Emergency measures

This safety distributor learned how to expand its reach into new segments when its traditional customer base began to shrink.

by Rich Vurva

Although the automotive industry remains a major manufacturing force in Michigan, automakers employ far fewer people today than in their heyday. That has forced suppliers to search for other industries where they can do business.

Since it was founded in 1948, Safety Services Inc. (SSI), headquartered in Kalamazoo and with a distribution center in Grand Rapids, Mich., traditionally sold gloves, safety glasses, respirators and other personal protective equipment (PPE) to auto plants and other manufacturing facilities in the state. While about 75 percent of today’s customers are manufacturers, the company is slowly expanding into other market segments, including construction, government and utilities.

“We have long served the industrial core markets in Michigan. One of our goals is to expand our customer base. It’s no secret the industrial markets in Michigan have suffered of late, especially the automotive industry,” says Kathryn Robart Bowdish, SSI president and CEO. “We have to find the markets that need our expertise and develop technologies in our company that will help deliver our product message and service capabilities.”

SSI’s status as a woman-owned business, certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), has helped open doors to do business with large companies and governmental units interested in diversifying their supplier base. SSI completed the five-month certification process in September 2004 and sent representatives to a WBENC conference to uncover new business opportunities outside of the state.

“The WBE certification is a way that we can benefit customers with supplier diversity programs,” says chief financial officer Mary Mattson, who headed up the certification effort.

While the certification helped open doors to new customers and even into other parts of the country, the company still must be able to meet customers’ delivery and service requirements.

“The supplier diversity programs that are developing now have made us much more keenly aware of the value we bring as a WBE. But we have always had to perform the service that any other distributor would provide. When we are selected as a supply source, we get on board with our customers to understand their initiatives so we can bring more value to them,” says Bowdish.

Services include performing PPE assessments, onsite surveys, product demonstrations, train the trainer programs, fit testing and other specialized services customers require. Bowdish says the emphasis at Safety Services has always been on service.

Emphasizing service
“When they rewrite the dictionary, you’ll probably see Kathryn’s picture under 'customer service,’” says Bill Nelson, a trainer with the International Union of Operating Engineers. He purchases safety products and uses SSI’s Service Center to rent and repair instrumentation and respiratory equipment.

“Any time I have any kind of question, or on the rare occasion I have a problem, I call her up and it’s fixed. The problem goes away. I have been at their office and their warehouse and learned it’s a feeling that is pervasive throughout the company. The employees genuinely care that the customer not only gets what they want, but gets the value they’re looking for,” he says.

Two recent projects -- an inventory reduction program and a warehouse reorganization -- were part of an overall plan to improve efficiency and customer service. The first project required a team of managers to meet every morning to carefully review each item maintained in stock.

“Like every distributor, we’re interested in keeping the right product on the shelf in the right quantities. We’ve been going through a process of evaluating and re-evaluating all the products we carry,” says director of purchasing Gary Baker.

The screening process helped determine what products to keep in stock for which customers, which ones to promote more heavily, reduce in quantity or make obsolete. The effort resulted in a 30 percent reduction in inventory. The management team plans to work closely with the sales force to make sure inventory doesn’t creep back up over time.

“It’s an ongoing process to make sure the customer uses what they said they’d use,” Baker says. “It’s imperative that we build qualifications into the usage fields in the computer so we maintain proper levels.”

Reducing inventory freed up enough shelf space to accommodate a major warehouse reorganization. The distribution center is housed in two buildings under one roof. SSI traditionally organized inventory by product type, keeping gloves in one area of the warehouse, eyewear in another and so forth. Today, it arranges inventory according to movement class, determined by the cost of the product and the number of products sold. In other words, products in movement class one, which account for about 30 percent of the company’s inventory dollars, are located near the front of the warehouse. The new system reduces the number of times pickers need to walk back and forth between warehouses. Plus, removing the top shelf from most racks not only made picking faster, but improved ergonomics and safety for warehouse personnel.

“We’re finding that our people are spending most of their time in our front warehouse. We’re picking orders faster with less staff,” says director of operations Tom Wisneski.

Entering new territory
One growth area for SSI over the past few years has been selling environmental and homeland security products to fire departments, police and other groups responsible for responding to natural disasters and acts of terrorism. Brochures, specialized catalogs and Web-based marketing materials introduce SSI’s capabilities to new customer segments, such as selling emergency response kits to Community Emergency Response Teams. SSI equips CERTs with vests, hard hats, flashlights and other products first responders require to deal with emergency situations of all kinds.

A recent contract awarded by the Michigan Medical Authority Community Hospital regional grant program extended SSI’s reach to police, hospitals, cities, towns and municipalities for emergency preparedness efforts.

“The contract opened up a customer base we didn’t serve in the past. This gave us a chance to sell products such as powered air purifying respirators to hospital emergency rooms in case of incidents that might occur,” says executive vice president Patricia Robart.

The company has sold CERT kits to 300 communities in 38 states and often participates in online bid projects.

“We’ll continue expanding well beyond the regional area we’ve been serving. This national activity we’ve experienced over the last three or four years has opened up new avenues for us and we see ourselves reaching out quite a bit further,” says Baker.

Vice president of marketing Tom Olsen says the way to impress new customer segments is the same way the company satisfied its traditional customer base -- through excellent customer service.

“Anyone can sell a product because all distributors have pretty much the same products. It’s how your company treats customers, from the way customer service people take orders to the warehouse people who pack the order, that makes a difference. We go the extra mile for our customers,” he says.

Rental and repair
The SSI Service Center in Grand Rapids houses the company’s rental and repair operations for self-contained breathing apparatus units, airline equipment, fall protection devices and other instrumentation and equipment requiring regular inspection and calibration. Factory-trained, certified technicians perform all work according to specified regulations and manufacturer guidelines.

“When we repair equipment, we record all the serial numbers in our database. If a customer is ever audited by OSHA, we can provide information to show they had the work done,” says instrument service repair manager Tim Stein. Service & Repair module software also helps SSI notify customers when their next service date nears. Repairs generally take two to three days, but Stein will often repair or calibrate equipment while customers wait. Customers also receive reduced rates if they need rental units while their equipment is being repaired.

The rental service is popular among contractors and industrial customers that only need instrumentation for a short period of time.

“This allows the customer to have the latest equipment available. Our instrumentation is top-of-the-line. They don’t need to make a large capital outlay. They can rent it for whatever period of time they need,” says Robart.

The Service Center also specializes in calibrating and repairing respirators used by firefighters. Repair and rental center manager Dan Burak, who earned the nickname “Round-the-clock Dan,” spends 95 percent of his time traveling to regional fire stations to help them maintain air packs and other firefighting equipment. It’s a service few other safety distributors provide, and another way SSI sets itself apart from the competition.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2005 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2005.

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