The Changing Face of the Distributor

Tiiger Inc., Cedarburg, WI, began over 20 years ago as Thiermann Industries. Co-founders Bill Thiermann, a former lineman, and Al Copp, an electrical engineer for Wisconsin Electric Power Co., refined and improved products similar to the machines Bill had designed with his earlier company called Thiermann Utility Equipment.

"In 1986, Al combined his financial resources and knowledge of the utility industry with Bill's design-engineering and line work experience to produce this equipment and take it to market," explains Andrew Copp, vice president of Tiiger.

As informed users of utility equipment, Al and Bill felt they had a better solution than what was currently being offered to linemen, and they set out to manufacture better quality machines for their fellow workers.

By the mid 1990s, Al and Bill were ready to develop the next generation of mini-derrick. With a clean sheet of paper, they responded to customer feedback and suggestions based on Bill's original mini-derrick design from the late 1970s. They combined these inputs with hydraulics and new technology to catapult the mini-derrick concept into the new century.

"The market size is small for the mini-derrick, and the equipment utilization time is pretty low. Many machines will sit in a yard for months until there's an absolute need for them," says Dennis Wagen, president, Tiiger.

Wagen recently purchased the company in order "to improve how Thiermann Industries manufactured and marketed its products, both on the operations and manufacturing side, as well as implementing sales networks and working with sales representatives," says Andrew.

Tiiger's competitors have the same small market, but Tiiger has taken it upon itself to advance the technology regardless of how small the niche market is. However, enhancing strength and safety, as well as using current technologies to update the equipment, was out of the scope of understanding for the small utility equipment company. Today Tiiger works hand in hand with GS Hydraulics Inc., New Berlin, WI.

More than components

The distributor's role is evolving into much more than a component supplier. GS Hydraulics, for example, is a complete system solution provider. It is able to send knowledgeable and capable engineers to OEMs and not only provide the technology, but provide an engineering team to help integrate it into the machine.

"GS started in 1972 as a component distribution place," begins John Thornton, president of GS Hydraulics. "In the early ‘90s, GS started to transform itself into engineering support."

Kishor Patel, previous owner of GS and Thornton's father-in-law, at the time was the vice president of engineering for Applied Power. The GS owners were seeking retirement, and with no children ready to run the company, Patel was able to redesign the company's operation. He began bringing in engineers for the sales force and inside support and was able to start offering engineering solutions.

Now, Thornton refers to GS and Tiiger as a sort of partnership. "These projects aren't short in development. Sometimes customers go to market very quickly, but with other customers we can work on projects for a year and a half before we ever sell them the first prototype components. This is often followed by extensive testing and subsequent modifications."

Wagen agrees, adding, "If you want to buy a cheap component, call up a different supplier and they'll drop it off and say goodbye. But with GS, they bring value beyond a component."

The evolution process

Bill Thiermann's original mini-derrick started off as a hydraulically powered crane, but with hand-cranked outriggers and labor-intensive setup. "Tiiger's first innovation was to make it a hydraulic drive machine so it was able to access areas of the yard that traditionally were not accessible with the tow-behind piece of equipment," says Thornton.