Marshall Industries

Marshall Industries NYSE: MI, (1984–1999) was founded in 1954 by Gordon S. Marshall and was among the largest distributors of industrial electronic components, semiconductors and production supplies. The Company also provided its customers with a variety of value added services such as inventory management, kitting, programming of logic devices and testing services ^[1]. The Company distributed over 250,000 different products manufactured by over 5000 suppliers to more than 250,000 global customers which included a wide range of original equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers and value-added resellers. Marshall Industries was sold to Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT) ^[2]

The Company's dramatic transformation and growth from $400 Million to $1.8 Billion was chronicled in W. Edwards Deming's last book "The New Economics", a Harvard Case Study, and "Free Perfect and Now"^[3], by Marshall President and CEO from 1992 to 1999 Robert Rodin, a protege of Deming's.

References

1. ^ Wall Street Journal. 26 March 1999. 
2. ^ New York Times. June 1999. 
3. ^ Rodin, Robert (1999). Free, Perfect, and Now: Connecting to the three insatiable customer demands. Simon and Schuster, Inc. ISBN 0-684-85022-2.