3B's proven "Service by Design" approach gives our customers everything they want, but not more than they need

We make a difference to customers by:

Providing World Class Storeroom Management Solutions

Delivering Highly Effective Inventory Management Processes and Systems

Executing Sound Strategic Procurement Services

Implementing Best-in-Class Tool Management Practices

Creating Customer Specific Integrated Supply Programs

For our customers this means:

* Enhanced Profitability through cost reduction and productivity improvement
* Enhanced Up time due to material availability
* The ability to focus resources on core business processes
* A focus on continuous improvement driven by data, systems, and processes

3B Supply can customize a set of solutions for your particular requirements. Detailed implementation plans, along with the most highly trained people in the industry, will ensure a quick ramp up and continued flexibility as your program develops. Continual and timely feedback on performance for service levels and cost savings ensures that 3B is providing the value customers expect.
Why Integrated Supply?

Traditional purchasing systems, in which the customer orders from hundreds of suppliers, are more inefficient and more costly than ever. With so many suppliers, it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish relationships with vendors. It's also nearly impossible to keep up with the paperwork, receiving and inventory levels.

The days of large purchasing departments, cumbersome quote/purchase order processing and lack of inventory management add up to one thing: excessive costs. With the advent of Integrated Supply, more and more customers are making the costly traditional model just that, a past tradition, and are taking the necessary steps to adopt Integrated Supply as the new purchasing model. Why challenge the Status Quo? Because indirect material procurement and management is not a core competency for most, and it impacts the bottom line of companies around the world, in these ways:

* Resources and focus are directed at production or R&D needs
* Indirect material is viewed as necessary but not strategic
* Paper based communication and manual processes still dominate
* Excess inventory builds up
* Higher prices for goods and services
* Slowed new product introduction
* Decreased internal customer satisfaction
* Inability to track and manage costs
* Lost market share

An integrator like 3B Supply drives new thinking by capitalizing on its core competency: Complete MRO Procurement and Management

* Manage and report reductions in total operating costs
* Leverage purchasing to create savings
* Manage inventory to maximum efficiency level
* Collect and organize pertinent data to guide reporting
* Effectively allocate resources within business scope
* Eliminate redundancies by standardizing processes
* Provide product standardization opportunities for approval

In Short and Long Term companies attain:

* Successful implementation experience with multiple sites
* Successful with varying site size and complexities
* Successful with site and process compatibility
* Quick change deployment
* Productivity improvements
* Inventory reductions
* Purchase Price Deflation

Continuous Improvement, LEAN, 6-sigma

LEAN thinking means constantly generating ideas to get better. This is an ingrained part of the 3B’s culture. Our associates are turning in hundreds of ideas each year that enable us to steadily improve how we run our business and serve our customers. Our impeccable service and lowest in industry overhead costs are a testament to the “war on waste” we fight each and every day. We use a simple 5-step process that emphasizes 2 things: discipline and common sense.

We provide value through lowering the total cost of acquisition via unit price, process, value engineering and inventory reduction savings. We have experience with customers large and small, in many industries, managing the full spectrum of MRO products and service. We have a proven record of success. Our IT associates work with a range of customer systems, and understand the need for flexibility and immediate response to our customer’s needs. We provide our associates with an industry-recognized training program.

Costs to Customers

Overall program pricing always begins with a jointly defined “Scope of Work.” As the deliverables for each program are established and understood, we are able to accurately determine the resources needed to meet the program goals. Once the fee is determined, it can be assessed in a manner that fits with the customers accounting system most efficiently. Because customers prefer various methods of allocating program cost, 3B can include a straight mark-up on product acquisition cost, a management fee, a line item fee or even a combination of these along with a shared savings program where a portion of 3B’s profitability is varied based on meeting cost reduction goals.

3B’s service model

Our On-Site Solution, where 3B Supply associates will reside on-site at our customers providing an all encompassing MRO Management Solution. They would be responsible for activities ranging from Storeroom Management, Tactical Buying, Strategic Sourcing and Continuous Improvement.

When setting up new site, 3B has used its experience to create a complete Project Checklist to help guide installations at new locations. The checklist identifies specific steps, assigns due dates and responsibilities and helps manage this very complex effort. It also has a section devoted to the customer team - who should be included, what they need to work on etc. For its portion of the implementation, 3B supplements the resources of the newly assigned personnel who will run the local program with specialty resources drawn from the existing pool of employees. This combination gives us the unique ability to support the most aggressive schedule. 3B uses a variety of temporary support personnel to help ensure programs are installed on time.
Advantages to customers with 3B’s administrative ownership
3B is one of the few companies to establish a "pure" integrator approach, focusing solely on integrated supply to avoid the distractions of participating simultaneously in traditional distribution. Integrated supply programs offer inventory management systems, just-in-time availability and better prices. The goal is Cost Savings in the entire supply chain process. Our programs go beyond procurement; they are designed specifically for medium- to large-size customers in order to focus on achieving year over year cost savings in three areas: acquisition, possession and consumption. When engaged as a full service integrator, 3B will own the supply chain process. For our customers, we:

* Perform receiving/inspection tasks
* Reconcile freight charges
* Eliminate clerical functions
* Eliminate thousands of invoices
* Provide a single audit trail
* Track performance to agreed goals

Reports / data

3B has had experience with a number of service measurements including the following:

* Fill Rate – 98%+ is a must and is strictly adhered to
* Substitutes of Proprietary Products - This measures the effectiveness of efforts to substitute generic items for hard to find or costly proprietary ones. The program needs to track both potential conversions as well as approved conversions.
* Inventory Reduction (Obsolete) – 3B has experience with a variety of ways to convert excess and obsolete material into cash.
* Inventory Effectiveness – 3B measures the volume of predictable, high-volume activity versus one-time purchases and specials to track how effectively they are at supporting the material needs at the lowest process cost. The goal is to move more material toward routine replenishment at lower product cost and away from special ordering processes.
* Cost Saving (Unit Price) – 3B benchmarks the last price paid for all items and then compares each subsequent purchased against the benchmark to see if the price is trending up or down.
* Cost Saving (Process) – During each site’s program implementation, 3B works with the customer and their finance staff to create a program to track process savings in a form which is credible to their senior management.
* Quality (Transaction Management) - One important quality measure will be minimal error rates in the creation, placement, receipt and payment of material purchase orders.
* Channel Simplification - The reduction in dependence on 2nd and 3rd Tier supply sources in favor of Primary Sources (i.e. manufacturers and fabricators). This is an indicator of both reduced channel cost as well as improved knowledge about the plant's requirements.
* Spend and Usage Levels - By any accounting classification important to the customer.
* Warranty Tracking – 3B systems are designed to allow warranty information to be included in the database down to the serial number level.

Customer System Integration
3B Supply also has capabilities of integrating with most customers’ ERP systems, thus allowing those customers to lower their overhead and processing costs, and assure capable spend analysis, usually unavailable for product areas such as consumable, nuisance goods and spot buys. And at the end of the day, we offer 1 monthly invoice that can be augmented with any kind of detail desired by our customers.