On-the-road training

Timken earns Progressive Distributor Manufacturer Product Training Award.

by Rich Vurva

She doesn’t look the part, but Timken’s Kristen Varmette logs nearly as many miles each year as an over-the-road truck driver. Varmette is the latest in a long line of distributor training school instructors who travel 50,000 miles or more each year to teach distributors and end-users about the basic types of bearings and how and where they’re used. Later this year, she will pass the baton to a new instructor, who will become the company’s 23rd mobile trainer.

The training school began nearly 50 years ago as a traveling road show to teach distributors about Fafnir ball bearings. Timken inherited the program when it acquired The Torrington Company in 2003 and immediately recognized the value of updating and expanding it to include Timken’s complete product line.

In recognition of its longstanding reputation for providing high-quality training for distributors, Timken earned the 2004 Progressive Distributor Manufacturer Product Training Award.

More than 26,000 distributors have attended the school since its inception in 1956.

“It’s the best vendor school put on by far. It’s an excellent school,” says Gary Hense, marketing services director in charge of training for IBT Inc., the bearings and power transmission distributor headquartered in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. A graduate of the 1980 training school, Hense applauds the program’s professionalism and says it’s a mandatory part of IBT’s five-step employee training program.

“After an employee has been with our company for a year, there are certain things they have to do and one of them is to go to the Timken training school,” Hense says.

The school covers bearing nomenclature, the types of bearings and their applications, proper techniques for bearing installation, lubrication, maintenance and more.

“When an employee walks out of that school they have a very good understanding of bearing nomenclature, installation and application,” says Hense.

Carol Pavlik of Applied Industrial Technologies, one of the country’s largest bearing distributors, agrees that Timken’s training school is a valuable way to bring new employees up to speed on product technology. Applied has made the Timken training school an integral part of its 10-month training program for college recruits.

Pavlik says the training school covers a lot of information in a short amount of time, yet doesn’t overwhelm the average student. “The course is well-designed, and provides a strong overview of bearing fundamentals. It’s a fast way to learn what bearings are, how they’re used, and other information they can apply to help customers. The Timken course is a key knowledge component for new employees at Applied,” she says.

One reason distributors like the training school is because instructors resist the urge to turn the session into a commercial for Timken products.

“Quality instructors are a key to any program’s success. We’ve found that the Timken instructors are knowledgeable, and are able to keep on track without turning the training into a sales pitch,” Pavlik says.

Timken recruits instructors from the nation’s top engineering schools. They serve for 2 1/2 to three years, living out of a suitcase and traveling the country in a van that carries sample products, displays, computer demonstrations and literature used during the training school. They’re responsible for everything from driving the van and setting up the classroom on a Sunday night so it’s ready for a class of 20 to 25 people on Monday morning, leading the interactive training program over 2 1/2 days, then packing up the materials and driving 200 miles or more to the next location.

“We require a local sales engineer to be there and also encourage our local management people to be in attendance to host the school because it’s a good opportunity to interact with their distributors and to be an additional resource to back up the instructor,” says Jamie Martin, Timken’s director of marketing, integration and services.

Some classes serve students from a mix of small to mid-sized independent distributors, but larger distributors that can fill a classroom by themselves sometimes schedule private sessions. In addition to training distributor inside and outside salespeople and other employees, the instructors also schedule separate one-day maintenance seminars for end-users.

“We pick up all the costs,” says Martin. “All distributors have to do is pay for travel costs for their employees. When we do a maintenance seminar, it’s the distributor’s responsibility to secure the hotel or meeting facility and food and refreshments for their end-user customers.”

Varmette says the end-user maintenance seminars help distributors to differentiate themselves to customers. Some distributors invite a cross-section of customer types to attend the seminar, but Timken can also customize the training to meet the needs of specific industries.

When IBT scheduled an end-user maintenance seminar last spring, nearly 50 customers from a variety of industries attended. Hense says the Timken seminar is one of the most popular training programs it offers.

“Training is a big part of the service package we offer. It puts us ahead of our competition. This seminar very nicely augments what we’re already offering our customers,” says Hense.

Distributor participants earn two continuing education units (CEU) for attending the accredited program and end-users earn .8 CEUs.

“Aside from the fact that participants learn valuable information about the care and use of bearings, attending the training school or maintenance seminar helps them earn continuing education credits,” says Varmette, who holds a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. When she finishes her tour as training school instructor later this year, she will become a Timken field sales engineer.

Martin says Timken’s decision to continue the distributor training school following the Torrington acquisition demonstrates its commitment to training distributors.

“Running the distributor training school requires a significant financial investment. The fact that we’ve been doing it for 48 years, through two acquisitions and major overhauls to adapt it to the new products lines of the company demonstrates the importance of our commitment to helping our distributors be the most informed and best trained,” he says.

This article appeared in the July/August 2004 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2004.

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