State Electric has a strong working relationship with Rockwell Automation, the premier industrial controls manufacturer in the world. Rockwell Automation manufactures Allen-Bradley products, which lead in innovation and quality, and State Electric has a long and rich history of supporting Rockwell Automation. The convergence of these two great companies is a huge benefit to customers. With State Electric’s inventory and expertise of Rockwell Automation products, customers in the automation market can have confidence that they are receiving the best inventory, services, and resources from State Electric.

While State Electric is the only distributor authorized to sell Rockwell Automation across our footprint, customers may sometimes have the option to purchase the products from a “gray market” source, or an unsecured third-party seller. Experts at State Electric warn customers not to take such risks. For example, recently at a State Electric store, an industrial customer purchased a Rockwell variable speed drive from a local vendor–not an authorized Rockwell Automation distributor.  After the drive was installed and running, the customer experienced a drive failure. Thinking they had purchased the drive from State Electric, they requested a warranty replacement from us. Our normal operating procedure in that situation is to send them a unit from the Rockwell repair hub and ship the failed drive back to Rockwell. As it turned out, the failed drive was out of warranty by several years. Rockwell denied the warranty claim and invoiced State Electric for the total cost of a drive from the repair hub. The customer did not want to pay the invoice because they thought they had purchased a new unit. The customers’ State Electric sales team met with the customer to explain their findings and discovered who they had purchased the drive from. The customer then agreed to pay State Electric’s invoice. According to Rockwell Automation policy, Rockwell still would have supported the warranty claim if the drive was in warranty.

The result of purchasing Rockwell Automation items from an unsecured and unaffiliated source was a lot of wasted time and money for the customer. We see and hear customers say they can buy Rockwell products from different sources at a lower cost, and while that may seem true at first glance, the question becomes: What are you actually purchasing? In this example the customer purchased the first unit and now must purchase a second unit, not to mention the sacrifice of time, production, labor, reliability and safety.

For the highest quality in automation products, purchase Rockwell Automation’s Allen-Bradley line at State Electric. State Electric supplies local support with Rockwell’s well-established industry. We have employees dedicated to the Rockwell Automation market, and our companies strongly support one another. With this relationship in mind, customers can always feel secure when purchasing Rockwell Automation products or seeking related services from State Electric. Our combined resources supply expertise in the products as well as the industries and applications we serve.