I’d like to share a memorable customer visit that perfectly illustrates why strong channel partnerships are crucial in the industrial automation world.
Recently, I visited a massive envelope manufacturing facility in Richmond, VA with our distributor partner, Hermitage Automation Controls. This plant is remarkable—producing over 6 million envelopes daily with a mix of American mechanical machines from the 1930s-40s and modern high-performance equipment from Europe.
While the older machines operated reliably through their purely mechanical design, the newer, more advanced machines would behave unpredictably during power fluctuations like power surges or voltage dips. This inconsistency was causing significant production challenges with unpredictable restarts of the newer machine park.
The reliability engineer responsible for plant operations would only notice those power surges by looking at the flickering ceiling lights and needed a way to detect and track power dips affecting their manufacturing processes. This is where the value of collaborative channel partnerships became evident.
At my day job at TELE Controls, we offer specialized power and energy sensors (eCap) that could detect the power fluctuations, but we don’t provide the data logging or cloud connectivity needed for comprehensive monitoring and reporting.
Hermitage Automation Controls—who represents multiple brands including Weidmüller, Sick, and ABB—was perfectly positioned to bridge this gap. Their expertise allowed us to create a bundled solution incorporating our sensors with complementary technologies from their portfolio.
Together, we proposed a pre-engineered, packaged “plug and play” solution that:
This experience highlights several crucial aspects of successful channel partnerships:
What struck me most about this visit was how Hermitage approached the customer’s challenge. Rather than simply trying to sell products from their line card, they focused on creating an experience—collaborating with us and the customer to truly understand the problem and engineer a comprehensive solution.
This experience-focused approach built trust and demonstrated value far beyond what any single manufacturer could provide alone. It transformed what could have been a series of disjointed transactions into a strategic partnership focused on business outcomes.
In today’s complex manufacturing environments, the strongest approach isn’t direct sales of individual components—it’s collaborative solutions delivered through knowledgeable channel partners who prioritize customer experience over one-off sales.
By embracing this model, both manufacturers and end customers benefit from increased innovation, simplified implementation, and solutions tailored to specific operational challenges. Our experience at the Richmond envelope plant perfectly illustrates why investing in these channel relationships remains one of the smartest strategies for manufacturing technology providers.