But combs are its forte in the textile industry. Through its sales representative, Louis P. Batson Co., Greenville, S.C., Anderson Distributing manufactures and repairs interlocking as well as conventional combs manufactured to computer precision, using exact customer specifications, with absolute pin spacing, near zero tolerance and unrestricted comb length, he said.

 

During the industry’s more turbulent years in in the early 2000s, Anderson Distributing Co. found the aforementioned keys to success by creating something of a survivor’s mentality as change occurred quickly and often deleteriously to the industry, Anderson said.

 

“We started asking, what things are profitable and what things aren’t?” he said. “And we were willing to change. That’s when we started changing the dynamics of the company. The whole idea was to try something new, something different. Instead of competing against the big companies, we said we’re going to go after the niche. We found things that other people either couldn’t do or wouldn’t do because they didn’t want to mess with it. It was too small for them.

 

“We’re not part-number order takers,” he continued. “We customize our product to meet the customers’ need. Give it to us – we’ll figure it out.”

 

Several company iterations

 

Anderson is caretaker of an operation his father founded in the late 1950s as Textile Loom Reed, which was down the street from its current building. “I grew up in the reed shop,” Anderson said. “I learned how to make reeds in the days of pitch-band reeds.”

 

Bill Sr. formed a similar company, Greenville Textile Reed, in Greenville, S.C., and started Anderson Distributing Co. as a subsidiary of Textile Loom Reed in 1962. Textile Loom Reed was sold to Steel Heddle in 1969, but the distributing unit remained.

 

When Bill Jr. left High Point College in 1972, he accepted a job with his dad’s company to sell weaving accessories such as picker sticks, loom pickers and marking tubes. In the 1970s, the company began to evolve and offer industrial mechanical power transmission products.

 

Bill Jr. and his brother Walter purchased the company from their father in the mid-1980s, with the former taking care of the textile end and the ladder handling the leather goods area. Walter later left the company to start another firm.

 

In 2001, when GTP-Greenville closed its Steel Heddle plant in Greensboro, Anderson hired two of its employees – Joe Martin, who was over the machine shop, and Roger Holt, who was plant manager – to help launch Textile Combs and Accessories (TCA). Holt stayed about a year to get the new operation up and running before retiring. Martin, who joined Steel Heddle in 1988, remains with Anderson Distributing/TCA today.

 

The differentiator

 

Martin calls himself a machinist, but Anderson calls him a “magician.” “A lot of what he does is a lost art and a lot of it isn’t written down,” Anderson said. “His expertise comes from years of experience.”

 

When it comes to customization, Martin can typically figure out a way to fulfill a customer’s needs, no matter how difficult, Anderson said.

 

“I give Joe free reign,” he said. “The only thing I ask Joe is that before he digs the ditch too deep, let’s talk about it. Joe does his own pricing and works directly with the customer. Joe wears whatever hat it takes.”

 

Martin interjected modestly: “There’s not much to it, really. It’s pretty simple.”

 

When it comes to customization of combs, Martin is a true wizard, Anderson added. He started working on them nearly 30 years ago and learned everything he possible can about making them to suit specific requirements. These days, customization is a necessity as companies have moved into more specialty applications, Martin said.

 

“A lot of these mills have machinery that is basically old and most of it is foreign made,” Martin explained. “I’ll transfer it to American standard (from metric) and add some type of comb they may require, and up the pin count as needed. If they’re running 300 ends on their beam now and they need something else, for instance, they’re buying these little square panels to do it with. But they need something to add to that traction instead of buying new panels every time they need one more thread.

 

“That’s where I come in with customization,” he added. “I can add a few panels, add a little length, customize it to where they can get more out of an expansion comb rather than a solid, rigid comb.”

 

Also on the matter of customization, one customer’s engineers miscalculated the number of pins needed for a comb, so Martin made them some extra pins and shipped them to them, at no charge.

 

“They were going to actually scrap the pieces and buy some more and Joe said, ‘no, I’ll just make you some extra pins, if you feel comfortable drilling a hole for them,’ ” Anderson said.

 

And that customer ended up ordering more products from the company, Martin added.

 

Anderson Distributing employs seven fulltime people, most of whom are jack-of-all-trades, Anderson said. Also, a couple of former Steel Heddle machinists who are retired come in to assist Martin during busy times. General Manager Becky Morris has been with the company 30 years.

 

All are inherently driven by customer satisfaction and a top-notch product, Anderson said.

 

“We’re quality oriented,” he said. “It might take us a little extra time, but if we’re not happy with it, it’s not going out the door. We’ll do good work for a profit, but we’re going to do good work regardless of whether we make a profit or not.”