About AutomationDirect, Inc.
Automationdirect.com , originally founded as PLCDirect in 1994, has quickly grown from a tiny PLC company to a well-recognized name in the industrial automation market. As the first industrial controls company to successfully use a direct sales catalog for PLC products, Automationdirect.com is now using its cyberspace superstore, in addition to its – more... 800 number, to reach the next plateau in industrial control sales.
PLCDirect was established as a privately held Georgia corporation that is a subsidiary of Koyo Electronics (part of the multi-billion dollar Koyo Seiko group of companies). Koyo had designed and manufactured PLCs for some of the world's largest PLC companies, including General Electric, Texas Instruments, and Siemens. However, the future plans of these companies and Koyo were not compatible.
Tim Hohmann, founder and company captain of PLCDirect, established the company in January 1994 as the first entity within the Koyo Seiko group to concentrate on the micro PLC market. At its inception, PLCDirect consisted of a handful of people working out of a tiny leased building.
It's first catalog consisted of 200 pages featuring about 200 products. For the first five years, the company focused on practical ways to deliver quality PLCs to customers at prices that were typically half of the traditional automation companies, including Allen-Bradley, GE Fanuc, and Siemens. Their competitive comparisons shown in advertisements and the catalog, combined with numerous Editor's Choice awards for innovative products, customer love letters, and their phenomenal sales growth, proved to tens of thousands of customers that PLCDirect was a solid choice for PLCs.
In 1997, the company moved into a new facility, and completed an expansion in March 1998. In April 1999, the company changed its name to Automationdirect.com and launched its e-commerce site. The 2006 catalog has grown to over 1,900 pages featuring over 6,000 name brand and private label products.
What are some of the factors that have contributed to the success of the company? Automationdirect.com was one of the first in the industrial automation industry to employ direct marketing strategies to reach its customers, including advertisements and a direct sales catalog. The company's ability to sell high-technology automation products for very low prices depends on the efficiencies inherent in a direct marketing model. The Cumming facility is its sole location in the United States, and the office and warehouse space has been designed for maximum performance. For example, the sales team handles hundreds of phone orders every day from the privacy of well-equipped individual offices, which promotes productivity and efficiency.
Each member of the technical support team works in a technical suite designed around powerful computers, 20-inch monitors, and a full array of the company's products used for problem duplication and resolution. The warehouse operation has been improved several times in the past three years. The installation of a PC-based control system and bar code identification equipment has resulted in an order shipping accuracy of 99.98%. Apart from the staff required at the central office, Automationdirect.com is really a "virtual" company, consisting of the "Federation of Companies". The Federation is a group of independently-operated businesses, each of which uses Automationdirect.com as its primary marketing channel, designing products which adhere to the company's prime directive of "twice the features at half the price." Each company is encouraged to run itself in a manner that maximizes its own efficiencies. – less – More from ZoomInfo »
AutomationDirect, Inc. Employer Reviews
Working at AutomationDirect, Inc.
