a distributor for Bosch Rexroth, the engineering staff was able to exploit its experience with the design efficiencies built into the product line.

Bosch’s linear motion and assembly technology group has designed its products to plug into its modular structural framing system. “The window for designing, purchasing, building and delivering automation to the end-user has shrunk considerably, so most manufacturers of automation try to make their products modular,” explains Gingerich at Bosch.

After the sale

No matter how much or how little work that a distributor might do for a user up front, most users rely on the distributor for after-sale service. When taking on a product line, especially technical products, distributors send their technicians to the manufacturer for training, and often can provide routine maintenance and make repairs.

Some manufacturers even extend warranties if the distributor installs the equipment. “If one of our certified distributors starts up one of our drives, then we extend the warranty,” says Jim King, director of strategic channel development for Siemens Energy and Automation Inc., in Alpharetta, Ga.

Integrated supply management is another service being offered by a growing number of distributors over the last six years. In these arrangements, the distributor assumes responsibility for the end-user’s maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) purchasing, which includes everything from safety gloves to PLCs. Although the details usually depend on the size of the company, these agreements typically have the distributor manage the stores of these items on consignment.

Part of the rationale is that the user need not tie up capital in a pallet full of supplies that it might not consume for months. Another part is that the distributor is in a better position to negotiate deals with the manufacturers on these items because it buys them in much larger quantities than an individual plant does. Yet another rationale is that outsourcing the MRO purchasing function reduces transaction costs. “Even if it’s a Visa card purchase over the Internet, there is still a significant transaction cost for the end-user to cut a purchase order each time that it buys a small component individually,” notes King.

In these cases, buying online would be just a convenient way of overcoming those occasional procurement problems that pop up from time to time. And the distributor would be the primary way of buying automation.