The direct approach
Summary
Joint effort proves successful
When Nevada-based Bearing Belt Chain Company needs to replenish its stock or find a part, it turns to the SKF Group.
“We provide not just bearings but bearings and service to our customers,” says Jon Stevens, vice president of logistics for SKF. “We offer short lead times at relatively inexpensive costs with a broad amount of in-stock products.”
And vision. SKF was one of the founders of PTplace.com, the online industrial mall that offers one-stop shopping for customers in North America. For markets in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world endorsia.com offers similar services.
“We thought it would be neat to get together with other premier suppliers in one spot and form a one-stop shop where customers didn’t have to go from supplier to supplier to supplier,” he says.
By any measure PTplace.com is a success. In the year since the initial launch, SKF orders on PTplace.com have doubled. Transactions this year are growing at 16 percent a month. The plan now, Stevens says, is to continue expanding. PTplace.com was recently rolled out to Canada and Mexico and now includes an exclusive MRC store. In addition, the catalogue of products available on PTplace.com. is growing.
“We spend a lot of time talking to our customers about how to improve it,” Stevens says. “They say ‘Give us more!’ and, boy, that is our intent.”
For such companies as Bearing Belt Chain in Nevada, immediate service is the key to keeping customers. Now, since the company began working with PTplace.com to fill parts orders, it is also a reality.Placing an order or checking on a stock item used to be a labour-intensive endeavour for employees at Las Vegas, Nevada-based Bearing Belt Chain Company (BBC). It meant dedicating an employee to calling in or faxing over items the company needed to re-supply its stock. And if BBC didn’t have an item on hand, it meant calling the manufacturer’s warehouse while the customer waited.
“And,” says BBC president Steve Philpott, “the next day, if something didn’t show up, we would have to call and say, ‘Where is our order?’ and chase our tail that way.”
But those days are over. Gone are the hours of reading long lists of bearings over the telephone and faxing pages of orders. But most importantly, gone are the frustrated clients who want their bearings now. That’s because today BBC fills its orders and checks manufacturer’s stock by going online to PTplace.com, an e-commerce mall for industrial companies in the United States, Canada and Mexico. PTplace.com is part of a shared e-commerce and logistics service owned by CoLinx, LLC. Four manufacturers – the SKF Group, the Timken Company, Rockwell Automation and INA Holding Schaeffler KG – founded the company as a way to reduce the high costs associated with logistics and accelerated growth.
One-stop shopping
“It’s easy to use,” Philpott says. “I put in my user name and password, and I’m jumping back and forth between menus, checking stock and placing orders. I don’t have to log out and click on another URL and go to another log in. This is one-stop shopping.”
Philpott views PTplace.com as the next natural step in customer service. Two years ago Philpott gave his employees computers and Internet access at their desks as a way to help them serve clients better and become more efficient. So when he was asked to join PTplace.com he jumped at the opportunity.
“Basically, the need to get another human on the phone to do key stroking for us has been eliminated,” he says. “We can do this almost any time we want.”
When a customer calls asking for a certain type of bearing, the BBC employee who handles the call checks the company’s stock to see if it’s available. If it’s not, the employee can go into PTplace.com, to the manufacturer’s warehouse inventory, to see if the item is available, what it costs and where it’s coming from. Each order comes with a UPS tracking number.
“If I enter a stock order today and they have it in stock, I’ll have it tomorrow,” Philpott says. “There is no lag time any longer. As soon as I hit the ‘enter’ button, it’s waiting at the warehouse to be pulled.”
BBC’s foray online has been a success. Philpott says customers are amazed at how quickly the company responds to their inquiries. And in today’s market where people want things yesterday, rapid delivery is vital.
“The better we can address that initial call, while the person is there on the line, the better the resource we are to them,” Philpott says. “If we have to say to you that we have to call the manufacturer first and we’ll get back to you, you may call up the competition. If it comes down to whether or not a bearing is available, we are as quick as anybody, if not quicker.”
Entire stock
Philpott says he is eager to see PTplace.com expanded to carry the entire stock of some companies.
“Sometimes we have to call up and ask if this is the number that you produce in Europe or South America,” Philpott says. “I’d like to see a manufacturer’s entire product line exposed to us, because we are becoming more of a global market all the time.”
Philpott says his staff loves PTplace.com and would never want to go back to the old system.
“There are days when, for some reason, the computer system is down and we have to go back to the old phone system,” Philpott says. “Our employees are so spoiled that they say ‘How can we live without it?’ It just empowers them so much.”
Bob Calandra
freelance writer based in Pennsylvania, USA
photos BBC
