Episode #219 – BrAInstorming

 

Thinking hard about tariffs, AI tech, reshoring and keeping stock on the shelves, the fastener industry heads to Vegas for its largest annual conference of the year.  Director of strategic sourcing for Würth Industry USA, Brian Schommer explains the critical role of sourcing and the reboot of the Würth Knowing podcast (14:11).  Young Fastener Professional of the Year, Tim Vath of LSG shares his formula for success (37:49). On the Fastener News Report, Hans Fuller of Canadian distributor Fuller Metric joins Mike McNulty to compare notes on the surprising FDI numbers (47:39). Marco Rodriguez of Cresa discloses the 5 hottest markets for industrial warehouse space (1:20:14). Carmen Vertullo talks ASTM A193 B7 on the Fastener Training Minute (1:27:14). PLUS: Ian Heller of Distribution Strategy talks AI from the Applied AI for Distributors conference (1:38:35).  Brian and Eric ignore irritating bird noises and think about their new AI-enabled Scrubber. Run time: 02:00:58

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Listen to the podcast here

 

BrAInstorming

If you buy, sell, manufacture, import, or distribute threaded fasteners, this is the show for you. I am coming to you from semi-rural Northeast Ohio. The co-host of the show is with us as well. He’s a fastener AI evangelist and lifetime honorary Texan, Brian Musker. Bri, are you doing all right?

You could have said full suburbanite to add a touch.

For contrast?

Yeah. No cows or horses.

Thanks for clicking in, everybody. We’re getting ready to head out to Vegas. We’re smashing this episode in the timing. Isn’t that great? It crept up on our usual publishing schedule. Many of you will read this before the show. On the other hand, some of you will read it after. It’s not the best, but here it is. It’s a very good show content-wise.

We’ll get things started with the conversation with the Strategic Sourcing Manager from Würth, Brian Schommer. We have a nice discussion with him, comparing and contrasting strategic sourcing to purchasing, among other things, as he sets out to promote the reboot of the Würth Knowing Podcast. Many of you will remember that a few years back, Würth did a nice job with that podcast. They’re releasing it in a slightly different format. Brian Schommer will be one of the presenters. We’ll talk to him.

What’s Up With Today’s Surprising FDI Numbers

On the Fastener News Report, Mike McNulty will be joined by Hans Fuller of Fuller Metric, located in Canada. Hans has got his take on the tariff situation. I got to prepare you, Bri. It’s a little harsh. They’re going through some tough times up there. I will say this. Whether you’re North or South of that border, all of us are suffering from some level of tariff fatigue.

We’re sick to death of it. I expect Hans would be outspoken because he has his views. It’s good.

They also dive into the FDI numbers. It’s staying strong, but a little moderation after July’s surprising numbers. Plus, Marco Rodriguez will have his quarterly commercial leasing report.

You may have heard by now that the 2025 Fastener Industry Hall of Fame award winners have been announced. Along with that, the Young Fastener Professional of the year. We’ll leave McNulty to make the announcement on the Hall of Fame winners, but Tim Vath of LindFast Solutions Group, Young Fastener Professional of the Year, we’ll talk to him to kick off the news this time.

On the Fastener Training Minute, Carmen helps us understand the subtle but important difference between ASTM A193 B7 versus ASTM A93 B7M. We’ll leave it to Carmen to draw those distinctions. If that wasn’t good enough, he’s also going to throw in a particularly pernicious form of hydrogen embrittlement in the mix. Don’t miss the Fastener Training Minute all coming your way. Brian, you headed out to Rosemont in June 2025 and attended the AI conference that was put on by Distribution Strategy. You did a little interview with Ian Heller. We’ll wind up this episode with a look at that and some of the experiences you’ve been having as you’ve been dabbling with AI.

I have a little to say about that.

There is a lot going on in this episode. We’re going to get it going right after we tip the hat to our partners who make this all possible. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Star Stainless, “Right off the shelf, it’s Star.” Global Fasteners, “Quality the first time,” and Brighton-Best International, “Tested and tried true, Brighton-Best.”

What Is Going On With Reassuring

Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners and The Ohio Nut & Bolt Company, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Cresa, Endries International, INxSQL Software, Fastener Technology International, J.Lanfranco, MW Components, the International Fastener Expo, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry USA. Let us know what you think of the show. If you have ideas, questions, and concerns, email us at FTR@FullyThreaded.com. You get around, Bri. You were at the AI conference back in June 2025. What show was it? You saw Harry Moser from the Reshoring Initiative.

We go to the FABTECH. It’s a big show in the McCormick Center in Chicago. It’s ten times bigger than the IFE or any of the fastener shows. It’s mainly about advances in manufacturing, storage, and laser welding. I was watching a thing where it was laser welding. I’ve never seen that before. We go there because normally, we meet up with one of our old, longtime friends, JR Prahl. He’s with the OneMonroe group. He’s a longtime friend of our show, as anyone who’s been here for years would know.

Did you see him?

No. He had gone back to Michigan already. He was here Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I couldn’t see him. We came to hear the keynote address by Harry Moser.

We haven’t had him on the show for quite a while. What was the main takeaway from Harry Moser and his idea of what’s going on with reshoring?

Reshoring has peaked at the start of COVID. It’s sunk a little bit since then, but it’s still way higher than it was when we started talking to Harry. There were two people who were given awards. I don’t know if it was Harry. It could have been from the crowd that runs FABTECH. They were people who were noteworthy because of their attempts to embrace reshoring.

One of them, the most successful one apparently, is GE Appliances. They put $3.5 billion into working out how they could take over the manufacturing appliances in America. There is another $3.5 billion going in this 2025. The other one was another company, which we would think of as a Japanese company. They have put $5 billion into their attempts to reshore manufacturing in America. The take has changed a little bit. Harry still talks about the total cost, which means making up for delays, wastage, and all that stuff. There’s a little more emphasis on what happens if China attacks Taiwan.

Is that right? He was speaking that in polite company.

What’s going to happen when, all of a sudden, you get nothing from China? It was a very interesting talk.

If you want to get more information on Harry Moser and his movement, the website is ReshoreNow.org. When was the first time we had him on the show? I should have looked that up.

That total cost of ownership tool that he’s been touting for so long is available with no charge on the website. That helps people put in all the variables. See if you can make sense of reshoring or nearshoring. It’s worth a look.

He said, “I’m not quite so bent upon the problem of nearshoring.” With nearshoring, he certainly means Canada or Mexico. He says, “Many of the products that they will be using will have come from the United States anyway. It’s closer to reshoring than buying from overseas.”

The elephant in the room issue is tariffs. How did that play into the presentation?

Tariffs only came in as they make reshoring more attractive. There was no discussion on whether they were good or bad. It simply was that when tariffs are in place, they make reshoring more attractive, still.

Not a surprise.

I know.

He always walks a tightrope on the political side of all of that. You have to, in that position.

Reshoring is very close to the aims of the administration.

That’s what they say. Thanks for that report. It’s great that you and Lynn are able to get out there and do this recon for us.

It’s a fascinating place to walk around. There are 80,000, maybe more, square feet of machinery. It’s this big, heavy, bloody machinery that weighs tons and is cutting up things, doing things, welding, and moving them around. It’s fascinating to see.

In contrast, we’ll be heading out to Vegas right around the corner. We’re going to get this episode going, play a couple of messages from our partners, and dive into the conversation with Schommer on the other side. I appreciate you tuning in, everybody. We’ll talk to you in a second.

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The Critical Role Of Sourcing

We mentioned that we’re publishing this episode of the show ahead of the International Fastener Expo out in Vegas. Some of you may read it before the big event. Many of you will be reading it on your way home or afterwards. If you do read this before we get out there, please come by the FCH Sourcing Network booth. We’re in 1867.

As we bridge into this next conversation with Würth’s Strategic Sourcing Manager, Brian Schommer, I’m thinking about how this episode paints a picture. We started off a minute ago with Brian relating his experience listening to Harry Moser of ReshoreNow.org, how everything that’s happening in the world is impacting the idea of reshoring manufacturing to the US.

Thinking ahead, when we close the episode, we’ll be playing a conversation that Brian had with Ian Heller from Distribution Strategy. He’s speaking about AI in wholesale distribution without diverting too much into the whole morass of what may or may not be hype in the AI conversation. There certainly is a lot of it and a lot of mythology that needs to be dispelled.

The fact is, we’re at the very beginning of an AI revolution. We’ll call it a technology revolution, and AI is a big piece of it. As we talk with Brian Schommer here, it occurs to me that we’re touching on an immutable piece of the distribution world, which is finding inventory to put on the shelves and how that happens. However we go about it, that’s going to be something that keeps on happening.

When you stop by the FCH booth, which is 1867, don’t hesitate to pick our brains on what we’ve been working on. We hint at it a little bit during this episode. It’s true that there’s a slog ahead of us because these things are not simple to build and deploy. A lot of people in the audience are seeing that foundational big-picture ideas are changing.

At FCH, we feel like we’re very well-positioned to bring a lot of these pieces together, things like AI enabling our Scrubber technology and borrowing some of the algorithms from certain kinds of matching sites, shall we call them. That makes a lot of sense to us. That’s the direction we’re heading. Conversations we’re about to have help make the case for all of it. Thanks again for tuning in, everybody. Let’s dive into this conversation with Brian Schommer, Strategic Sourcing Manager of Würth Industry USA. Brian Schommer, thanks for being here.

Thank you very much for having me.

Let’s dive right into it. How does a sourcing manager differ from a purchasing manager? How do you distinguish between the two? How do you explain strategic sourcing? That is my bigger question.

Throughout the time, including at Würth, there’s a lot of different terminology, like procurement, purchasing, supply chain, sourcing, and global sourcing. Sometimes, organizations utilize these interchangeably, but they have individual particular meanings. We look at strategic sourcing as more of a longer approach and a bigger-picture look at who we buy parts from, why we buy them, how we evaluate suppliers, and then how we execute to make supplier improvements over time. We don’t play into the tactical cutting of a PO and executing. It focuses more on the longer-term opportunities that exist within our suppliers.

Strategic sourcing is more of a longer and bigger picture approach. Look at who you buy parts from, how you acquire them, and how to evaluate suppliers. Share on X

That’s a very formal explanation, as I would expect from someone in such a lofty, professional position as you are. I’m here looking at it from the outside. If you could help me a little more clearly understand the difference between purchasing and sourcing. Drill into that.

I would like to say that purchasing is more of the tactical, everyday execution of cutting purchase orders, following up with deliveries, expediting orders, and things like that. Sourcing is the identification of who you’re going to be buying these parts from, how you’re going to be evaluating your suppliers, and what makes sense to be doing business with particular suppliers.

I got it. It may be splitting hairs, but I know there are folks in the audience who are working in smaller organizations where they’re all under the same umbrella and the same person is taking care of all that. In a larger, more complex organization like yours, I imagine that these jobs are very highly specialized. I wonder how you can manage all that. How do you coordinate among the different activities that are so interrelated but subtly different?

That’s a great point. At the end of the day, we’re very blessed to have a very large multinational organization at Würth where we have dedicated folks to focus on these more strategic aspects. In smaller organizations, at the end of the day, you’re going to have to wear multiple hats. You have to execute the purchase orders.

There are particular things within sourcing that you’ve got to think about. You can’t be cutting this purchase order. Who are you going to be cutting it to? Why are you cutting that purchase order to that source? What makes this particular source and this particular supplier better than the next supplier? While smaller organizations might not have the dedicated resources, at the back of their mind, they’re inherently having to make those decisions on who they’re going to be buying these parts from.

I know you’re aware of the FCH Sourcing Network, which is our main gig. It’s a place where people come when they’re looking for something that is either hard to find or they’ve got a gap in what’s on the shelf, and they need to fill an order. In a lot of cases, they’re looking for a fill-in of some kind. That’s a spot-by scenario. That must drive guys like you nuts.

It certainly can be a bit challenging. At the end of the day, you guys provide an excellent source and an excellent need in the industry and the market. Gap buys are needed. It does not drive us up the wall, so to speak. What FCH does is provide an excellent repository of needs for these gap buys. Gap buys are always going to be needed, whether it’s through an FCH or through individual distributors.

I completely understand that. I get that a guy like you is probably mostly focused on the rules rather than the exceptions to the rules, which is where I’m playing. It’s understandable.

There is always a need for these gap buys. At the end of the day, the gap buys don’t necessarily drive the longer-term agreements and longer-term blanket purchase orders. As we develop strategies for whom we’re buying from, we always have to identify the need to have these gap buy sources, whether it’s FCH or particular individual distributors. At the end of the day, we have to offer deliveries to customers and make sure that we don’t run our customers out of parts.

We don’t necessarily look at gap buys as a negative, so to speak. They’re needed, and we’re aware of them, but in a sourcing world, they don’t necessarily play in the overall strategy. We’re not going to go to an FCH and say, “We want to develop year-over-year contracts.” We’re not going to do that. At the end of the day, it’s not worth your time.

You do a great job of publishing and putting out all the wide breadth of products that you have for our tactical buyers to go and certainly quickly gap buy parts, whether it’s gap buy in an emergency situation or gap buy when it comes to a project implementation or a project startup to ensure we have enough product.

Fair enough. I didn’t want to hijack the conversation. It’s a natural question for me.

I know where you’re coming from. I get it. Everyone has their perspective on it and where they’re coming from. It’s needed. We put stuff all the time out there. Whether it’s yourself and what you’re offering versus large multinational corporations versus a small manufacturer with a purchasing team of two, at the end of the day, everyone can utilize these resources and these skillsets. It’s a different scalability. There are different resources to utilize.

Let’s shift over to that larger perspective, then. What are the giants looking at as the main driver when evaluating strategic sourcing options? I’m going to throw into that also, how’s the tariff situation affecting that, as if you needed a prompt for that one?

At the end of the day, for Würth or other organizations that have large strategic sourcing organizations, it comes down to 2 particular areas. Number one is reducing risk. It comes down to reducing risk as it relates to quality and delivery, but also cost. It’s the total landed cost. Strategic sourcing is looking at, “What are we going to do to minimize the risk to the organization and cost?”

One of the bigger impacts on cost from a risk standpoint is the tariffs. Tariffs have always been there. When things started getting a little bit crazy, we didn’t know if this was going to be a blip or if this was a new norm. It turns out it’s the new norm. Within strategic sourcing, we have to look at this from a total landed cost inclusive of tariffs, duties, and transportation.

We want to make sure that our supply chain is agile enough to be able to quickly pivot from one geographic region to another as best as possible. What that entails is making sure we have approved sources in multiple different regions, whether it’s in Asia, the Middle East, domestically, or in Europe. Also, we are constantly looking at emerging areas and making sure that we cover things like that.

 

Having that agile supply chain developed is important to minimizing the risks and dealing with tariffs, unfortunately, as the hot water gets turned on or the cold water gets turned on to blend it out as the geopolitical. Tariffs increase or decrease, unfortunately, on a whim. The challenge is that you can never be agile enough. A tweak can come out. A new notification that can come out in 30 days is not enough time to pivot, as it were. We have to be ready as much as possible to take advantage of or to minimize the impact on the business.

There’s a lot there. Let me ask you this. Your answer doesn’t have to be AI. Is there a technology that’s been deployed in strategic sourcing that’s been a game-changer for you or has added something to simplifying how you go about all this?

No, unfortunately not. I’ve listened to many people. I’m a regular reader of this show. I’ve listened to people in the industry. I don’t think anyone has truly 100% solved it perfectly. Everyone’s doing the best they can to identify the tariff impact versus HTS codes, loading it into your ERP system to get as best as possible to your total landed cost.

Würth has a business intelligence and automation team. We’re at the beginning stages of utilizing AI to build out what we can. We’re constantly looking to evaluate various options and opportunities to simplify the data input and the data efficiencies throughout the organization. We haven’t solved it as it relates to AI at this point.

What it comes down to is doing what we can to make sure that it’s transparent throughout the organization, from a reporting and an information standpoint, that these tariffs are read through. We can then be as transparent as possible back to our customers. We can say, “These are very real. There’s nothing that we can do to mitigate this. We’re doing everything we can to mitigate this as best as possible, being that agile supply chain to minimize the impact.” At the end of the day, we’re trying to be fair and transparent to our customers as well.

All About The Reboot Of The Würth Knowing Podcast

Understandable. I’m going to leave the tech question there, then. There’s so much going on in your area. I know that you know how to do all this the way that you do it. I’m not going to pry anymore. I’m going to say that you have so much knowledge here that you’ve been recruited to share some of that wisdom on the reboot of the Würth Knowing Podcast. I have to tell you that I was very happy when I saw this. It whizzed by me on LinkedIn. Let everybody know if you can. What’s happening with the reboot of the Würth Knowing Podcast?

It’s exciting. I don’t come from the fastener industry, although I can’t say that anymore. I’m almost three years in. I’ve been told that if you’re in the industry for three years, you’re a lifer. I didn’t come from the fastener industry, so I soak up as much as I possibly can when it comes to fastener knowledge. I’m a tech guy with an engineering background. I love data, but I try to learn as much as I can.

Würth Industry USA is a very large company domestically here in the United States. We have a lot of amazing people and a lot of subject matter experts across a lot of different things. They said, “We’re more than screws, nuts, and bolts, and putting them in a bin.” We have a lot of amazing people. They went beyond the technical aspect of procurement and supply chain, areas of trade compliance, transportation, marketing, and sales.

 

They’ve launched these video series to share with everyone. These are not designed for particular fastener industry experts or people in the fastener industry. They’re designed, frankly, for anyone. You mentioned the smaller companies up to the large companies. This is designed for everyone to share our knowledge and make everyone aware that these are skills that anyone could utilize and adopt.

I framed it as very rudimentary. These are bare bones, basic aspects, but there’s a lot more that goes into it. It’s not just within supply chain and procurement, but also trade compliance, marketing, sales, and human resources. There’s one that’s coming in as an additive. These are amazing people sharing some amazing knowledge and people who are very passionate about it.

There is a Würth Industry USA YouTube channel. You can get out there and see the complete archive of the first season of Würth Knowing. There were about 27 episodes.

It was Aaron and the other guys.

Randy Lammers and Aaron Kevan.

It was so entertaining and so well done in that first iteration of it. We’ve utilized that whole Würth Industry YouTube channel. We’re utilizing that methodology. We’re going to be putting these out there every Wednesday at 5:00 AM, so set your alarm and wake up. There are 20 episodes total. They’re a bunch of shorts. They’re dropping every other week.

They were utilizing our channel to get this as a methodology to get this stuff out there. By all means, click the like button, subscribe, and leave a comment, not just on YouTube, but on all our social media platforms. This is a great opportunity for us to share that we’re more than just fasteners and putting parts in the bin.

Did your episode drop already?

I don’t think so. I checked this. The first episode dropped not long ago. The next one is going to be phenomenal. It’s trade and compliance with Danielle Riggs. Danielle is a phenomenal person and so unbelievably knowledgeable. That one’s very exciting. She can explain something that’s complex in the most simplified manner that I’m like, “That makes sense. I get it now.” Stay tuned for those. I have no idea when mine is dropping, but there are some amazing episodes coming.

Can you share some of the other topics that are coming? The ones that you mentioned are very exciting. Let’s see what everyone’s appetite is, if you can.

There’s one I can mention on strategic sourcing.I did one as well on witness marks and fasteners. I’ve got a particularly odd knowledge base of those. I did one on witness marks. There is additive 3D printing. There is one on forecasting and demand planning. Laura Lopez, who is our subject matter expert, goes into that one. There’s one on sales. Those are the ones that I know of off the top of my head.

We get the flavor based on those topics. This has been an observation that’s been made many times that I’ve heard informally. People see the good work that the Fastener Training Institute does. If you want to get the basics or the mechanics of how fasteners work and so forth, they have a lot of general classes and some specific classes in specific topic areas. These ancillary pieces of the fastener industry, like sourcing, sales, and a lot of the things that are softer skills but are so necessary, need to be addressed. Würth is doing it. As great sponsors of the Fastener Training Institute, Würth is in a super position to do this. I’m glad to see it. I can’t wait to see yours.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I have to say that, not being that fastener person, I did attend the Fastener Training Institute one-day training before. It was the Faster Fair. It was so unbelievably useful. The benefit of the Würth Knowing Series is that when I need a quick refresher of something, I can go back there. If I run into a problem or I’m trying to remember what a particular torque or what particular coding is, I can go back into the Würth Knowing and get a quick refresher.

It’s a wonderful resource. That’s at the Würth Industry USA’s YouTube channel. That’s Würth Knowing, the podcast series. I’m sensing a certified fastener specialist program in your near future. Maybe next time I talk to you, we’ll be rubbing elbows as fellow CFSs. What do you think?

That would be very cool and something to add to my tool bench as I quickly become a fastener lifer, as it were.

You’re stuck. Sorry.

I couldn’t have a better group of people to be a part of. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone at IFE again. Würth is very excited to have a great, very strong presence.

I’ll see you there. Thanks so much, Brian Schommer, for joining us to talk about strategic sourcing as you do it at Würth and in general. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you again for taking the time.

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Tim Vath Of LSG Shares His Formula For Success

It’s the news segment. It’s hard to believe it’s here already. This time, I’m joined by the Division President of Lindstrom. That’s not all. He’s also the Young Fastener Professional of the Year. It is none other than Tim Vath.

How are you doing? It’s good to be here. I appreciate you having me on.

It’s been way too long. I’ve been trying to get you in the background to jump on with the FDI, but you’ve been so busy with all your presidential duties and so forth.

I know. You are persistent. I appreciate it because it is a privilege to be here. I am pretty busy both at work and at home, so I appreciate you keeping tabs on me and getting me on.

You’re doing so many things. It’s fitting that this award would come your way. I was so tickled when I heard about it. I have to ask you. How did you learn that you were awarded the Young Fastener Professional of the Year?

I had no idea. It wasn’t on my radar. I was in the office. My coworker, Mike Robinson, is on the committee. He was down the hall, and he came in and gave me a big high five and a hug. He said, “I got some good news.” I was caught off guard and then filled with a ton of gratitude. It’s cool. I appreciated it a ton then and still do now.

That’s extra cool. It occurred to me. He’s a former YFP of the Year as well, right?

Definitely. I’m following in his footsteps.

It’s so cool. Both of you will have your name up on the wall. I should say that this is going to be formalized at the International Fastener Expo in Las Vegas, coming up very soon. You’ll be out there. Do you have your presenter all picked out? Is that all smoothed out?

It is. He’s getting a lot of airtime. It’s going to be Mike. We figured that it was an easy pick there. He’s going to be the one to maybe roast me a little bit before. We’ll see how that goes.

That’s a slam dunk right there. He’ll do a great job. I’m sure you’re working up your comments and stuff. It’s going to be another excellent Hall of Fame award. I won’t steal McNulty’s thunder. Mike McNulty is coming up in a minute with the Fastener News Report. He’s joined this time by Hans Fuller with Fuller Metric. If you’ve got tariff fatigue, you’re going to like this Fastener News report. They don’t hold back on this one.

I’m looking forward to hearing about it. They can take care of that. I’ll speak on my stuff with a little tariff fatigue, but we’re pushing forward here.

Let’s stick with the fun stuff for the moment. I will also add that the Fastener News Report was brought to us by Volt Industrial Plastics for many years. We sure do appreciate it. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Star Stainless, Global Fasteners, and Brighton-Best International. Getting back to this YFP, I want to give you a chance to tee off on what’s going on over at Lindstrom. I know you got something big that you’re going to unload, which is very cool. You were a VP. You came out of Solution originally, right? That’s your pedigree. You’ve climbed this ladder. You’re having this monumental thing. How are you doing all this? What’s your secret?

Honestly, speaking personally, I work hard. I strive to be somebody people want to work with and work for. At the end of the day, I stay true to myself and authentic to who I am. Those three things are my core pillars of how I operate. The rest falls into place with some luck along the way, but that’s beside the point. Most importantly, I don’t care who you are. Your success is a direct function of the team supporting you.

Stay true to yourself and be authentic to who you are. Share on X

Most businesses boil down to being a people business. I have been extremely lucky to have some great people around me and a team supporting me. This is not an individual award. I’ve been super fortunate to be given opportunities along the way and to have the trust and support of the people above and around me. It’s not lost on me how fortunate I am to be in this spot with Lindstrom and LSG and have the belief from leadership to push this thing forward. I carry a lot of responsibility. A lot of people rely on Lindstrom for the support of themselves and their families. The one word is full of gratitude, for sure.

That’s the way to be. Great words. You’re making Solution Woman very proud.

She is a big part of this. She was a candidate to introduce me in Vegas. I mean my mother, Laura, if anybody’s reading and doesn’t know. We didn’t know if she could get through it without the water work. She’s going to be a proud mama there, as well as my dad. They’ll both be there. That’s pretty cool. I’m excited. They’re a big part of my journey and who I am. That is exciting for me. She is a proud mama.

That’s very cool. I heard there are going to be a couple of other surprise guests who are making the trip out to Vegas as well. We’ll hold that one back. Don’t miss the Hall of Fame YFP awards presentation out there. That’s going to be Tuesday. That’s the big day of the show in the afternoon. It’s right there on the show floor. It’s a fun place to be. There’s a lot of energy there. Tim is going to be the award winner of the Young Fastener Professional of the Year. Let’s turn the page. What’s going on over at Lindstrom? What should everybody know?

That’s a pretty general question here. We’re excited about where we are. We have assembled a great team of leadership around us. Our offering has come together over the years and shaped into what we feel is a strong, comprehensive offering with our core brands of Lindstrom, Star, Stelfast, the value add piece with Solution, and Canada covered with LSG Canada. We have specialty manufacturing with Mega and the addition of Big Bolt.

We are even expanding into some product adjacencies with tapes and packaging supplies. We have this great core, even more so now. We’re super excited about the future, both short-term and long-term. Transformation is underway at LSG. There’s a headline for you. We’re continuing to leverage our breadth and strengths throughout all of our brands and to get more in sync to have a unified offering that we think will be powerful. With that, we are entering a new era at LSG with our digital innovation, which includes the launch of our upcoming Single Sign-On B2B eCommerce platform in early 2026 as well.

 

That is huge.

We are super excited about it. We’re integrating a lot of AI-powered solutions that are designed to elevate the customer experience from the inside out, like smarter workflows, more intuitive service, and tech-driven efficiencies. We’re building something that redefines how we connect and deliver across the board. With the eComm platform and leaning into AI, that’s all I can share for now in terms of details.

I know you’ll want to poke and prod a little bit at that one, but I would have to say, stay tuned for more. Connect with us at IFE. We can probably educate you a little bit more there. I’m excited about the team and the core we have in place, and then even more so about the future and the near future, which is cool. That’s what we got for you. That’s the big headline for you.

That’s very exciting. Thanks for dropping that on the show. I will respect your desire to keep that a little bit tight. I completely understand that details are probably being fleshed out. I can only guess that Dean is doing triple duty versus his usual double duty.

He is super busy. He is at the Solution facility. We had a bunch of folks in, meeting on getting this thing moving and sewn up. He is busy. You are correct.

Good to hear. I also understand that the Solution team has been at work putting some new T-shirts together. Frankly, I would say about time.

It has been a while. The last guy who was leading that fell short on that. I don’t know. This new guy, Mike, has got his stuff together.

That’s a good enough reason to keep him. You are the President of the Lindstrom Division for LSG. You’re also the Young Fastener Professional of the year. It’s amazing. Congratulations again. We got the news coming up, so I’m going to pile one more duty on your desk. I know you’re overloaded, but I think you’re up to it.

Here we go. With news about screws that you can use, here is Mike McNulty.

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Thanks, Tim. This is Mike McNulty from Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News report, which is sponsored by Volt Industrial Plastics, makers of the world’s finest plastic fasteners. Evidently, all free traders are gone or in hiding in Washington, DC. The Ohio State Buckeyes are once again number one in the college football rankings. In less than one week, I will be headed to Las Vegas to attend North America’s largest fastener show. I’m still focused on fasteners and ready to deliver the Fastener News Report.

In this episode, Hans Fuller, Managing Director at Fuller Metric Parts, joins us to reveal the latest results of the Fastener Distributor Index, also known as the FDI. Also, in this broadcast, we have our top story from Fastenal, plus newsmaker headlines from Dokka Fasteners, Smalley, EZ LOK, Suncor Stainless, Optimas, DB Roberts, the EJOT Group, and more. On the back page, we’re going to talk about better ways. We also have Marco Rodriguez of Cresa with his quarterly industrial warehouse space leasing report. We’ll get to all of that in the latest FDI results right after this.

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The seasonally adjusted Fastener Distributor Index for August 2025 dropped to 51.3 after posting a solid 53.1 reading in July, seasonally adjusted. This was the sixth reading above 50 out of the last 7. The forward-looking indicator, also known as the FLI, settled down at 54.3 after posting at 57.3 in July, only the 3rd month of the last date to be above 50 and the second highest of 2025.

Fastener Distributor Index data is collected and analyzed by the FCH Sourcing Network and Baird. The FDI seeks to identify demand, pricing, and outlook trends within the American fastener distribution industry. To get some insight into these results, we’re going to talk to Hans Fuller, Managing Director at Fuller Metric Parts. Hans, thanks for joining us on the Fastener News report.

Thanks for having a Canadian up here as part of the discussion. While I’ll give you the view from up here, it’s going to be a little different than what you guys are seeing. I’d love to be here and contribute to what I can.

It’s good to have you back on. The perspective from up North will be appreciated by the audience, I’m sure. I looked in the notes, and the last time you were on was near the end of 2023. It’s been almost two years. What do you think about the latest FDI results?

They’re interesting. They’re still quite positive. It depends on where you’re at. If you’re a distributor and you’re probably doing more US-made stuff, you may be looking at it differently than if you’re an importer and struggling with all these tariffs and all this other stuff. It’s difficult to tell how these things are going to shake out. I believe that the effect of the tariffs hasn’t taken effect yet because everyone has been holding on, whether they’re waiting for something to change or not. It’s interesting to see where it’s going to go.

 

It is interesting. As I was preparing this, I was saying to myself, “I’m getting tired of talking about tariffs,” but we have to keep doing it, unfortunately. That’s the elephant in the room. Let’s jump into some of the numbers. We had sales drop from 64.5 last month to 53.0. I expected that. Inventories and year-to-year pricing increased while employment deliveries and month-to-month pricing were fairly flat. That all plays into the flattening out of the numbers. What do you think?

I’m surprised they’re still that good. It’s still a very positive outlook, especially on the sales. One question I have on the sales is, how much of that is because of the price increases that are coming in? When we’re talking about dollars, are we talking about tonnage? If you’re an importer and you have to pass on 50% tariffs, getting an increase in sales isn’t going to be that hard. That’s going to be the difficult one.

We’re at the beginning of that because everyone has been holding off. I know we’re talking to some of the colleagues down your way there. Some of them are feeling that this thing’s not going to rear its head until maybe Q2 of 2026, when some of these inventories are depleted. You’re going to have to pass it on. Customers are shopping around.

It could be an abrupt surprise in 2026. We mentioned employment was pretty flat, delivery is flat, and inventory has crept up a little bit.

Inventories are going to be an interesting one. If you’re selling most US-made stuff, it’s not going to affect you that much. If you’re an importer and you sit here and say, “I’ve got $10 million of inventory,” for instance, and your replacement cost is going to be $14 million or $15 million, where’s that $4 million or $5 million going to come from?

Either you drop your inventory levels, which is one thing you can do, or you’re pushing replacement costs. That’s something that has not maybe been happening as much because maybe the next guy isn’t doing it. Eventually, we’re all going to run out of stock. You can only play the game for so long. Some of these guys who bought heavy may play it a little bit longer. It’s going to be a problem. Where is that money going to come from?

That’s a good way to sum it up. Where’s that money going to come from? The people who impose these tariffs don’t seem to care.

It goes into the treasury. Call it what it is. It’s a tax. That’s all it is.

It’s just spelled differently. Let’s keep going with the numbers here. The forward-looking indicator came down, but is still pretty positive at 54.3. We have the six-month outlook flattened out. We had 39% of the respondents expecting things to be better 6 months from now and 33% the same in ‘27, saying it’ll be worse. Compared to the last few months, it was 38, 47, and 15. We had people in the middle moving to the negative side. The exuberance of the last few months has flattened out.

Up here, surprisingly, the summer wasn’t horrible. We’re running into different problems with the tariffs. We are affected because the supply chain is very integrated. In Canada, the outlook is a little less positive. On the manufacturing side, there’s so much uncertainty. Canadian companies can’t get contracts even for parts that go into US manufacturing. You can’t make a deal because you don’t know where you’re going to be six months from now.

 

We were at the MWFA Fastener Week. IFI had a couple of presentations. One was on staying engaged with Washington with different things. The other one was the economic outlook. They pointed out that the manufacturing growth is way less than the GDP. It’s barely half a percent here in the United States. He didn’t present the numbers for Canada, but it’s underperforming on the GDP, which is in the 2% to 2.5% range. Long-term, it’s going to be under 2%. Those aren’t great numbers.

For the numbers that came out, we’ve had a drop, especially in Ontario, where we have more manufacturing that’s not quite as resource-based as here. It’s not a great outlook. In Canada, we hear there are negotiations going on, but it’s hard to tell where they’re going to end up. In the big picture, when you look at our economy, Canada has a lot of stuff and a lot of resources. Those get sold to the US. You’re our biggest trading partner. We buy as much from the US as China, the EU, and Mexico combined. We’re your biggest customer.

We sell you not so many finished goods, but we sell you resources and all that you guys process, make into stuff, and manufacture. You then sell them back to us as finished goods. For some reason, Canada has been in the crosshairs as being the bad guys, maybe because this is a big number or whatever, but when you look at it in the big picture, we’re your biggest customer.

It doesn’t make any sense to me.

It doesn’t make any sense, especially when all those goods support the US manufacturing base and support it in a way that the US manufacturing base can be competitive. The worry with these large tariffs is that maybe there is a guy who’s still competitive in the world. He does what he does. When you put these tariffs on top, he doesn’t have to be. You become lazy. Your innovation goes away because you’re making money. The problem is, once you’ve lost that, it’s virtually impossible to get it back.

It’s hard to get it back up off the couch.

It’s hard when the owners of the companies go, “We can take that money out. We’re making large coin.” They get used to it. That’s my little spiel.

The last number we have here on the report is the ISM PMI for manufacturing number. It went up to 48.7 in August 2025 versus 48.0 in July 2025. That was a little bit of an uptick, but still below 50. The streak of below 50 has been 6 months. The PMI, which is a broader measure than the Fastener Distributor Index, is still below 50.

You’d think that one should be bumping up more. If the theory holds right with these tariffs, that should give manufacturing an advantage. Maybe it’s pointing towards less demand.

It takes a long time to ramp up manufacturing, that’s for sure.

You’re correct.

Labor has been a problem, and it’s not going to get any better. There are not enough young people.

All the cheap labor is leaving.

Perception is more important than reality. Share on X

Anything else you want to add to the raw numbers that we’ve presented here before we jump into the commentary?

Yeah. It’s positive, which is a good thing because the perception is sometimes more important than reality. That’s still a good thing. We’ll see what happens as we continue down this road.

Reading Listener Comments About FDI Numbers

Let’s jump into the commentary. We’re going to read these comments, and you can jump in to comment on the comments as you see fit. It was tariff-heavy, with some observations on markets and segments mixed in. The first one is, “August was a good month. I am not sure what contributed to it. There is still a lot of uncertainty in the market. I am hoping we can hang on for four more months and end the year strong.” The next one was, “After a dismal first week of August, sales revved up for the remainder of the month to give us a good total.”

When you’re buying, it’s easier if you’re not a distributor that carries a lot of inventory. You could roll with it.

The next comment is, “Price increases are mainly due to the pass-through of section 232 tariffs.” We touched on that earlier. It’s like, “Sales went up by 50%.” We got a couple here in a row that are talking about some segments. The first one is, “We are currently involved in several large data center projects, which have shown large growth for us in 2025. Agriculture drives another large sector of our business, and this is down significantly.” The next one says, “Several key end user markets continue to show sluggish demand, specifically ag equipment and oil and gas.” Any insights on agriculture or oil and gas?

Agriculture is a tough one. It’s so politically affected. Exports for soybean, canola, and all this other stuff, I know in Canada, we’re affected by that. They put an EV tariff on there, then China stopped buying one of ours. I forgot what it is. The US exports a lot of our ag products. That has been affected by these tariffs. For oil and gas, Canada is in a strange spot. If you take oil and gas out of our imports to the US, which is about $170 billion, we’d be in a trade deficit.

The strange part is that Alberta and Saskatchewan have most of their oil and gas. We export it to the US, but we import about the same amount of oil and gas from Saudi up to the East Coast. We export our oil and gas to the US at around $15 per barrel discount because we have no one else we can sell it to. It can only go by pipeline, and Canada is only connected to the States. We have pipelines, which are at a disadvantage. We’re affected by oil and gas and how it swings. Apparently, when our oil goes down to Texas, they refine it because it’s heavy crude, and then the Texas oil gets exported to other places in the world. It’s a strange game. It’s well above my pay grade.

More complicated than most of us understand.

Oil and gas and ag are so political. We’re not sure what’s happening.

I always go back to the idea of letting the natural market forces play their role rather than people trying to do it.

This whole tariff thing, if we were doing 15s and 20s, we could work with it. It would be more of a net positive than a negative, like a small tariff, a higher import duty, and things like that. People can deal with it. It would give the US economy maybe the boost that it needs and give it that little bit of an advantage. With where it is, you’re talking 40%, 50%, 60%, and 90%.

It’s arbitrary numbers.

It’s so stifling that it’s breaking stuff. In a small amount, we can deal with it. When import prices go up, the steel mills can make some money. Some people like it, and some don’t, but it’s still manageable. Where we are is breaking the supply chain.

Let’s jump in. We’ve got a few more comments here. The next one is, “Uncertain what the next six months will be working in this unstable market right now, especially with the potential for more tariffs in the slide of the dollar.” I don’t follow the currency that closely. Do you guys see anything between the Canadian and US currencies?

There was one comment from one of my Taiwanese people that I know who is having a real problem with Taiwan dollars. NTD has gone up quite a bit compared to the US. They’re saying, “We have to increase our price,” because they’re selling in USD, but they buy their steel in NTD. There was a problem. They’re saying, “We can’t hold the prices because now, we’re starting to be in the red on the sales side.” On top of the tariff stuff, they have to move their prices up. We haven’t seen that. I don’t think China’s steel and Taiwan’s are increasing. They’ve moved their pricing down slightly. That’s also happening at the same time.

The next one is, “Tariffs continue to disrupt our supply chain and require us to pass on increases to customers. It is a very challenging environment currently. Margins are getting squeezed and inventories are rising due to tariffs.” There’s no surprise there. The next one is the most aggressive one. It says, “TARIFFS!!!!! Reality is that they are split in some ways between supplier and customer.

Early on, with lower tariffs, I believe most suppliers absorbed the majority. We then began to see them passed on to customers. Now that most customers are accustomed to paying them, we will see a shift towards the full brunt of tariffs being passed onto the end user. To me, it signals inflation ticking up while suppliers see their bottom lines return to more normal levels as they no longer shoulder tariffs, which are here to stay for the foreseeable future.” There’s a lot there.

We touched on most of this already. That comment probably supports the fact or supports the idea that we’re not going to see this until Q1. Q2 is when it hits the fan. You can only hold on for so long. When you bring in $500,000 of stuff in an import, which we have to because the US can’t make these parts, you have to pass it on.

One thing, which is also interesting and no one has talked about much, is that the steel tariffs are applied to imports of tractors and imports of machinery. Whenever you import something to the US, they say, “How much steel is in this printer? How much steel is in this tractor? How much steel is this? What is the value of that part?” They give us support for that. It is crazy. It’s like, “How do you do it? You’re making a little doohickey on how much steel is in there, what the value of that steel is, where it is smelted, and where the country of origin is for that part.”

Is everybody using the same methodology to determine that? Probably not.

Even when you go, “It’s made and smelted in China,” which is the highest tariff country there is. You could probably say, “If you say China, I’m charging you the most. I probably shouldn’t be bothering with getting a whole bunch of backup documentation because that’s as bad as it gets,” but no. They go, “Prove it.” It can’t get any worse. You’re charging me the max. There isn’t another country that’s charging more.

Put the resources on finding the documents.

If it were just on steel, if it were a little cleaner, if it were by HS code, or if it were applied in a more logical fashion, that is executable. In a logistical way, you could manage it, and it would make a lot more sense.

Our last comment has an interesting phrase. It says, “The terror of tariffs continues to take away valuable sales and growth opportunities.” That ties in with what we’re saying about spending time on this unproductive stuff. I will say as an anecdote that when I was out in the Chicago area, there were a handful of companies that were domestic-based. They were like, “We’re popular now.” They’re US manufacturers. Everybody’s calling them up. It’s a short-term benefit.

It’s probably good for what you can make. I’ve been told that 2026 may be a bit of a surprise in the spring. The other part that is a little bit concerning is that I was in Europe, and the Made in the USA brand has taken a big hit. This is all about imports, but the US sells a lot of stuff to the rest of the world. As this thing moves forward, that’s going to become more difficult. The manufacturing costs in the US are going to go up, so everything that’s made there is going to be more expensive.

You’re saying the perception is that the Made in the USA brand is not being perceived very well outside of the United States.

It’s not as shiny as it used to be. Let’s put it that way.

Anything else to add to the comments before we move on, and I’ll let you tell the readers what’s going on at Fuller Metric?

No, that’s it. Maybe I talked a little bit too much here. I’m sorry about that.

It’s good to get a perspective. Unfortunately, tariff fatigue is at the forefront of every conversation. What can you tell the readers? What do you have going on?

We’re watching and seeing what’s happening in the US. We’re very affected by the climate, maybe more indirectly, because our customers are distributors. We don’t deal directly with OEMs and end users, but when their business goes down and there’s uncertainty in the market, it certainly affects us a lot. However, it hasn’t been terrible. Business is still there. We’re chugging along and doing our thing.

We’re trying to do a few things that our competitors aren’t. We’ve worked on making the Fuller Metric assortment available very quickly and easily. We have about 85,000 SKUs that are online and that we can price out immediately. If we don’t have it here, but it’s stocked in Europe, Taiwan, or wherever, we can give you that.

We’ve changed our marketing a little bit, and maybe some other little segments. We do a little more cutting tools and some thread repair stuff, which has become more difficult to get in Canada because of all these tariffs. We’re chugging along and doing our thing. We’re sitting on the sidelines, taking the opportunities where we have them, and not trying to listen to the end of the world is coming too much.

 

Do what you’ve done. You’ve been doing this since the mid-‘70s.

It will be our 50th anniversary in June 2026. We’ve done this for a long time. My dad started the company. We’re still family-owned. We still have five shareholders, all working in the company.

You guys know what you’re doing. You’ve been doing it a long time.

We’ve been doing okay. We’ve gone through recessions. We’ve gone through a whole bunch of different things and consolidations. The market is always changing. We have different problems, but you do what you can, work through them, and make your customers happy. That’s all you can do.

That’s very good. Keep going. You’ve seen lots of different storms over the years, I’m sure.

We’ll get through this one as well.

Lots of sunrises to go after.

Exactly. Let’s hope.

What To Expect In The International Fastener Expo In Las Vegas

We’re recording this one week before the start of the Las Vegas Fastener Show. Are you guys going to be at the show?

Yeah, I’m coming down. We’re not going to exhibit in 2025. We’ve had Pacific Bolt as a partner for the last couple of years. Due to the tariffs, they’ve been shut out of the market, so for them, it didn’t make sense. We decided to sit this one out. I’m coming down to see all my colleagues and friends. I feel a little bit disconnected because I haven’t been quite as active. I’m the Immediate Past President of PacWest. I think they’re going to kick me out at the next meeting.

Kick you out of the PacWest?

No, as the immediate past president.

You can only be the past president for so long.

Until the next person comes in. That’s a great association. I’ve so enjoyed being part of it, being part of the board, and all the people I’ve met because of it. I wish I had done it sooner in my career. Being in Vegas is always interesting. I am looking forward to a change of scenery.

I’ll be going to Phoenix after that. I’ll have to admit. I’ll miss seeing the Canadian Bolt Bar in Las Vegas. Maybe it’ll all appear in the future.

Who knows? We’re not going to say no. That was born between me and Trevor, sitting somewhere during COVID or after COVID, and saying, “We haven’t done anything. Let’s do something.”

It was a clever promotion.

It is what it is. I am looking forward to it.

When you mentioned the 50th anniversary, you’re in your 5th decade at Fuller Metric. Is that correct?

Yeah. I started with Fuller when I was 20 or 21. I’ve been doing this for most of my life. Nothing but bolts.

That’s a good thing. Continuity, loyalty, perseverance, and all those things.

It’s a great industry to get into. Especially when you get involved a little bit more on the top side, there are some great people in it. In a way, it’s smaller than you think. It’s a fairly big industry, but it’s also not that large.

The fastener industry is a great place to be, especially when you get involved a little bit more on the top side. There are some great people to meet here, even though it is not that large. Share on X

It’s not going away.

We hold the world together.

That’s right. Thanks for joining us and providing your perspective from Canada and the long-time good experience in the fastener industry. I’m glad to have you on.

Thanks for having me.

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Fastenal’s New Distribution Center In Utah

That was Hans Fuller. He is the Managing Director at Fuller Metric Parts. The FDI number for August 2025 was 51.3 versus 53.1 in July. Visit FDISurvey.com to participate in the process and get a detailed PDF copy of Baird’s monthly analysis. For the top story, Fastenal Company is now operating in its newly built distribution center in Magna, Utah, outside of the Salt Lake City metro area. Equipped with cutting-edge technology to streamline product intake, order picking, and shipping sortation, the 298,000-square-foot facility is designed to enhance operational efficiency and customer service throughout the region.

Previously, Fastenal rented several buildings in the Salt Lake City area to run its regional operations, known internally as UHUB. Those teams are working together in a state-of-the-art facility custom-built for Fastenal’s processes. The massive and impressive facility can be seen in action in a two-minute video on Fastenal’s YouTube channel.

Mike Humphries, Fastenal’s regional operations manager, said, “There’s a lot of pride in the new UHUB. The technology, the ergonomics, the brightness, and organization of the workspace all help our employees to do their jobs safely and efficiently.” The distribution center provides warehouses and logistic services to support Fastenal branches and customers across a vast swath of Western North America, from as far East as Gillette, Wyoming, to as far West as Boise, Idaho, stretching all the way from Alberta, Canada, to Sonora, Mexico.

According to Will Roedeske, Fastenal’s VP of Distribution, the combination of space, stocking density, and process automation raises the bar for inventory capacity and picking speed. Will added, “We can stock more products to meet our customers’ needs. We can get our trucks on the road earlier in the evening. We believe that it will translate to even higher service levels and a broader servicing range.”

UHUB is 2 of 17 Fastenal distribution centers, including 2 in Canada, 2 in Europe, and 1 in Monterey, Mexico. Fastenal’s investment in UHUB comes on the heels of a similar upgrade to its distribution operations in Lacey, Washington, also known as KHUB. These strategically positioned facilities are seen as keys to Fastenal’s continued growth in the Western United States.

The land purchased for the UHUB had enough space to potentially double the building’s footprint to roughly 600,000 square feet. Fastenal’s CEO, Dan Florenss, concluded, “World-class distribution is at the heart of everything we do for our customers. We’re excited about this facility’s ability to support our businesses today and for years into the future.”

Unpacking Today’s Biggest News Headlines

Next up is Fastener Newsmaker Headlines. In corporate news, Dokka Fasteners and Norway celebrated their 150-year anniversary earlier in 2025. Smalley received the General Motors Supplier Quality Excellence award. Lindfast Solutions Group, also known as LSG, and Wing-Hamlin expanded their partnership to include the big bolt manufacturing division.

Haggard & Stocking agreed to acquire the operations of MRO Supply. EZLOK expanded its line of presses and inserts. Scell-it UK, Kamtech Fasteners, and Arpel merged to form the Rivet Company in the UK. Century Fasteners won two quality certifications in its Mexico operation. Suncor Stainless appointed technical sales reps as its new sales agency. Optimist incorporated a new entity in Singapore.

In personnel news, the International Fastener Expo and Hall of Fame award committee named Maryann Marzocchi of distributors Link and Laurence Claus of NNI Training and Consulting as its newest Hall of Fame inductees. The expo honored Tim Vath of Lindstrom Fasteners with the 2025 Young Fastener Professional of the Year award.

White Cap named Christine Reddy as General Counsel. Ali Motamedi joined Space-Lok Incorporated as Vice President and General Manager. Optimist Solutions named Mark Korba as Chief Operating Officer for Optimist Americas. The EOT Group announced top management changes. Josephine Davies, daughter of a DB Roberts employee, won a WIFI Scholarship.

5 Hottest Markets For Industrial Warehouse Space

You can get details on all of these stories and more in Fastener Technology International Magazine and the Fastener News Report Monthly Newsletter, both available online at FastenerTech.com. Next up, and before we turn to the back page report, here’s Marco Rodriguez from Cresa with his quarterly industrial warehouse space leasing report.

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It’s Marco Rodriguez with the Cresa quarterly real estate update that provides actionable information to drive profitability for your business. We’ve been hearing a lot about market shifts over the last few quarters. If there’s any good news with the tariffs, it’s that lower import volumes have created a surplus of warehouses, particularly on the West Coast. This is creating a new dynamic that smart tenants can leverage. In this episode, I’ll share a practical strategy to lock in future savings for your business called Blend and Extend. In the end, I’ll provide a list of five major real estate markets with the highest vacancy rates, which present an opportunity for tenant-friendly deals.

 

What exactly is Blend and Extend? It’s a strategy that comes into play when a tenant has a significant amount of time remaining on their lease, typically more than a year, but they want to take advantage of current market conditions. This could mean capitalizing on lower-than-average market rent or simply locking in a rate that is lower than what is expected at the lease expiration date. Instead of waiting for their lease to expire, they approach the landlord to renegotiate a deal early.

Here’s how it works. The blend is the new rental rate is a combination of your existing rate and the current market rate. The goal is to immediately create a more favorable rental obligation for the tenant. The landlord still benefits because they get more income over the remainder of their original lease term than they might if the space were to become vacant and they had to secure a new tenant. The extent is, in return for that blended rate, you, the tenant, agreed to extend your lease for a longer period. This provides the landlord with long-term occupancy and predictable income, which mitigates the risk of future vacancy. It’s a true win-win.

The benefits of a Blend and Extend are clear for both parties. As a tenant, you lock in a new, more favorable rate for a longer-term deal instead of paying market rents at the next market peak. This provides stability and predictability for your real estate costs, and it allows you to avoid the significant expenses and disruptions of a future move.

We all know the headaches of relocating a business, from moving inventory to re-establishing logistics. This strategy helps avoid all that. For the landlord, they get to fill their space and avoid a potential vacancy, along with the cost associated with finding and securing a new tenant. This includes expenses like marketing, paying for tenant improvements, or offering free rent periods. The extended lease term also stabilizes their cashflow and can increase the overall value of their property.

As promised, here are five major markets where this strategy can be particularly effective. These markets have seen a significant increase in vacancy, putting tenants in a stronger negotiating position. Based on market data, here are the five top markets to watch in the third quarter of 2025. In Austin, Texas, with a vacancy rate of 16%, the market has seen a sharp increase in available space and negative year-over-year rent growth of 3%, making it a prime target for tenant-friendly deals.

Another is Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix’s vacancy rate has climbed to 15% with rent growth moderating significantly. This is another market where tenants have the upper hand. Surprisingly, Indianapolis’ vacancy is 12% and rent growth is still positive with 3%, but the rising vacancy rate indicates a shift in market power towards tenants and getting better deals.

In my hometown, Dallas-Fort Worth, with a 10% vacancy rate, the DFW market offers a good supply of available warehouses for businesses looking to expand or renegotiate. Finally, Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte also has a 10% vacancy rate. Although its rent growth is the highest on the list at 5%, the rising vacancy rate is starting to give tenants a solid foundation for negotiation.

These markets are all showing signs of a shift in momentum with rising vacancy rates that create opportunities for companies like yours to save money and lock in favorable terms for the future. If you’d like to talk about these markets or others that have seen sharp declines, like LA, or high vacancies like Atlanta, I can always be found on LinkedIn as Marco Rodriguez with Cresa. We are your expert real estate advisors.

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How US Tariffs Has Reached Into Fasteners

Let’s turn to the back page to talk about better ways. Since the new volatile and unpredictable approach to USA tariff application has reached into steel, aluminum, and copper products, derivatives, and fasteners, one may wonder if we have forgotten that there are better and more effective ways to stimulate domestic investment and deter unfair trade practices. The answer is certainly yes.

There’s much historical and anecdotal evidence to support the power and value of free and fair market economies, as well as the wisdom of tax and regulation reduction to stoke the fires of innovation and expansion. Ratified trade agreements and constitutionally applied tariffs have their place in robust economies. It is also known that tariffs are taxes on consumption that have inflationary and regulatory effects, especially when broadly applied.

 

Furthermore, carving out exemptions for favored influential or cash-rich companies and countries opens the door to the toxification and trappings of state-run capitalism, which always chokes off the natural benefits of free markets and fair competition. Long-term unintended consequences usually follow state interventions and utopian schemes, even when short-term benefits materialize. In any case, it looks like the 2025 bargaining chip-style of tariffs will be with us for a while, or at least until the USA courts catch up with them. Preparation is important. Maybe someday in the future, someone will remember that better ways of stimulating and policing the economy are already available to us and ready to be deployed.

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Fastener Training Minute: Carmen Vertullo On ASTM A193 B7

This is Carmen Vertullo with your Fastener Training Minute, coming to you from Carver Labs in beautiful El Cajon, California, and the Fastener Training Institute. Our topic is a very straightforward, interesting, and important one. It is a rubber-meets-the-road kind of topic because it came to me from someone who had heard me talk about something on the Fastener Training Minute. His name is Rick, and he has a business in Florida called Fastener Specialties. They make small quantity specials, hex socket items primarily. It’s a very cool business, almost all machined products.

His situation had to do with the ASTM A193 B7 product versus the ASTM A93 B7M. He knew what he needed to know. It wasn’t like I educated him or anything. He wanted to affirm that what he knew was correct. We had a cool conversation. We got a great relationship going, thanks to the Fastener Training Minute and the show. When I come back, I’ll tell you what I told Rick. If you’re all involved in ASTM A193 bolting, you are going to want to know this.

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Welcome back, everybody. This is Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training Minute, talking about ASTM A193 B7 and B7M bolting. B7M and B7 are alloy steel products. One of the cool things about A193, depending on how you look at it, is when you buy the raw material that is the bar stock, for example, that you’re going to make any product that is in A193 out of, but in particular B7, and that bar stock already is in conformance with all of the mechanical requirements of A193 B7, you may then go ahead and machine the part, whether it is a stud, a double-ended stud, a socket head cap screw, or a hex cap screw, and you’re done.

No further testing is necessary. This assumes that it’s dimensionally correct, which is a big assumption to be making.Personally, I would like to see that product tested full-size. However, it is not a requirement. That’s very interesting. B7 and B7M are very similar in one way only. That one way only is that they have the same exact chemistry requirements, which is alloy steel, whether that’s 4130, 4140, or whatever. It’s typically 4130 alloy steel.

 

The difference is that the B7M has much lower mechanical requirements, not only minimum but also maximum. The reason for that is that we have a failure mode in alloy steels and many other metals as well that we see in the petrochemical industry, oil and gas refineries, and so on, called sulfide gas stress corrosion cracking. It’s a more complicated version of hydrogen embrittlement, but it occurs at much lower hardnesses.

An outfit called NACE, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers, has a standard called MO175 in which they specify that any product used in a sulfide gas environment can be a certain maximum hardness only. In order to meet that requirement, ASCM A193 contains a grade called B7M, which is like B7, except it has a lower hardness requirement. The B7M requirement has a minimum hardness of 200 HBW or 93 Rockwell B, and it has a maximum of 99 Rockwell B or 235 HBW. That’s Brinell hardness. That leads to a lower tensile strength. However, the hardness is going to be the thing that’s going to rule the mechanical properties of B7M.

How do we get from B7 to B7M? We will have to do a stress relief or a retempering process on the finished product. This is going to need to be tested. That’s another big difference between the B7 and the B7M. B7M must have a finished product test done on it. It’s going to be a wedge tensile test for strength, but it’s also going to require a 100% hardness test. Every part must be hardness-tested, and then it’s marked B7M instead of B7.

Back in the day, I’m not exactly sure when the time occurred, B7M would require an underline to indicate that it was 100% hardness-tested. The way it typically would work is we would market B7M in the manufacturing process and then add the underline after it was 100% hardness-tested. We also used to make B7M from a hot foreign product, or we would simply get a B7 already made bolt off the shelf or stud, and we could temper it back to B7M. We add the M and add the underline, if it was needed back in the day, and that was it.

Rick’s question was, “Is this correct, what I told you?” He was correct. He is not in the business of getting stuff he treated. He’s in the business of making B7 product and all kinds of other cool stainless steel products out of A193 from the finished bar stock that already meets all of the mechanical requirements, which you can do, provided that you don’t do any strain hardening, any heat treatment, or anything that is going to affect the mechanical properties of the finished product. I thought this was a very good thing to know. It’s not necessarily esoteric, but it’s not widely known.

While we are at it, I would like to add something that many people who sell A193 product, not necessarily those who manufacture it, but those who simply sell it, do not realize. There’s also a companion standard that goes with A193. It also goes with A194 and A320. A320 is a companion standard of the A193 in that it deals with bolting for low temperature service, whereas A193 is for high temperature service.

That companion standard that goes with all of them is a quality assurance standard called A962 slash A962 M. It simply tells us what all the other manufacturing, testing, and quality requirements are for products that fall in those three standards. Those three standards are not fastener standards in that they are not governed or managed by the ASTM F16 Fastener Technical Committee. They are steel standards managed by the ASTM A01 Steel Committee. That’s why they don’t look a lot like fastener standards, and they don’t match the cadence or the tone and tenor of a typical fastener standard.

I would like to add as well that if you are in the business of producing an A193 product, A320 product, A194 product, and A194 is where the nuts come from, and you’re interested in branching out into product that maybe needs to be heat treated or product that is not simply manufactured from the raw bar stock, don’t hesitate to do that.

One of the things I told Rick was, “Get a good heat treater. Make sure the heat treater knows what they’re doing. We can do the 100% hardness test. You can do the 100% hardness test.” By we, I mean Carver Labs. I said, “You can have the heat treater do it.” In any case, don’t shy away from that business. It’s perfectly doable and relatively lucrative because there’s some value added that is very important to the end user.

That is what I wanted to tell you about ASTM A193 grade B7 versus grade B7M. There’s a little bit of confusion about the M. It has nothing to do with Metric. It’s simply how they designate the grade. If you go over to A194 for the nuts, there is a nuts standard that also goes with that. We know it’s called Grade 2H nut that goes with the B7 bolt. There’s also a 2HM nut, which is similarly less hard. That would be the nut that we would use with ASTM A193 grade B7M. That’s all I got on that. This has been Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training minute. I hope you learned something. Thanks for tuning in.

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Lessons From The Applied AI For Distributors Conference

I am here with Ian Heller. We’re at Applied AI for Distributors. It has been a terrific day here with a lot of enthusiasm. I’ve learned a lot of things, especially about how we all have to embrace AI instantly and a thing called a sprint. I want to ask Ian Heller. He’s the guy who runs this and runs a principal of a company called Distribution Strategy. I want to ask him questions about how he thinks the event went. You have these things we’ve not been to before. Some are successful, and some aren’t. How do you think this was for you as a day?

We’re half a day into a two-day event. It’s going well so far. We had one keynote speaker. I thought he did a nice job setting the tone in terms of the need for urgency around AI. Also, there’s a reason we call it Applied AI for distributors because this is not what the societal ramifications of AI adoption are. This is how you use AI to make a better, more profitable, and more productive distribution company.

We’ve had breakout sessions from nine companies. Most participants have been to 3, because they’re in 3 tracks, on very different ways of using AI to improve a distribution company. I have stopped by all of those for ten minutes each so I can get a sampling of what they’re teaching our attendees. We set a high bar for these presenters. They can’t make these sales calls. They can’t make them self-serving. They have to educate as well as tell them what their software does and what their technology does for distributors. They’ve been true to their mission.

One of the things I learned from the keynote address is that you have to embrace AI, and one way of doing it is to create things called a sprint. You convince all of your staff that each day they have to use AI for some application. At the end of a month, you come back and work out which bits of this worked and which bits didn’t. The net result is that you get people who become comfortable using AI, which is what they’ll have to be in the future anyway.

That’s right. AI, as a separate term from technology, has a limited lifetime. All technology is going to be AI-enabled at some point in time. It’s ubiquitous. Differentiating between technologies that are AI and aren’t AI, that distinction is going to go away over time. AI is going to be a part of all the technology that we use.

You could also argue that AI in the olden days was a smart program. Something that’s unknowable is considered magic.

Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

This is AI. It’s a widely used word, but it has a meaning that means different things to different people.

There is a technologist I follow. He says the difference between regular technology and artificial technology is that artificial intelligence learns and improves on its own. Other technologies didn’t do that. My wife has an SUV. It does lane keeping, adaptive radar to keep the distance, and cruise control, but it doesn’t get better at that over time. It came from the factory that way. If you want to upgrade it, you have to go to the dealer, and they have to upgrade the software manually. AI is different. AI can learn how to do that stuff on its own and get better at it on its own. That’s the distinguishing feature between AI, at least in my opinion, and other technologies. AI learns and improves on its own. Previous technologies didn’t do that.

The difference between regular and artificial technology is the ability to learn and improve on its own. Share on X

We’ve embarked on this path of attempting to create a new scrubber that can learn by itself. It’s been a rather long process, but the end result will be, for us, amazing.

I’m sure it will be. The technologist at PROS, his name is Dr. Michael Wu. That’s who I learned my definition of AI from.

That’s cool. It’s a great definition.

It makes it vivid and clear. There are all kinds of technologies out there that have seemed very smart, but they didn’t learn and get better on their own. What you’re talking about with your scrubber is that it learns and gets better on its own. That’s AI. You run it for six months, and it’s better at its job than it was when you rolled it.

That’s true. You’ve got two more days of this. If the enthusiasm is anything like it has been here, it would be pretty infectious.

Thanks for saying that. I appreciate it. We’re pleased. Distribution has a reputation for being very slow at adopting technology. This group of attendees is the exception. If they’ve taken time out of their schedule, made the investment to come to Chicago, and immerse themselves in artificial intelligence for two days, they’re not slow adopters of technology. They’re the exceptions in the industry.

Part of what makes this conference so interesting is that the networking is different. There’s a reason that our dress code is, “You must wear clothes.” We want the emphasis to be on technology. We want people to be relaxed and feel like they are in a comfortable environment. This is not a place for the 1950s-style sports coats. There is nothing wrong with that, but that’s not where we want the emphasis on this show to be. We want it to be on technology and on learning.

We understand that it can do things, but where you start is what has been addressed here. I am very glad that you set this whole thing up.

Thank you, Brian.

It’s been great. I’ve had an inspiring day here and have worked out what we have to do.

That’s wonderful. Thanks so much. I enjoyed talking to you. Let me know if you need anything else from me.

I will. Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

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Using AI To Vastly Improve Business Processes

You’ve been taking interviewing lessons from the lovely and talented Lynn Dempsey.

I must have thought of them. He’s such an interesting guy. I should have had notes. I should have been completely prepared.

That was you and Ian Heller at the Applied AI for Distributors Conference, which was put on by Distribution Strategy in Chicago. When was that?

It was back on June 24 to 26, 2025.

That’s what I thought. You saw a couple of our friends out there. The people who are serious about deploying AI in their organizations were there. They’re learning what to do and maybe even what not to do. You had a lot of takeaways there. I want to get 1 or 2 of those from you in a second here. I want to make one observation. When Ian mentioned the idea that AI is implied or will be implied in tech where you won’t have to distinguish, he says it’s going to be so ubiquitous that you won’t have to say that it’s AI. That’ll be understood.

I remember years ago when I was at Platinum Technology. This was in the mid or late ‘90s. The visionary founder of that company, Flip Filipowski, always used to talk about email that way. He was like, “Someday, you’re not even going to have to mention that it’s email because it’ll be taken for granted.” It sounded very futuristic, and it didn’t take very long. He was right. I think Ian’s right.

One of the so-called takeaways of that conference was that if you are not using AI, you are already behind the curve. No distributors that I would recognize were at this conference at all. They were all different. They’re not fastener distributors.

If you are not using AI right now, you are already behind the curve. Share on X

We’re not here to induce anxiety. We’re here to calm the gears and maybe light the way. There was another takeaway that you were very excited about when you came back from this. It was that you were going to use a little AI every day. I know you’ve been doing that, so what have you learned in the last couple of months since the conference?

I have learned a lot. In my normal part of the job, there aren’t lots of things I could use AI for, but I had set about trying to use it for something every day. I watched a video of Sam Altman introducing ChatGPT-5. During that, he convinced me of two things. One of them was that ChatGPT-5 is the best way of helping programmers to write code. That’s one of them. The other one was that you could ask it to make a website for you.

Over the weeks that have followed that, I set about to take a program that we have that’s working and have it turned into a new technology, which they’re called Spring Boot. It’s a type of Java and all that sort of stuff. It was a rather long and sometimes not amazingly successful task, but I kept coming back to it. In the end, we got a program developed in a completely new structure from what was an old Java program. It worked incidentally. The Java programs worked for years, but this was a completely new way of writing them. I learned that that worked. I then went to the idea of the webpage, because we offer a lot of interfaces through our ERP distributors.

Like INxSQL.

That doesn’t come out of nowhere. That comes out of some very carefully written programs that have to be upgraded dramatically. One of those was what the ChatGPT-5 fixed. All these ERP companies that we deal with are in FCHServices.ai. I thought, “We’ll make a website to go with that.” I asked ChatGPT-5 to design a website. You’ve got to explain things carefully. It came back with a decent design. I needed to do something else. It worked out how to do that for me. The only thing about the whole thing that I didn’t think of was running it on a phone, which requires a different style sheet. The rest of it was fine. It did exactly what it was meant to do.

Way to go. That was quite a self-directed learning exercise there.

It was cool. I was thinking, “I’ve got to sit and do all this crap for it. I don’t want to.” This was produced completely. In the process, it went away and picked up the logo from Fasteners Clearing House and dumped that into it. It copied the same layout as what an FCH page looks like. It was smarter than you would think. I forgot to tell you the end of my session with ChatGPT-5 and another one of these programs. It got so confused that it simply gave up. It stopped answering me, and then it came back and said, “We have no more models.”

Hang on a sec. You switched gears on us. You built a webpage that worked well. Now, you’re saying that you were trying to do something else, and it crapped out on you. What were you trying to do?

I went back, and I was trying to get it to help me build a testing routine for this program. You can test it in real life or under this new environment. You should be able to test it within the environment without having to put it on a server somewhere. It kept making mistakes that this thing simply wouldn’t work. I wrote a note, saying, “I would’ve thought that being able to develop a good testing environment is equally important as being able to develop good code. How come it’s such a problem?”

What did it say to that?

That’s when it stopped answering. It stopped answering and then came up with a thing on the screen. In red, it said, incidentally, it said, “We don’t have any models for that. Come back tomorrow.”

AI gave you the cold shoulder.

It did, or a finger. It’s one of them. I’m not sure which it was.

This may be a case where its inability to admit defeat is well-known by now. People are used to it blowing smoke at you, trying to puff you up, and all that. When you back it up against the wall, you never know what you’ll get.

If you’re working through one single task and you go on and on every day, come back, and keep going, you get to know this thing on a funny level that’s a little frightening, if you go back to some of the movies of people falling in love with their computers.

You’re not trying to tell me something, are you?

No, I’m not. There’s no love affair I had with ChatGPT-5. When you’re ready to give up for the night and you’re like, “I want to go watch TV. I’m sick of programming,” it will say, “I quite understand you. There’s only so much you can achieve in any one day. We’ve done this.” It gives you a little pep talk. It’s strange in a certain way.

You could see why so many people have fallen under its spell. You’re using ChatGPT. You’re also using Claude, right?

I’m using Claude. I’m coming back to Claude because I’m giving it a big task to do.

Are you putting them side by side? Why do you choose one model over another?

I’m not trying to do that. I could, but each one is so much work that I don’t have the time to try that. I’m using another one that I like for massive general knowledge. It’s Perplexity. I’m using those three. That’s enough.

We’ve come a long way since the days of using Notepad to write an HTML page and put it up on your Windows 95 server.

 

I know. They’re all way complicated now.

Getting back to this idea about AI enabling the scrubber, everybody who uses FCH has heard of the scrubber. Whether you know about it or not, you’re getting benefits from it because all the data that’s in the FCH Sourcing Network has gone through there. We’ve done work for lots of companies. There’s scrubber data all over the fastener industry. What are we doing to bring that software into the AI era? What is required?

What’s required is what I have been doing. We want the scrubber to work in our language. We can teach it by taking millions of lines of fasteners. They all come to us when the descriptions are fasteners. We can tell it, “For this description, we think that the type of fastener is a hex head cap screw. This is our identifying number for a hex head cap screw. We think the material is A307 B steel, and this is the number for that. We think black oxide is the coating, and this is the number for that. We picked the size out as this.”

We want it to learn our terminology because ultimately, we want it to be able to take a request from someone and do a search in our language. It has gotten very good at that. We are working on putting in place how we can get it to learn. We accept 99.99%.on other people’s inventory. There are always unknowns. When we think the scrubber is 99.99% accurate, as far as we know it to be, then it’ll be good enough to replace it. I want to get to that stage. We’re not quite there yet. We know we’ve got it as good as we can get it. Now, we’ve got to teach it how it is going to learn.

There are various models and theories of machine learning. That experimentation is ongoing. It’s very exciting and cool. The dream is that we wind up with a search interface that is worthy of the SkruGoal.ai name because it ain’t out there yet. I don’t know that anybody’s hot on the trail of it, but the scrubbers are about as close as you can get.

Episode Wrap-Up And Closing Words

Thanks for that description. I don’t know how many people have stayed with it to this point. People who care probably are still reading. Those people who are still reading would probably also be interested to know that I got a text from Ian. The dates for the 2026 edition of the Applied AI for Distributors, put on by Distribution Strategy, have been announced. It’s June 23rd through the 26th, 2026, in Chicago. Go to DistributionStrategy.com. He doesn’t have anything on the website yet, but that’s where it will show up.

I know that we’re in an industry that’s not leading edge, not even bleeding. If you are even faintly interested in thinking about how this could help you, sit down and tune in to these speakers, some of whom are using it. They’ve got their own distribution companies, and they’re using them. They tell you what they are using it for.

There are all sorts of things that are helping them write their invoices, process purchase orders, and things like that. It’s very enlightening. There are lots of people there, all of whom are using it, not just talking about it. They’re using it in their companies to manage different things. It’s enlightening. It’s an interesting two days.

Ian, in a very obtuse kind of way, at the beginning of that little interview that you did at the top of the segment, made reference to the point that you’re not trying to comment on the societal impact of AI or anything. This is a very specifically scoped conference. You’re looking at ways to use it to run a distribution company.

On the other side of that, people are hearing more and more about the shortcomings of AI and the hype cycle. It’s being exposed for what it is. There’s a lot of hype out there. There are a lot of aspects that aren’t ever going to come to fruition the way they were advertised. You’ve got all these things that are happening at once, but don’t let those facts confuse you or throw you off the trail. These productivity tools are going to be required to be a competitive company going forward. That’s our main message. Thanks for that. Those dates are June 23rd through the 26th, 2026, for Distribution Strategy’s Applied AI for Distributors Conference.

Do not let different facts confuse or throw you off the trail. These productivity tools will be required to build a competitive company going forward. Share on X

It’ll probably be in Rosemont again.

I would imagine so. We’re going to lock in another episode of the show. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Brighton-Best International, “Tested and tried true, Brighton-Best,” Global Fasteners, “Quality the first time,” and Star Stainless, “Right off the shelf, it’s Star.” Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners and The Ohio Nut & Bolt Company, BTM Manufacturing, Cresa, Expert Real Estate Advisory, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, and Endries International.

The show is also sponsored by INxSQL Software, Fastener Technology International, J.Lanfranco, MW Components Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry US. The email address here is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. We look forward to your comments. You can also reach out to Brian or me on LinkedIn. We’re easy to find. If you’re tuning in to this before the Vegas show, please do stop by our booth. We’re in 1867. I don’t think we’re right behind a pillar.

That’s nice. That’s a change. Do we have power?

We will have power.

Get out there, sell some screws, and keep tinkering around with that AI. We’ll talk to you next time.

We’ll see you in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• Würth Industry
• Fuller Metric
• Cresa
• Lindstrom Fasteners
• Carver Eng & Mfg
• Distribution Strategy Group
• FCH Fastener Sourcing Network
• Reshoring Initiative
• Fastener Distributor Index Monthly Survey
• Fastenal on YouTube
• Würth Industry USA on YouTube
• Marco Rodriguez on LinkedIn
• Brian Musker on LinkedIn
• Eric Dudas on LinkedIn
• FTR@FullyThreaded.com