As overused as the word "survivor" may be these days, what more appropriate word is there to describe a distributor marking its 100th year in business?

A. Louis Supply Co. of Ashtabula, Ohio, is a distributor of an array of materials, among them pipe, valves and fittings; electrical supplies; cutting tools and abrasives; power tools; contractor's supplies; plumbing equipment; fasteners; safety supplies; and miscellaneous mill supplies.

Or, as its president, Rick Coblitz sums up, "We're a stocking wholesaler—a stocking industrial distributor."

The company serves customers in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Kentucky. Their customer base includes: industrial plants; plumbing, heating, excavating, electrical, and building contractors; municipalities; schools; hospitals; and many other types of commercial enterprises.

Louis Supply caters primarily to industrial and municipalities, and schools. "But we do a lot with contractors," Coblitz says, "working in industry. We don't do a lot of residential stuff. That's not really our market. Basically, our business is tied around industry; the power plants, chemical plants, for example."

Louis Supply was started in 1905 by Herman Louis and his family. The Coblitz family connection began in 1948 when the company was acquired by a corporation headed by Sanford E. Coblitz (Rick's father).

During the post-war years of the 1950's, manufacturing plants were being constructed throughout Ohio, Coblitz says, and his father was in a position to tap into that expansion. In fact, shortly after acquiring the company, Sanford Coblitz became a de facto integrated supplier—even though that term hadn't been invented.

"Part of the way the company grew was he'd sell electrical products to people who weren't electricians," Coblitz explains. "He'd sell electrical stuff to plumbers and plumbing materials to electricians. He crossed those lines. It was already starting then."

Looking back, it appears now that Sanford Coblitz started a company trend. As befits any company that continues to be successful for that long, Louis Supply has done a number of things to remain vital and successful. Among them is tapping into the uniquely vast experience of many of their employees to solve customers' problems.

Consider that, combined, Louis employees have more than 550 years of experience. In fact, one man has been there for 45 years. And Rick Coblitz himself has been involved in the company in one capacity or another since he began hanging around the grown-ups when he was eight years old.

"We have a lot of technical staff that can solve people's problems. Get them materials, tell them what they need for their job, and then we can put our hands on it and give it to them," Coblitz explains. "Our people know what the stuff is and what it's used for. A lot of places where you'll talk to people, if you can't give them the [specific] part number of what you're ordering, they'll have no idea what you're talking about."

One of Louis' vendors is Anvil International, which manufactures cast iron materials, forged steel fittings and related materials. Dave Burns is a sales engineer for Anvil who works in the Cleveland territory, and praises Louis' ability to adapt both to changing times and customers' changing needs and requirements.

"They roll with the changes which I think is important," Burns says. "And Rick keeps up with the industry and really knows the market."

It's ironic, then, that given Louis adaptability over the years, one concept many companies embrace these days—lean inventory—is one characteristic of business that Louis and Coblitz have not embraced, almost going out of their way to avoid. Coblitz has respect for the basic concept of lean inventory, but has seen over the years that Louis's success comes from heading in a "less lean" direction.

"[Product] does sit on our shelves," he admits, "but because of the market we're in, if we don't have the inventory, [customers] can just as easily get it from some other place. Our competitors can't match the fact that we can get it to them in minutes. And that's one of the things that has helped us survive this long."

Over a comparative long run, that "on the shelves" inventory pays off.

"What we sell, we have [here]," Coblitz explains. "We do buy a lot of special items for people, but we carry a large inventory, so customers don't need to wait until tomorrow or next week for something to come in.... We do a lot of our sales either through our counters or out on our own fleet of trucks that can deliver goods to customers on a regular schedule within 50 miles of here [the Ashtabula headquarters]."

Burns and his co-workers at Anvil International like seeing many of the same people each time they visit the Ashtabula headquarters, he adds.

"They don't have a lot of [employee] turnover like you might see at other places," says Burns. "It's nice to see the same people there year after year. Rick will take the time, and sits down with me when I go in there. But at the same time, he also doesn't micro-manage. He knows what's going on, but he has people who've been there a long time and whom he trusts."

Another longtime customer agrees.

"That's one of the nice parts about it," Roy Brown, purchasing agent for Ayrshire, a construction company involved in the chemical industry, steel and installation of piping and components, explains. "I can call Rick with a problem, looking for a particular valve or whatever. And he'll tell me, 'Let me turn you over to Jerry, or whomever.' They have people dedicated to areas and that's their expertise. And you don't find that [everywhere]. Everyone these days is multi-tasking!" he laughs. "But they stay specialized in their purchasing and the handling of different products they offer."

All of Louis' inventory control is computerized. Not an unusual claim these days, but in Louis' case, it's been computerized since the late '60s, Coblitz explains.

"We were one of the first in the country to be computerized on inventory control and billing. Maybe we're not leading as much as we used to be as far as the computer side of it goes. It's changing so fast and it can be expensive. But we still have printable records from the '70s."

"They're a pretty progressive company," Burns says. "They were one of the first companies to go to a [computerized] system like that for inventory control and things like that. And they were [doing] EDI before people knew what EDI was. What's really unique about them is they stay a step or two ahead of the technology as far as info systems go. And that's really helped them, too, in terms of keeping track of pricing, inventory, ordering."

Coblitz jokes a little when asked about annual sales estimates for his company.

"Part of our success is keeping what we do quiet," he laughs. He adds that "as classified by the government, we're probably still a 'small business.'"

Regardless of final figures, Louis' customers and vendors hold them in high regard. Patrick Dunn, regional sales manager for Metso Automation, which manufactures the Jamesbury line of valves sold through Louis. While agreeing on others' observations about service and technology, there is one other attribute he likes about Louis Supply.

"The local, family-owned distributor is very vital to our business," Dunn says, referring to Louis. "Many of these businesses get acquired over the years and the people who founded them aren't always around."

Perhaps the fact that Louis is "always around" also helps them retain their customers—some of whom have remained with them even after moving several states away. Many Ohio-based customers would change jobs to out-of-state companies, try to work with distributors their new companies used, and became more appreciative of what Louis Supply was doing. Many, in turn, would convince their new companies that their pals back in Ashtabula were the way to go.

"They've moved on to other locations but are still in a purchasing position," Coblitz says, "We had one account that was here for years and then moved to North Carolina. We'd [still] truck stuff to them and, after they closed in North Carolina, they then moved to Kentucky. And we're still doing some business with them there. The purchasing people told us 'There's no one down here who will take care of us.' And they keep paying the freight to get the stuff down there."

"Loyalty is not what it used to be but there's still some loyalty out there," he says with pride.