looking at things from others’ perspectives – whether it's our clients, our associates or our vendors.

It can be easy to get laser-focused on our own point of view, but taking time to understand where others are coming from – what’s motivating them or causing them to react in a certain way – can really shed light on different ways to find common ground and move things forward. Looking for those win-win solutions helps to build strong relationships. 

CLICK HERE to view the full list of winners.