MRO Briefs

A recent Supreme Court decision making it legal for manufacturers to set minimum prices for their resellers will have little impact on distributor pricing, say manufacturers contacted recently by Purchasing . Spokesmen for SKF USA, Baldor and Square D all say the decision

There's still time to make plans to attend the Indirect-MRO Buyers group 10th annual conference Sept. 24–25 in Chicago. The agenda includes members of Purchasing's All-Star MRO Buy team as speakers. The Indirect-MRO Buyers group is an affiliate of the Institute for Supply Management. For information, go to www.indirectmro.com .

Motion Industries of Birmingham, Ala., has completed the acquisition of Gerrish Bearing Co., which has two locations in Washington: Seattle and Tacoma. Andy Johnson and Mark Johnson, previous owners of Gerrish Bearing, will continue to manage the locations. With 2006 sales of $3.1 billion, Motion Industries is ranked six on Industrial Distribution's annual Big 50 list of the largest industrial distributors.

Two books of special interest to MRO purchasing professionals published by Purchasing , the MRO/Indirect Sourcing Casebook and MRO Purchasing Best Practices, are available through the magazine's bookstore at www.purchasing.com .