Flexing their Muscles

With 20 Years of Experience, Flex Enterprises is Using its Strength as A Provider of Custom Products and Services to Build Business in New York and Beyond
By Victoria Fraza Kickham, Managing Editor
Industrial Distribution April 1, 2006

A tour of the Flex Enterprises warehouse in Victor, N.Y., feels more like a walk through a small manufacturing facility than an industrial distributorship. Technicians are stationed at "cells"—à la lean manufacturing—assembling custom products and special kits according to customer specifications. Finished products go to the quality assurance department where they're inspected before being shipped out, and then an all-new round of pieces and parts makes its way to the cells for transformation into something else, for some other customer.

But make no mistake, this is a distributorship—a specialty distributor of rubber hose, accessories and conveyor belting that's been supplying Original Equipment Manufacturers in the Empire State and beyond for the last 20 years. At the helm is CEO Linda Murphy, who founded the company with her husband, company president Guy Murphy, in 1986. A certified woman-owned business, Flex Enterprises has developed a reputation for innovative thinking and flexibility that has helped cement its place as a niche supplier to OEMs in the construction, business machines, aerospace and medical fields, among others.

Like other small distributorships—Flex has 30 employees, one location and $6 million in annual sales—the company has had to reinvent itself as the manufacturing climate has changed and new competitors have cropped up. Once a provider of bulk hose, belting and custom-made assemblies to the large OEMs that made Upstate New York their home, the Flex Enterprises of today rarely sells a reel of hose to anyone anymore. Instead, 80 percent to 90 percent of what goes out the door has been fabricated, assembled or otherwise altered to meet a customer's need.

"Our mission really is to add value to what we do," says Linda Murphy. "Manufacturing today is more and more geared to assembly work being done outside and brought in. So, we want to continue doing that value-add."

In that vein, orders are no longer shipped solely within the Northeast. Flex supports customer locations across the country and around the world, and has even found business opportunities abroad as technology has helped level the playing field for smaller companies. Essentially, the story of Flex Enterprises is one of a company that's seen the writing on the wall and decided to act on it.

"The economy has driven us this way," says Guy Murphy, adding that Flex aims to add value to a degree that the large national chains simply can't match. "We saw the opportunities in the market, and we acted on them."

From radio to rubber
Linda Murphy was managing a radio station in the Rochester, N.Y., area when she decided to pursue her MBA, with the ultimate goal of starting her own business. Guy Murphy was a regional manager for Dayco, a national hydraulics and hose products manufacturer with operations in the area. After some market research, the couple decided a hose and accessories distributorship made sense, and Flex Enterprises was born. The company was a full-line Dayco distributor at first, though that has changed. The Murphys have expanded and added lines over the years, and today, Flex sells a wide range of hose, accessories, and belting products.

In fact, Flex sells quite a bit of imported products today. Linda counts India's Fenner Drives and Italian manufacturer Manuli Hydraulics as key trading partners. The trend towards imports has grown, she says, as OEMs have been searching for ways to reduce costs. That's also driving the trend towards outsourcing assembly work to distributors. As manufacturers have downsized—building plants in other countries and finding technological efficiencies here at home—plant managers and purchasing agents have had to get creative in their approach to getting the work done and squeezing more efficiencies from the channel.

Ron Martino, purchasing manager for Stone Construction Equipment, is a case in point. Flex has been making hose assemblies for the company for 20 years, and today does custom tube bending for them, as well. The tubes are used in various products Stone Construction makes. Martino says Stone Construction used to do the tube bending in house, but learned six years ago that Flex Enter-prises could do it a lot more cost effectively. He says he's even outsourced the purchasing of some products to Flex—yet another service the distributor is willing to take on.

"Linda Murphy is very dynamic, and her company is willing, in most cases, to try anything," Martino says. "We have some nuisance vendors that we spend a lot of time dealing with for a small amount of dollars...[Flex] can go to that supplier and buy the product and sell it to us. We might pay a few percentages higher for the material, but they've taken that headache away from us."

Easing customers' pain has been at the heart of Flex's mission since 1986, and in many ways, today's business climate has forced them to capitalize on that strength. With manufacturing customers shipping much of their high-volume work overseas, the high-end, specialty work has been left here at home, and that often means more specialized work—such as mechanical sub-assemblies and kits, and more detailed pneumatic and hydraulic assembly work—for distributors who can handle it. Flex Enterprises is one of those distributors.

Some assembly required

On a sunny morning in mid-February, Flex technicians were busy assembling electric harnesses that would be used to operate steering mechanisms on asphalt rollers. Mechanical sub-assemblies like this are a growing specialty at Flex Enterprises. Linda points out that this particular product is part of a kit that includes a hydraulic hose assembly. The kit will be shipped to the customer, ready-made for the assembly line.

At another cell, workers were using ducting to make a small part that would be used to suction air and toner into a high-end copier. And in a special cell devoted to aerospace work, hydraulic assemblies are made to FAA standards. The company's hydraulics business has quadrupled in recent years, says Linda, largely because of efforts to break into new markets. Tube bending has been another big growth area.

Whatever the product, customization remains the key to the company's success, she says.

"We offer the service, the expertise, and the value-add that the big chains can't offer. We'll assemble a product and ship it to the customer," Linda explains. "We add value to just about everything that comes through the door."

To accomplish this, Flex Enterprises has had to become a better listener. Paying attention to customers' needs and developing "reverse engineering" solutions to their problems, is paying off. Oftentimes, customers come to Flex with a product in hand saying, "Can you make this?" Linda puts it to her experienced workforce to figure it out.

And figure things out they do, which has given the company staying power in the marketplace. For example, Martino notes that Stone Construction Equipment had more than 400 suppliers when it began doing business with Flex 20 years ago. Today, that number has shrunk to 70, about two dozen of which supply 85 percent of his company's needs.

"[Flex Enterprises] is what we call a preferred vendor," Martino says. "They are a very customer-oriented company, which is the type of partner that we want.

"Also, we build and ship everything within 24 hours, from scratch. We live and breathe lean manufacturing...In order to support that kind of operation, you've got to be a very good organization yourself, which Flex is."

Lifelong learning

Michelle D'Angelo is secretary and general manager at Flex Enterprises, third in command after Linda and Guy. She joined the company 15 years ago, starting as a receptionist and working her way up to become a partner in the business. She takes pride in Flex's reputation as a superb supplier, but says one of the best things about working for the company is the diversity of the work itself.

"We're always learning here," she says. "We consider ourselves a niche supplier to our customers...And that's nice, because you're not selling the same thing all the time."

D'Angelo says employees are encouraged to learn, and often attend training sessions on a range of subjects—technology, products, business skills, you name it.

"We're big on training," adds Guy Murphy. "It's difficult at times, because it takes away from production, but in the long run, you're better off."

Monday is training day at Flex. Employees may learn about a new product, piece of equipment, software package or assembly process, and they use a variety of sources for the training, including vendors, in-house experts, consultants and industry sources such as the NAHAD Hose Assembly Guidelines. A project of NAHAD—The Assn. for Hose & Accessories Distribution, the Guidelines offer standards for fabricating hose assemblies, with the ultimate goal of assuring quality and safety industry wide. Flex has been a NAHAD member since 1987, and Linda was a founding member of the standards development process. She remains on the association's standards committee today.

A big part of the training process at Flex involves lean manufacturing. Thanks to a grant from the state of New York, the company is implementing lean with the help of a consultant who guides them through the process of creating work cells and streamlining overall operations. Flex also gets help from business partners like Stone Construction Equipment, who give their input on Flex's processes based on their own experiences with the lean concept.

Linda says she'll continue along this "learning" path as she looks to expand the business in the years ahead. She's already done her homework on a retail-store concept she hopes to open this spring. Some market research revealed strong potential for walk-in business in the Victor, N.Y., area, so the plan is to convert a space that now functions as counter sales/makeshift storage room into a full-fledged retail store, where customers can touch and feel products and get a glimpse at Flex's service offerings.

With three strong, back-to-back years behind it, Linda and her team are confident they can keep up the pace.

And as long as those OEMs need custom assembly work, Flex Enterprises will answer the call.

"We fill niches for industry," explains Guy Murphy. "We do so much value-added that you can't get from a traditional distributor."

Company Snapshot
CEO: Linda Murphy

Headquarters: Victor, N.Y.

Founded: 1986

2005 Sales: $6 million

Employees: 30

Primary Products: Hose, belting and related items

Web Site: www.flexenterprises.com

A Guiding Principle
Linda Murphy believes in education as a key component of any successful distributorship. When it comes to hose and accessories, she's especially keen on teaching employees and customers about safe and proper construction of hose assemblies.

"We need to educate employees and customers, because if [they] don't know what they're doing, serious problems can arise," says Murphy, CEO of Flex Enterprises, a specialty distributor of hose, accessories and conveyor belting headquartered in Upstate New York.

Training is crucial in this area because a faulty hose assembly can lead to accidents, potentially causing bodily injury and property damage.

To combat these issues, Murphy's company has adopted the NAHAD Guidelines, a hose assembly standards program developed by NAHAD—The Assn. for Hose & Accessories Distribution. A longtime NAHAD member and founding member of its standards committee, Murphy says the Guidelines are an essential component of her company's training program.

Training is done every Monday at Flex Enterprises, and often involves introduction or review of one of the five NAHAD guidelines published to date. Flex's Quality Assurance department uses the guidelines in its inspection process, as well.

"Training [on this issue] has become crucial, and NAHAD's guidelines help us with that," Murphy says, adding that the guidelines not only promote employee and customer safety, but also offer companies a more proficient way of doing things.

For more information on NAHAD's Hose Assembly Guidelines, visit www.nahad.org.