Maintenance Tips for Working with Your Value-Added Distributor

For plant electrical maintenance, your key supplier is your electrical distributor. Most plants use a local distributor or two, and some will buy through a big distribution house via corporate contract.

It’s a mistaken notion that the best way to deal with a supplier is to beat them up on price. Yes, this is easy to measure; you saved X dollars on this or that invoice. But this approach is costly, because it disregards the value that can come with a solid relationship.

Most distributors will offer at least three of the value-adds listed below. Have an open conversation with your electrical distributor about your needs and their abilities. Make sure to also offer help to them beyond just doing business with them. Maybe a referral or testimonial would help them land a new account or gain access to new product lines.

Note that while some of these may be free (at least to some extent), there is often a charge for a value-add — yet, the charge is typically a bargain. Here are some of the value-adds you might be missing out on:

Training. You can often supplement your existing training with free or low-cost training supplied by your distributor due to some in-house expertise they have. Another way a distributor can bring training is to ask a training firm or manufacturer about a group rate and then offer a program to maintenance organizations of several of their customer plants.
Reference materials. For example, your distributor may have (or be able to get) a troubleshooting guide or instruction manual for an old motor drive you are having problems with.
Apps. Some distributors have created their own apps, and many distributors have received apps from manufacturers and service firms. Don’t be afraid to mention some need and ask, “Do you know of an app for that?”
Technical expertise. Your distributor may have specific technical expertise inhouse and readily available at a reasonable cost.
Connections. Distributors know a lot of people. What about that specific technical expertise that they didn’t have in-house? They may know a supplier or even a customer of theirs who has that expertise, or they may know someone who knows someone.
Brand advice. Distributors deal with product complaints, warranty claims, and returns on the one hand, and on the other hand, they hear how well product X or service Y is working out for the customers.
Product selection and application guidance. While theoretically you should know what tool, part, or material to buy, the reality is this process can be daunting, especially for a one-off, such as the plant’s (and yours) first lighting upgrade. Your distributor can save you major grief on this score.
New product intros. Time-saving tools, better test equipment, improved safety gear, innovative junction box designs, and other new products can significantly increase the performance and efficiency of the maintenance department — except if you don’t know about them.
Prefab. If you frequently buy things that end up being be field-assembled or are planning a big project, ask your distributor about any prefab abilities they have. While prefab is widely recognized for massive cost-savings in construction, it is less prominent in the minds of maintenance managers.
Custom orders. Sometime you might need an unusual configuration of a standard product. An electrical services firm in Tennessee needed half a dozen enclosures that just didn’t exist. Their buyer sent an electrical engineer to their distributor. After a short conversation, the distributor rep recognized that Part No. X was exactly the enclosure specified except it lacked the seal that was needed. The rep found a seal that matched, but it was from a different manufacturer. The rep called the manufacturer of Part No. X, and that manufacturer agreed to ship it with that seal at no extra charge. The buyer avoided delay and cost by reaching out to the distributor.
Autoreplenishment of consumables. Your distributor has sales records, of course. And from those records, they can determine the correct minimum/maximum rate for consumables, fittings, fuses, and other relatively inexpensive items. Letting them simply handle your on-site replenishment of these is a great way to optimize all that inventory.

And finally, this one: heroic effort. This has to be earned. The manager of the local store of a mid-sized electrical distributor put his personal phone number on his business card. He told the plant maintenance manager at one plant that if they ever had a concern that couldn’t be resolved at the store counter to just call him.

Once, he was awakened at about 1 a.m. by the maintenance night shift supervisor. The plant’s second biggest money making machine was down, and it was because of a 2A fuse. It was an oddball fuse, none of the 2A fuses they had in the stockroom would work. The manager wrote down the part number, drove to the store, found the fuse, and brought it to the plant. Obviously, he didn’t go through all of that to make a sale of a 2A fuse.

It would have been easier to say, “I’ll have Fred order one for you after he comes in, and we’ll have it expedited,” and then charge the plant out the wazoo for it — or not give out his personal number in the first place.

While you should not expect this level of service, don’t be surprised if your well-treated distributor rewards you in a similar fashion sometime. But if you treat your distributor as “the greedy middleman” and try to squeeze them for every penny, then this and other value-add will be unlikely to come your way.