Industrial Distribution

• Tool reconditioning and regrinding — Cline Tool’s craftsmen restore customer’s tools to original specifications and reduce their tooling budget with repair costs based on actual damage. Customers can email a photo of their damaged tool for an estimate.

• Comprehensive engineering services — From designing
a tool to fit a customer’s specific application, to
suggesting a manufacturing process or tooling
improvement, Cline Tool’s engineers find solutions to
the most demanding requirements
• Complete project management — Cline Tool provides
engineering services and tooling for customers looking
to reprocess an existing part, or when a customer is
tooling new equipment. Cline Tool takes ownership of
the tooling requirements, guaranteeing cycle times and
quality and making sure tooling is optimized.

It’s those non-distribution services that the company wants current and potential customers to know more about.

“I think a lot of people think of us as an industrial distributor-only, and until they get to know us, they don’t see our breadth of products and custom tool manufacturing and integration capabilities,” Long says.

“That’s probably the biggest disconnect.”
Boosting its headcount has certainly helped Cline Tool
avoid spreading itself too thin, but so has the overlap
between those various services. Their interconnectivity
is exemplified when a customer is having an issue with a
machine part. Cline Tool will send an engineering team to
conduct a study of the customer’s full machining process
and then make recommendations on how they should
reprocess that part, enhance work holding or change the
programming. By doing so, that customer can achieve
substantial savings — sometimes hundreds of thousands
of dollars. In turn, that can lead to a further discussion
about Cline Tool handling that customer’s entire tooling
needs and if it makes sense to engage any other of the
company’s services.

According to Long, it’s that partnership-based, engineering-focused business model that differentiates Cline Tool from the competition.

“I really think it’s the ability to engage at the
engineering level,” Long says. “It’s not so much a
transactional model. Our engineering is a way to open
the door and get further involved with the customer.”
“We mix-and-match our services with every unique
solution, and I think that’s a great benefit for our
customers,” Benson adds. “They see it, they can tangibly
see the difference between us and our competition.”
While many Cline Tool employees’ expertise bridge
several services, the company designates groups for certain
ones. There is a dedicated team for internal operations,
another for industrial distribution, as well as dedicated
vending teams at the Newton and Rockford locations.

Recent Growth

Through 2010, most of Cline Tool’s customer base was agricultural-based. Following the ownership change that year, the company sought to diversify. It did that in a big way in 2015, first adding a second location in Fletcher, NC to take advantage of the automotive and aerospace market there. Shortly after, Cline Tool opened its Houston location to add oil & gas customers and then expanded to many more general manufacturing customers by opening its Rockford, IL location in September of that year.