When TTI acquired Symmetry Electronics last year, the company said it was answering calls from customers to have a “TTI-like semiconductor distributor” as part of their supply chain. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company recently changed how Symmetry does business to help make that happen.
Symmetry recently consolidated its distribution operations with TTI, moving its inventory warehoused in Los Angeles, California, to the company's Fort Worth facility. The move allows Symmetry to hold more inventory for customers as well as accommodate shorter lead times and increased ready-to-ship inventory, the company said.
“One of our biggest focuses this year has been expanding our distribution footprint to meet customer demand, and with the help of TTI and their distribution system, we will be able to provide buyers with more inventory worldwide,” said Mark Zack, vice president and general manager of Symmetry Electronics, in a statement.
David Beck, Symmetry’s vice president of marketing, said in a recent interview that the acquisition was “rocket fuel” for its distribution business, which needed help raising capital to grow as quickly as it wanted to. According to SourceToday's Top 50 Electronics Distributors list, Symmetry earned $44 million in revenue last year and expects to grow between 10 and 12 percent by the end of this year.
Beck told Source Today that the shortage of funding stood in the way of scaling “a sales and support team to support nationwide or global customers, and then capturing business that is purchased overseas by a local customer’s contract manufacturer partner.” Now, Symmetry will have less trouble raising capital to hold additional inventory for customers, he said.
Previously, the company held inventory at its warehouse in Los Angeles, where it will remain headquartered. Symmetry is moving into TTI’s new warehouse, a 641,226 square-foot building that increased its warehouse capacity from 1.2 million square feet to more than two million square feet globally, allowing it to handle more orders and fill them faster.
TTI, one of the leading industrial, military and aerospace distributors, said that the construction cost $40 million. The company, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway and earned revenues of about $2.25 billion last year, according to statistics shared with Source Today, also owns Sager Electronics and Mouser Electronics, which is also based in Fort Worth.
