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The editor’s comment - The ever expanding electromechanical
aftermarket
A review of
articles appearing in this magazine in the past few months reveals
further proof as to how the
electromechanical service and sales business in recent years has
expanded into much more than its traditional definition, “electric
motor repair.”
In this issue, we report how a Nebraska
firm launched a separate company for its growing
predictive maintenance department.
Last month, the
November EA featured a Denver
service center which has added crane
manufacturing to its production, making bridge cranes with
four full-time welders and one electrical technician.
In
October, EA described how a North
Carolina company arranged the complex transaction required to
sell the company to employees. In
September, EA’s Jane Powell reported the
launching in New Jersey of a “sweethearts’
dream business” that has grown to nearly 30 employees.
The
August EA’s feature article, “21
Century service in a 19th Century landmark,” reported how
Thomas Edison’s boyhood town has become a home
for a million-dollar electronics service business. Our
July issue featured a Pennsylvania
business that has made a specialty of
overhauling and rebuilding traction motors.
In
June, we featured the comeback of a
Wichita, Kan., company after the commercial aviation business had
been crippled following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks in New
York, describing how a service firm has successfully
added specialties and geographic areas.
Nor has being
in a small town prevented businesses from growing. In
May, we featured an unusual service
operation, in a South Dakota village with a tiny population of 500
persons, that is annually repairing and
rebuilding thousands of transformers from all over. Our
April issue described the growth of an
Ohio company that is building a substantial
servo motor service business.
EA’s
business and industry breakdown, as verified and audited by BPA
(Business Publications Audit) Worldwide, breaks down into nine
classifications: electrical apparatus
service and/or sales companies, in-plant electrical departments,
electrical contractors, electrical consulting firms, electric
utilities, distributors of electrical equipment and materials,
manufacturers of electrical equipment and materials, trade schools
and libraries, and other allied to the field. Each of the
groups is further audited by function: corporation or general
management, service/repair/engineering management,
service/repair/engineering technical staff, sales/marketing,
consultants, and other functions.
Our six-page
circulation audit statement further breaks down each of these
occupational categories by the products they may handle:
bearings, belts, brakes, brushes, coils,
controls, drives, electronic components, fans, generators, hoists and
cranes; insulation, motors, power transmission equipment, pumps, shop
equipment and supplies, test instruments, transformers, and wire and
cable. Classifying more than 15,000 readers into all these
groups is time consuming and expensive, but it is important that the
electrical aftermarket have accurate information on which each
company can base its individual marketing and advertising decisions.
Incidentally, readers interested in seeing our current audited
circulation statement are welcome to request a free copy.
The annual
ElectroMechanical Bench Reference, a
supplement packaged with this issue, further defines this complex
industry. Here again, readers tell us what they do, and within
reasonable limits, we report their activities (occasionally when
someone says they do “everything,” we have to set limits to their
claim).
On balance, the
electromechanical service and sales industry is composed of
an impressive group of entrepreneurs and
talented workers who together are a credit to the free enterprise
system.
From “Editor's
comment - the ever expanding electromechanical aftermarket,"
by Horace B. Barks, Editor & Publisher, published in Electrical Apparatus
December 2005
Visit our online webstore to
order a
copy. © 2005
Barks Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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