SUMMER 2024

10 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

10 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Laurence Claus Laurence Claus is the President of NNi Training and Consulting, Inc. He has 25 years of experience with a medium sized automotive fastener manufacturer, holding positions including Vice President of Engineering, General Manager, Director of Quality, Director of New Business Development and Applications Engineer. In 2012 he formed NNi offering technical and business training courses as well as technical consulting, expert witness and consultation work. He can be reached at 847-867-7363 or by email: Lclaus@NNiTraining.com. You can learn more about NNi at www.NNiTraining.com. WHY FASTENER DISTRIBUTORS SHOULD OFFER APPLICATION ENGINEERING I loved my job, but after twenty-six years in fastener manufacturing , I found myself at a career crossroads. Auspiciously I had options; start afresh in a new field, continue in fastener manufacturing, or start something of my own. I had a lot of great technical and business management experience to draw from, having cross pollinated in the automotive, general industrial, and aerospace market segments. I had held numerous different roles including Application Engineer, Quality Director, Director of New Business Development, General Manager, and Vice President. Therefore, in the summer 2012 I would hang out my own shingle as an independent consultant and trainer. I imagine like many individuals that start off on their own, years of honing industry relationships resulted in my earliest clients being organizations where I had already forged a connection. So it wasn’t until I had been on my own for four or five months that I would receive my first opportunity with a client whom I had never worked with before. As it happened, this client was a small, regional VMI distributor. They had recently renewed a multi-year contract with their largest customer. As they explained what they needed, I was shocked to learn some basic details of their new contract and quickly realized why they had sought me out. Although I had always considered the automotive OEM’s insistence on yearly “productivity” reductions for multiple year contracts, TECHNICAL ARTICLE as brutal, unfair, and honestly short-sighted business, I was ill-prepared for the story that I heard from my soon to be newest client. In a nutshell, in a move seemingly straight out of the automotive purchasing handbook, my client’s customer had forced a multiyear agreement with significant contract reductions for each year of the contract. The only silver lining was that their customer made a provision that any genuine cost savings they could provide through application engineering channels would be credited towards their yearly reduction obligations. Thus, the reason they had searched me out. At that time, they had no in-house engineering or technical resources to engage in such an activity, compelling FIGURE 1: PARKING LOT SIGN ENCOUNTERED ON A CUSTOMER VISIT them to find that expertise outside of their organization. The engagement essentially had me travelling to their customer’s site, going from assembly station to assembly station and noting where there might be an opportunity for cost savings, either from the fastener components or improvement to the assembly practice. CONTINUED ON PAGE 96