In the 1960's, high technology and sophisticated computer programming were the stuff of NASA's space race and not much else. The information that can now be carried on a tiny silicon chip was stored on tape machines in huge, air-conditioned rooms.

At that time, when Joe O'Brien started working at Gibson Engineering Co., Inc., electro-mechanical actuation was still the name of the game in industrial automation. Microchips were years in the future, and the pulleys and gears that operated assembly lines were little changed from the time Henry Ford set up the first lines in Detroit.

O'Brien started working in sales for William Gibson, who founded the Norwood, Mass.-based distributorship as a manufacturers' rep agency in 1945. It handled lines of electrical and fluid power control devices mainly for injection molding machines and metalworking machine tools. The company's customer base consisted of about 20 companies, which accounted for 80 percent of sales.

As the years passed and the pace of technology accelerated, O'Brien took over the company and needed people who could learn quickly and pass that knowledge on to customers.

"The success of the company has always depended on the staff's buying into the fact that customers are the most important entity," says O'Brien, Gibson's CEO.

To prove that to the customer, the sales staff must know their products and how to apply them. It's easy to say the customer comes first, but solving problems from beginning to end proves it, O'Brien adds.

"During the late 1970's and early 1980's, we saw a huge change in the manufacturing mix in this region," O'Brien says. "The injection molding machine makers left entirely, as did nearly all the machine tool builders."

At the same time, the control technology revolution began in earnest. O'Brien realized that the shrinking price of computing power and growth of memory capability would be well received by manufacturers. Companies could no longer rely on old, clanking, mechanical systems. Soon, NASA and its government counterparts were no longer the only entities able to afford fast, reliable computers.

But it wasn't easy, O'Brien says. With increased capability came greater complexity and a strong demand for training.

"It was really a youth movement – a technology movement with new people and ideas – that allowed this type of business to deal with technology as it stands," he says.

Every industrial supply product segment has changed due to some kind of technology, so Gibson has had to adapt as well, O'Brien says. The company became a full service, self-contained automation solution provider, or ASP. Gibson's product mix now includes sophisticated vision sensing and robotics, motion control systems, safety devices, and controllable servo motor and bus-connected pneumatic valve packages.

Motion control and manufacturing systems changed radically with the advent of the microchip, and its accelerated use, during the last two decades. Automated manufacturing, assembly and conveyor lines look nothing like they did in 1980, nor are they controlled by huge motors and mechanical gearing systems. Some control modules are as small as a matchbook and hold millions of instructions.

The world of high technology isn't just reserved for products and systems built for customers, however. The sales force at Gibson is interconnected with the main office and each other, says Dan O'Brien, Joe's son and president of the company.

In 1992, Dan helped build the team that "puts the necessary intelligence at the point of sale," Joe says.

Dan and the professional team hold weekly Web conferences, keeping abreast of industry developments to be sure to put the highest level of intelligence in front of customers.

"The brain trust here is Gibson Engineering Co.'s greatest asset," Joe says.

Customers and manufacturers take advantage of the Web-based training and troubleshooting capabilities the team has created. Customers from around the world log on to training and sales presentations, Joe adds.

"They stay up half the night to participate," Dan says.

The company employs successful sales engineers because of their considerable experience and enthusiasm for new knowledge, he says. Formal training is important, but it's only one ingredient that goes into making top salespeople.

"Most of what we do isn't taught in schools," says Dan, who becomes president of the Assn. for High Technology Distribution next month. He leads a sales engineering team that develops robotics systems for a growing number of New England businesses, and the Gibson facility has rapidly become a showroom for a select number of automation manufacturers' products.

Association membership has been invaluable over the years, Joe says. The Fluid Power Distributors Assn. was instrumental in providing sales and product training. As a past director and committee member with FPDA, he knows the value of peer discussion and mentoring. He served on the membership and manufacturer/distributor relations committees.

"FPDA provided us with the tremendous opportunity to network and to deal with the changing demands of the marketplace," he says.

The association gave a lot of help to distributors concerning integrated supply, helping them decide whether to get into that business or set themselves apart from it, he says.

"Disruptive technology" sounds like something anarchists would relish. In fact, when a radical idea becomes workable and changes the face of an industry, it disrupts the flow of commerce and puts some old technologies out of business, probably forever. The defense, communications and life sciences industries put a growing amount of funds into researching out-of-the-box ideas each year, according to venture capital reports.

Part of Gibson's mission is to provide those technologies as they become available. A prerequisite, however, is that the sales and management teams understand them first. As those in the automation business know, fluid power, electronic controls, mechanical motion control and actuation are inexorably intertwined in these systems. And all of these component types are used in automation robotics.

When the average person hears the term "robot," the first thing that comes to mind is something made with human proportions and an artificial voice, like ROBOT in the Lost in Space television series from the 1960's. In reality, system-automation robots seldom resemble anything like a human body.

Robots are becoming faster and more capable, using complex sets of movements that are more precise than those of their predecessors. Internal and external modules that operate robots get ever smaller as their electro-mechanical components shrink.

The O'Briens expect robotic tools to replace old equipment and create new opportunities for manufacturers to beat their competition. An example is a bakery production line, where Gibson recently sold a robot with twin-end effectors for applying cooking grease to baking pans, two at a time, on a conveyor. While the bakery had a fair amount of automation, it was tradition to apply cooking grease by hand. This required two greasers per shift, three shifts a day with all the attendant problems of turnover, absenteeism, workman's comp, etc.

The bakery owner was initially skeptical but when he saw the return-on-investment analysis provided by Gibson sales engineer Rob MacDonald, he wanted to expedite delivery of the equipment to start realizing the benefits immediately.

In another example, the return-on-investment approach helped solve a problem for a major custom injection molder. A manufacturing engineer who was charged by his boss to eliminate down time, mold repair costs and processing interruptions on a critical part for a large customer, called Gibson sales engineer Sean Merrick. Costs were growing due to breakage and stoppages.

When the problem was defined, the cost of a mold breaking, due to its closing with parts from the previous shot still in the mold, turned out to be just under $80,000. The solution, a $7,000 vision setup, was easily justified, Joe says.

Automation distributors have a dream: No product ever goes bad due to wear or error; shipments meet installers at exactly the right time, every time; assembly systems and the workers using them are in constant, unbreakable harmony. Distributors would not need to keep inventory.

It's never going to happen. "Everybody needs a certain amount of inventory on hand, no matter what," Joe says.

Replacement parts, some of them critical emergency items for specific customers, are neatly stacked on a platform mezzanine in the warehouse. Many parts are standard components for more complex assemblies, created in the warehouse by a team of five assemblers.

Keeping their inventory numbers under control is part of what has helped Gibson stay the course in the last two years plus. The company has not experienced the critical business contraction that many distributors have seen. On the contrary, 2002 was the third-best fiscal year on record. This year is staying about even with last, Joe says.

The Gibson team believes their staying power results from the intellectual value they add to a horizontal, diverse customer base.

"The intellectual value-add that we began years ago has paid off in that way," Joe says. "One thing that is getting us through, even with business as slow as it is, is that added value.

"The team attributes the company's ability to keep sales growing to finding products needed by the broadest customer base. Starting in the 1980's, Joe was determined to reach horizontally to customers that had not been on his predecessor's radar. Having the broadest possible account base kept the company from being devastated by the current recession, he says. At any one time, Gibson maintains 3,000 active accounts, with well over 8,000 on the books.

"When MRO new orders dry up, which they have to a great degree, we get a large project to keep us going," he says.

One example: Dan O'Brien wrote three of the largest orders in company history last year, all for large, extended projects. First, the team renovated a large production line. The second project involved providing a backup source for control panels at a major OEM that was transitioning manufacturing processes. A third project involved putting a material handling system into a large manufacturer of consumer goods.

What makes Gibson Engineering unique in their field and in their sales region? In a word: teamwork.

"I suppose everyone thinks they're unique, but we really are," Joe says with a laugh.

Getting the right information into the right hands is one of the team's trademarks. Part of their mission – to provide the highest level of intelligence at the point of use – also adds greatly to the sales pitch. Gibson has 15 professionals on the road, covering nine territories and special projects.

"The team we have on the road has really made an investment in understanding the customer's need for return on investment. So, another piece of the puzzle – one that others may neglect — involves helping managers and engineers 'sell' the plan to their superiors," Dan says.

The company has also moved quickly to adopt new communication software, he says. The sales team constantly promotes the team concept, within the organization and with customers.

At Rocheleau Tool and Die Co., Inc., a Fitchburg, Mass.-based manufacturer of blow molding machines, electrical engineer Kevin Hastings has worked with Gibson since the mid-1970's.

Whether for a regular delivery of parts or an emergency call, Gibson sales engineer Sean Merrick is in touch with Hastings the same day. He has even been known to drive parts up that day, if necessary, Hastings says. Merrick visits about every two weeks on regular calls. Hastings also speaks often with Steve Diflaminies, the inside salesman covering Massachusetts, eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. (The other inside salesperson, Cindy Olstead, handles calls from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and western Connecticut.)

Hastings buys PLCs, analog modules and pneumatic valves, as well as miscellaneous parts for his company, which makes plastics extrusion blow molding machinery. The company is one of the last molding machine builders in New England, and sells machines around the world. Blow mold machines make items like the one-gallon plastic milk bottle.

In Bridgeport, Conn., Keith Thompson of Bodine Corp. is manager of purchasing and has a relationship with Gibson going back more than 20 years. Bodine manufactures an automatic assembly machine. Thompson buys pneumatic valves, regulators and cylinders and other air-induced components. He also talks with Diflaminies, although all of the inside salespeople are good to work with, Thompson says.

"In our particular instance, we specify applications for which Gibson is the Numatic regional representative, but we would buy from them anyway," Thompson says. "They will hold inventory for us that we use as we get orders, so JIT is done very well.

"The big difference doing business today versus two or three decades ago is that the distributor must know more about the complex technical issues of automation than any one supplier or customer, Joe says. At one of his first technical sales calls, the procurement person had a technical background.

"I brought in a hydraulic schematic to W. R. Grace Co., and [the buyer] said I was the first salesman who understood what the print showed. Buyers thought that not one of us had any idea what we were selling," Joe said. Today, our expertise in complicated systems is the first thing to impress upon a potential customer."