The Wright Stuff

In its ceaseless pursuit of quality, Wright Tool believes distribution offers the highest value

Barberton, OH—Dick Wright doesn't shy away from calling a cheap tool a cheap tool. He knows one when he sees it. His training (he has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, a master's degree in business administration) and his lifelong dedication to developing hand tools (he holds 16 patents) have made him an expert on hand tools, and he shares his wisdom in a considered, pragmatic, matter-of-fact way of speaking. But for all of his training and experience, or perhaps because of it, he can also sound a lot like a salesman when he wants to. "We produce the Wright brand of tools for professional mechanics who do heavy-duty work," he says. "The harder the job, the tougher the job, the more they appreciate our tools. There are less expensive tools down at the big boxes, but that's not our market. They are perfectly good for a lot of purposes, but they aren't designed for heavy use."

For him, heavy use means the most demanding and potentially dangerous applications, from grade 8 steel fasteners and bolts that have been frozen in place for 20 years to refinery turnarounds and the toughest construction jobs. For this reason, Wright places a "heavy" emphasis on safety, and relies on his distribution partners to convey that message to end-user customers. It's a topic he visits frequently, because to him it embodies one of Wright's main differences from its competitors— and one of its greatest selling points.

"We sell a quality product that requires some support," he says. "People can be hurt by improper use of hand tools, and jobs can be seriously delayed. So it's important to be able to explain that quality."

And distribution, via independent reps and distributors, is how Wright has traditionally explained that quality to its end users. Some of Wright's reps have been selling the line for more than 40 years and, like Wright Tool, are now being run by sons and grandsons of the founders. Such long-standing relationships build trust and clearly defined expectations.

"People don't change tool lines very often so it's important to make the right decision as a distributor and be supported," says Greg Helbling, Wright's vice president of sales and marketing. "We want our reps to bring a lot to the table; not only to get distributors' business, but also to support them and make user calls with them. Our reps can go out in response to a user problem and because they know the factory people, they know they'll be backed up by the factory."

"Our reps are people who help distributors grow their businesses," Dick summarizes. Wright in turn supports its reps and distributors with a variety of programs and materials. Guided by Wright and produced by the Sonnhalter agency of Berea, OH, they include a highly informational 340-page color product catalog, numerous brochures and flyers, advertising, user mailings and an in-depth tool safety video program. The video exemplifies Dick Wright's belief in job safety and illustrates his service philosophy.

"First and foremost, we're here to serve our customers," he says. "And we must provide a service that is better than the competition in terms of the quality of tools, assortments, service and delivery. We think about that in everything we do, so our video is written not to sell tools but to help the user maintain a safe plant. And distributors can use it as a value-added service to build relationships with customers and provide a service that other people don't have."

Wright's training programs also start with reps. "What we sell is not just hand tools: We sell our service, ourselves and our integrity," Greg explains. "We give our reps thorough training on all of our drives and products, they know how the tools are made, and they take that knowledge out to their customers. What we're buying from them, and what we are ensuring that they take to our customers is confidence in our company."

A single source

But ultimately, the company sells tools —hot-forged 4140 alloy American-made steel tools that evolve from bar stock into finished, gleaming work pieces right here, under one roof. And one tour of Wright's 130,000-square-foot facility is sufficient to instill such confidence. Every operation of the manufacturing process is done right here.

To Dick Wright, this is a major competitive distinction. "We do more operations in-house than any tool company I know of," he says. "We do our own engineering, tool and die work, make our own manufacturing tooling and do our own forging, machining, heat-treating, polishing, plating, assembly and shipping all under one roof."

One goal of these centralized operations is to produce consistent, uniform quality that would exist even in the absence of Wright's ISO 9001 certification. "We think that a company should produce only one quality level," Dick says. If you make two quality level lines, the top level line tends to drift down toward the lower quality line."

The company practices what it preaches: Wright buys its Cougar line of tools rather than produce two quality levels, and its supplemental lines like Channellock pliers and Chesco hex sets are sold under their own brand names.

A substantial portion of Wright's facility is devoted to warehousing finished product. Stock levels are constantly monitored and production orders written to avoid out-of-stock situations. In addition to this inventory, Wright maintains a cavernous holding room of semifinished product: stock that's near completion, in indefinite reserve. Thanks to its immense inventory depth, the firm ships its orders 97 percent-plus complete within 48 hours, "usually inside 24 hours," Greg adds.

Should these reserves be depleted by a huge order, Wright's all-under-one-roof production capability, aided by its custom software system, allows the firm to react within hours.

"We can reprioritize the manufacturing cycle and speed up any high-need item to the next day," Dick says. "This is very important to our distributor because when he sells out of a product he knows he can get quick replenishment. And if he gets a large order, he knows he doesn't have to carry four 8-inch sockets in his inventory because he can get quick delivery from the factory."

Given Wright's 3,000-item line span, being able to get even unusual items quickly helps distributors remain competitive, enjoy good stock turns and maintain tight inventories. Wright assumes the responsibility of maintaining backup inventory on 3,000-plus items so its distributors don't have to.

This concern for distributor inventory levels also impacts new tool development. Having expanded its line to cover virtually any existing application, any potential new tool must be both mechanically and fiscally feasible.

"There's no point to having distributors carry a tool they'll sell only once every year or two, so we think very carefully when we consider adding a new tool to the line," Dick says.

The value of distribution

Dick Wright's long history with distributors has taught him several lessons about their value to his company and end-user customers, and he shares them with an unwavering conviction.

"I think the key to the distribution business is not to sell for the lowest price but to sell for the highest value." —Dick Wright

"Distributors are very important as local sources of quality tools because if you break a tool on the job, you need a quality replacement immediately," he says. "And if you're breaking tools on the job, that distributor's advice can save you not only tools but injuries as well."

Dick notes that a key advantage of local distributors in the age of consolidators and integrated supply is the ability to dig deeper into the needs of their customers and learn their processes in order to help them become more efficient and profitable. Here again, advice, product expertise and quality are critical. "Some people get penny wise and pound foolish with integrated supply," Dick observes. "They push for the lowest price and then say, "Now, cut that price 5 percent every year.' Sooner or later they'll be getting a tool line from God-knows where."

The changing work force makes another strong argument for the value of distributor expertise. "More companies are noticing a decline in the age and experience of their workers and maintenance crews," Dick says. "New people on the job, who didn't have the benefit of coming up through a long apprentice program, won't always know enough not to put a wrong-sized socket on the nut. When you've got an expensive, complicated plant to run or construction project to complete, that can be very serious."

"One of our biggest challenges for the future is retaining that information expertise—and getting paid for it," Greg adds. "With mass consolidations, the expertise of people who really know how to do certain jobs has been eroding. Where people used to do business face to face, they now think they can do it all with a catalog or on the Internet.

"The same is true for integrators," Greg continues. "If one integrator swallows up business that was formerly served by 25 vendors, the expertise of those 24 other vendors is just lost. In the face of the forces that are changing our industry today—integration, buyouts, consolidations—what is lost, in a lot of situations, is intelligence."

Fortunately, not all of that intelligence is necessarily lost forever. "That expertise level is going to have to swing back around," Greg says. "We've learned it before: Big isn't always better. We're going to see a lot of spawned-off 'guerrilla' companies started up by people who used to work for companies that have been swallowed up. And we're constantly looking for them because these people understand value, and they will perhaps metamorphose into something better than their parent companies."

Will E-commerce, as some believe, replace this lost intelligence and render Wright's distributors obsolete? No. E-commerce offers many potential benefits, but "our basic philosophy is that our customers are best served through distributors," Dick says. "We've been innovators throughout our history, and we aim to be an innovator through the use of our web site as a promotional and support tool for our distributor base."

Greg agrees. "We're committed to our distributor-based customers and we want to make sure that anything we do on our web site and with EC will be a win-win for our distributor partners," he says. "Distribution is the lifeline of how we go to market."

"Everybody wants to talk about value-added," Dick says. "We live it. We talk to our distribution that way; we manufacture a quality product with the finest service and availability in the industry at a fair price. We deliver those three things on a daily basis. The challenge we face is making sure that people out there are willing to pay for that."

In the end, Dick Wright firmly believes that quality—of product and service—will prevail. "I think the key to the distribution business is not to sell for the lowest price but to sell for the highest value," he says.

"And serve your customer. Occasionally you're going to lose a customer on price, but you can gain them back when they learn from their mistakes."