Success Story 1 – Wellborn Cabinets
– Ashland, AL
4mm had this business for 20 + years prior to us
getting the business. At the first of the year 2007, 4mm was
offered the opportunity to test anything they wanted on one
specified sanding line. We had the business with Aarfar 02 on
the aluminum oxide wide belt products.
Because they opened the door for testing, we took
the opportunity to test EST1000. Prior to testing, 4mm had
close to 100k of business between the #180 grit Silicon Carbide
belts (461UZ) and the 468L orbital paper, products we couldn't seem
to overcome. On the Aluminum Oxide, 4mm tested 363UZ and
362UZ depending on the grit. EST000 out performed the 363
& 362UZ products 3 to 1 in life and our finish was
better.
We also took the opportunity to test ORSTES film
vs. the 468L. Our finish was just as good and they only had
to change our paper (2) times per day. They were changing the
468L every (2) hours for an average of 8 – 10 changes per
day. They had used only small quantities of our AARF110 #180
grit belts as their final head, opting to use 461UZ from 4mm most
of the time.
They said our AARF110 T40 joint chattered a lot
worse and more often than 461UZ. We tested a T60 crushed
grain joint and it seemed to compare with 4mm. The end result
is that we not only kept the business, but we picked up the few
applications we did not have. They went with EST000 on the
wide belts, changed to Acme on the orbitals, and switched to
AARF110 T60 joints and dropped 4mm 461UZ
altogether.
The product did perform well, however, it should be
noted that the way the test was conducted made a major difference
and gave us a great advantage. It was an engineered
controlled test and data was meticulously calculated. The
test ran for (17) days. 4mm tested first. We found out
that 4mm brought a “specialist” in to evaluate their
machines and processes. They pointed out several things they
perceived Wellborn was doing wrong in their process and let them
know their machinery was not in good
condition.
When Tony B and I arrived to start our test, Jonny,
their sanding maintenance person, who is actually extremely
influential on what is used at Wellborn, asked Tony if he wanted to
go through the machine and point out the problems with it and flaws
in their process. Knowing Jonny well, Tony told his boss that
he felt Jonny had the machine in great condition and he
didn’t see any reason to do anything to the machine. He
bragged about how great of a job Jonny does maintaining all of
their sanding machinery. Tony told him that as far as he was
concerned, we just needed to put the belts on and run the
test.
He won Jonny over with his comments, putting him on
our side for the test. There were some machine issues that
occurred on one of the machines during the test that could have
ruined us. Because of the way Tony handled Jonny, he saved us
and told the Engineer that the problems we were experiencing had
nothing to do with our belts, it was a machine issue.
Justifiably, Jonny got the Engineer to throw out the results on
that machine for both us and 4mm and use the results from the
second machine to determine who would win the
test.
Following 4mm’s test, we also heard from
several Wellborn personnel that they were not happy with the lack
of participation by the 4mm representatives. They only came
around for a few hours each week. That being
said, we had someone there for first shift every single day for 17
days. For the complete first week of testing, Tony and I were
present for the start of 1st shift and spent the entire
day each day there. We spoke to every person on the floor,
brought everyone hats, and really had a good time with their
employees for the whole first week. Our numbers were so much
better on the wide belts because we were monitoring them. We
found that if they had a problem with chatter or some other defect,
the operator had a tendency to change all (4) heads. Because
we were there, Tony and I were able to stop this practice,
suggesting they change only the last head first then work
back. In most cases, they ended up changing only the last
head, thus improving our performance
greatly.
In the 17 days, every one of our top management
personnel visited the plant. Each of these key people visited
in a different week throughout the test, thus giving us great
exposure from the beginning to the end of the test. They met
and spoke with key personnel and spent time on the floor with the
operators and did a lot of entertaining (lunches &
dinners). Not only did we keep the account, we picked
up quite a bit of additional sales and really cemented ourselves in
this account. This was truly a team effort and it was a
pleasure to be a part of it.
Success Story 2 – Sherriff Tool –
Holton, KS
Sherriff Tool is a distributor of abrasives in
Holton, KS. They have been an CIA distributor for years, also
carry some 4mm and also Merke discs. Over the last year and a
half, they have been making a transition to supplying only Acme
products. This is a success story in that it demonstrates how we
pulled in their business by going after their largest abrasive
customer, Koch & Co. in Seneca, KS. We started out
working directly with Koch & Co. showing them a value and
service that they felt out shined CIA. Josh visited the
account with me and did a great job leveling their
machines.
The owner was very impressed with the value Josh
brought to the account. Their purchasing director said they
wanted to use our products but we had to go through Sheriff Tool,
no questions asked. Sheriff was leery about brining on
another sandpaper manufacturer, but Koch was pretty adamant that
they supply our product. Sheriff reluctantly agreed.
Since then we have continued to prove ourselves and our products in
several other accounts. They are now very happy they switched
and are phasing out their other abrasive lines as much as
possible.
We now actively work with their (3) field sales
reps and have worked closely together to open even more business
with many more good leads in the pipeline. Not only did we
pick up a very nice end user account, but we also picked up, what
might prove over time to be, one of our highest producing
distributors.
Success Story 3 – Koch & Co. discs
– Holton, KS
We had picked up most all of Koch &
Company’s belt and orbital sheet business, but were having
trouble on the discs. They were using a 4mm 236U, which is
their b wt. gold serrated paper discs. We had successfully
displaced Merke gold with LUBYBLUE on the psa discs, however, the
4mm 236U was Hook It II, which is their reverse hook & loop
system. I tried everything.
At first they ok’d LUBYBLUE, but it was short
lived. The floor personnel wanted to switch back to
236U. As a last ditch effort, I sent in ORSTES hook &
loop to test. They fell in love with it. The ORSTES is
about twice the cost, but it lasted 3 times longer. Therefore, they
are actually getting a much better value out of the ORSTES. They
have been using ORSTES instead of 4mm 263U every
since.
