Like many distributors, Gooding Rubber Co., of Woodridge, Ill., has faced challenges and opportunities in the last decade. Customers' demand for consolidation caused the company to look at some new ways of doing business, and that has made all the difference going into the 21st century.

The plans couldn't have worked out better, according to president John Mork. The management team — chairman and director David Lawrence, vice president Dean Goldbeck, vice president of sales Randy Wagner, vice president of branch operations Dennis Monarch, and Mork — has executed a business plan that has resulted in company growth, including a new warehouse and operations center. A partnership with six other distributors has moved the company closer to its customers and, in the process, given it some new business.

It's not that the old ways of doing business — fast delivery and 24-hour on-call service —were not doing the job, Mork says. On the contrary, those basic tenets of distributor obligations will always be the cornerstone of building business. Distributors today need much more.

Gooding Rubber Co. was started by Ben Gooding in the late-1930's, in Pittsburgh. His sons joined the business, and after World War II sales took off. The senior Gooding opened the Chicago branch in 1948, which became a separate company when Ben Gooding retired. Chicago became the headquarters for Gooding Rubber Co., owned by Ben's son Robert until the 1980's.

Mork came into the business in 1974, and became treasurer. In the 1980's, a group including Mork bought out owner Robert Gooding. Then, in 1990, a big change came.

With the establishment of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, the company became 100-percent employee-owned and the management team began to consider ways to grow. By April of last year, the outstanding debt of the ESOP was paid, Mork says.

Also in 1990, management opened a branch in Henderson, Ky. All told, the company now employs 82.

The company specializes in hose, hose assemblies and conveyor belting. High-and low-pressure hydraulic and pneumatic hose and metal hose make up the majority of its business. Its largest customers include manufacturers in automotive, railroad and steel.

"One of our biggest customers, Bethlehem Steel, announced that it would have to be forced to consolidate purchasing. It had us worried. So, with help from our affiliation with the National Assn. of Hose and Accessories Distributors, we have partnered with six other distributors to form an alliance, Integrated MRO," Mork says. That group includes two other hose and accessories distributors, an agreement Mork says would have been out of the question years ago. Mork is currently second vice-president of NAHAD.

"Competition ruled the world then, but as customers demand more, we have to grow in scope as well as physical size and location," he says. "What we did was look at who the suppliers are at each location [of Bethlehem Steel]. We said we could offer the same thing that larger companies can, and the customer can still deal with the same people they always have. We have consolidated purchasing and shipping for them like a larger company would."

Not only has the alliance helped to keep much of Bethlehem's business, but new sales have developed from it. "The other thing that happened [when we partnered] was we could bid on other large customer 'bread basket' type of large contracts because we can get many more products billed from one location. Smaller companies can't even bid on those," he says.

The next piece of their growth puzzle fell into place last year, when Gooding built a new warehouse. They have been in the building since November. They now have about 40,000 square feet, vastly more than their old facility, according to Mork.

"We can do so much more here. We received a grant to develop [the new warehouse] in the form of work cells. Every bulk hose product and coupling is now in a location that can be assigned by a computer to a work order. We don't have people hunting for the parts to make an assembly any more. Now, the assembler can locate the coupling much quicker," he says.

Customers demand more assembled products in less time, and the warehouse layout has done a lot to speed up that process. Gooding is now able to assemble and hold more products for customer release, and store them in defined locations. That luxury keeps the company ready to supply many special items at a moment's notice, Mork says.

"A lot of our competition may sell hydraulics but not pneumatics. They may sell rubber hose but not metal hose. We're trying to be as comprehensive as possible when it comes to the range of products and our ability to deliver assemblies of those products," Mork says.

"You need to blend that new, fast service with the old loyalty tradition that we've worked so many years to develop," he says. "Unlike past years, we have more special products already built and waiting, on what we call 'make-and-hold.' Since we deliver those specials from stock, our customers often ask if we can supply other special items, and that leads to our finding new suppliers."

Mork holds a CPA from Louisiana State University and an MBA from Northwestern University, and his mind naturally runs to costs and prices in the general operation of the company. The loss of time and productivity inherent in the old building caused a lot of headaches, which had to be resolved before the customer got involved.

"Just to find the right material, like hose or clamps, was costing us hours and hours [of labor]. Labor being what it is, we know the new building will pay for itself soon," he says.

An expensive but necessary process in the company's growth over the last few years was ISO 9002 certification to be as quality-conscious as possible. Gooding became certified recently, and the added safety inherent in following ISO procedures has resulted in a large gain in customer confidence in the assemblies he ships out, Mork says.

Gooding bought a company recently that was not prepared to be ISO certified, and Mork says the new business acquired from that company's accounts has been a boost to sales. The chance to buy a company is not something that can be predicted, he says, but when that kind of opportunity arises, his management team is ready to investigate.

Mork expects sales to increase as Gooding becomes relied upon to supply more complex assemblies that are ISO compliant. The reliability factor, he says, goes way up on all products coming from his plant.

While MRO supply remains the backbone of his business, Mork says supplying an OEM set of hydraulic hoses for emergency extraction devices used by fire departments has become very profitable. That is one way of looking for new business in a new area, he says.

One of the new business opportunities Gooding was able to take advantage of is the bulk hauler market for tanker trailer trucks. "We make and hold bulk hauler assemblies for trailers that haul everything from salad oil to grain to sugar," he says. Bulk hauler hose assemblies are an example of the specials that Gooding has been able to deliver quickly because they can deliver from stock. The new products have taken off, and today are some of Mork's largest make-and-hold inventory.

"This is a good example of how we got into [the tractor trailer accessory market]. We got into the fabrication of bulk hauler assemblies and that's a whole new market for us now. We stocked some special items, and that led to many other accessory sales.

"What sets us apart from competitors, I think, is our commitment to [bulk] inventory, and inventory of special assemblies," Mork says.

A manufacturer of metal hose, Senior Flexonics, is both a manufacturer and distributor of hose products. Gooding now partners with SF on certain customers, stocking bulk products and fabricating assemblies. In that way, SF concentrates more on servicing distributors and can leave customer problems to its network of companies like Gooding. SF supplies bulk metal hose to Gooding who in turn makes assemblies to hold for customers.

Another item Mork expects to foster growth is the Internet. The company is in the process of developing a Web site and e-commerce, and recently started barcoding a lot of material. They provided each outside salesperson with a laptop computer.

"One of the things I think we'll see happening is customers will bypass EDI altogether and go straight to e-commerce," Mork says, adding that he's not sure when that might happen.

Scandura Conveyor Belting, Inc. has been operating in the United States since 1926. Randy Kelley has been president of Scandura for just 15 months, but in that short time he has gotten a sense of Gooding Rubber's attitude toward customers and suppliers. And that attitude is professionalism, he says.

"I've known Dennis Monarch and John Mork only a short time, but they were the first people to get me into a mine underground. They take charge to find the customer's needs and translate that to the manufacturer. They are really very proactive, and set up a meeting early on with Lodestar Energy at a coal mine. I know first hand their commitments to customers," Kelley says.

Gooding was quick to get him in as a partner in the supply chain, and coal mining is a large part of the belting business, he said.

At Lodestar Energy's Baker Mine in Webster County, Ky., general manager of pyro-underground operations Larry Kuykendall agrees. He is one of the main mining contacts for Gooding, who ships to the mine two to four times a month.

"We use all Scandura belting. I deal mainly with Dennis [Monarch], and his top concern is service to us. I've dealt with companies that sell lesser products at a lesser price, and then they're gone. No service. We can't do that," he says. "Gooding Rubber gets us the right hose assemblies, long wall underground lengths, and the right belts when we need them."

Kelley also is impressed, he said, with the partnership program at Bethlehem Steel that Mork began.

"We supply belting to Bethlehem Steel in two locations, Sparrows Point, Md., and Burns Harbor, Mich. [Gooding Rubber] does a nice job working with us as a team, and with other distributors, in troubleshooting and technical support. It's a good example of multiple sites working together for a customer," he says.