10 Ohio firms form regional alliance

By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 6/1/2000

Cleveland-Increasingly, distributors are searching for innovative ways to fulfill their customers' desire to streamline the purchasing process by buying multiple products from a single source.

To that end, 10 Ohio distributors recently joined together to form Select One Source LLC, an alliance serving the Northeastern Ohio area.

"Our members are not just selling products. We're now working together as a partner to increase our customers' productivity and, at the same time, to cut their manufacturing and operations' costs," said Ronald A. Meisinger, a founding member of Select One Source LLC. "It is crucial that we go that extra step for our customers. Increasingly, they are insisting on having one source that can handle and support all of their needs."

Meisinger, president of Atwood Industries in Cleveland, spearheaded the formation of the alliance, beginning two years ago. Interviews with 50 distributors and two years later, he whittled the list of participants to 10. There may be strength in numbers, but each company must tow its own bottom line.

"Just because you join, you're not going to get business," Meisinger said.

Other members of the alliance include: Bearing & Transmission Supply Co., Macedonia; Boise Cascade Office Products; Earnest Machine Products Co.; Excel Air Tool Co.; Ohio Pipe Valves & Fittings; Samsel Supply Co.; Summers Rubber Co.; and WESCO, all of Cleveland; and Wagner Smith Pumps & Systems, Inc., of Twinsburg.

"There's always going to be some overlap, but we didn't want to compete," Meisinger said of the 10 alliance members.

The group's product offering includes bearings, fasteners, electrical products, and material handling items, among others.