1/7/2013 2:10:00 AM
HEADLINES
Duncan Bolt Acquires Disco Industrial
Andy Cohn
The assets of Disco Industrial Screw have been purchased by Duncan Bolt Co.
Duncan Bolt, headed by Andy Cohn, acquired Disco Industrial from Al Amado.
Amado was once executive vice president and treasurer of Lewis Screw in Chicago. He was the 14th president of the Chicago Bolt, Nut & Screw Association and was inducted into the CBNSA Hall of Fame in 1983.
Amado headed west to acquire Disco in 1984.
He was recruited into the fastener industry by one of the founders of Lewis Screw – Sam Hochwert.
Amado described his experience at that point as “a night school CPA,” but soon felt comfortable as “an accountant not afraid to go out in to the factory and pull parts out of a machine to show a visitor.”
Reviewing his fastener career, Amado, 82, cited three major changes in the industry: Importing, computers and women.
“When I came in, there were only Heads and Allied,” Amado told GlobalFastenerNews.com. Since then “we’ve lost a lot of domestic manufacturers.”
When he started all fastener inventory was kept on cardex and “you made phone calls and phone calls to update.”
Soon after acquiring Disco, Amado observed a typist retyping a list of 30 items for backorder. The original order had been for 35 items and before computers the 30 had to be retyped.
Heads & Threads International started an early computer driven “sheet of inventory” for salesmen, but that occasionally got oversold and no one knew what had been sold that day until the update the following day, Amado recalled in an interview with FIN.
Forty-eight years ago “there were very few women selling screws. It’s was a man’s job,” Amado recalled. “Today women may be in a majority.” Indeed, the majority of Disco salespeople today are women, he pointed out.
Founded in 1952 as Dumont Industrial Supply, Disco Industrial distributes fasteners with VMI, bin stocking and JIT programs. Disco is located at 14100 Alondra Blvd., Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670. Tel: 714 522-3342 Fax 562 926-2450 Web: discois.com
After assisting in the transition in the coming months, Amado plans to retire.
Duncan Bolt was founded in 1953 by David Duncan. Andy Cohn and Virginia Cohn acquired the distributorship in 1988. Duncan opened a branch in Phoenix in 2003 and Shanghai, China in 2006 and is headquartered at 8535 Dice Rd., Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670. Tel: 562 698-8800 Fax 562 698-8831 Web: duncanbolt.com ©2013 GlobalFastenerNews.com
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