Tool Crib Supply builds new business with new technologies

Tool Crib Supply has seen a number of its customers move away or shut down. But the Illinois distributor is fighting hard for new business

By Joe Nowlan, Associate Editor -- Industrial Distribution, 5/1/2008 6:00:00 AM

For tool crib supply, a hand and cutting tools distributor, business has been steady, says operations manager Chris Walquist. He can live with that because he knows things could be worse. He also has concerns about the economy and manufacturing in general.

“There are a number of factors involved. Consumer spending is affecting our manufacturing environment. Our manufacturing environment seems to be slowly disappearing; customers going overseas and/or closing up. There's not enough business to support them anymore,” he says. “But there is also the same number of distributors fighting for a smaller marketplace.”

Over the years, a lot of older companies to which Tool Crib sold have closed or moved away, Walquist adds.

“Only those who invested in themselves and stayed at the higher end of the technology, utilizing the faster machines [to be] more productive, seem to have survived,” he says.

Tool Crib Supply is located in Bensenville, Ill. Their major sources for customers, he adds, are the aviation, medical and automotive industries.

“We try to pride ourselves on customer service and giving them applications assistance in any area we can,” Walquist explains.

Their salespeople are cutting tool technicians as much as they are sales-focused, he says. Among the approaches Tool Crib Supply has used successfully in recent years is emphasizing to their customers the cost savings found in the new products they've introduced. At first, that can be challenging because many of the new and improved cutting tools also carry a higher price tag, Walquist explains.

“We get them to see that even though they're paying more, [there's a] cost savings in utilizing that tool [in] the enhanced productivity and greater tool life they can achieve. That can offset the price increase,” he says.

In this case, he adds, it is crucial to present the new, higher priced tool to the right people.

“If you try to present that to the [company] buyer, they couldn't care less because they're just looking at that price,” Walquist says. “You're trying to tell them that the price doesn't matter, that we're saving them thousands of dollars on the [factory] floor.”

While the housing construction slump has not had a direct impact on Tool Crib Supply, he explains, it has left a mark.

“It hasn't hit us directly, but more indirectly. [Fewer] people moving into newer housing and needing durable goods—slowly down the line it has an impact on us,” he says.

In the cutting tool industry, new items and product modifications are frequent. As a result, the need for training is pretty constant, Walquist says. Tool Crib Supply's manufacturers will often visit the Bensenville location to provide training—sometimes making it a lunch-and-learn affair—and keep the salespeople up to speed on the latest developments. Others, like Mitsubishi, offer one- or two-day sessions at their own manufacturing facilities.

Walquist sees the rest of this year as being a very competitive one—much as the first few months have been.

“We have concerns over our customers' health and well being,” he says, “as well as industry and manufacturing as a whole; just how stable it is. There are the customers who are disappearing but the same number of competitors is fighting for that shrinking business.”