Marshall Industries
Marshall Industries NYSE: MI, (1984–1999) was founded in 1954 by Gordon S. Marshall and was among the largest distributors of industrial electronic components, semiconductors and production supplies. The Company also provided its customers with a variety of value added services such as inventory management, kitting, programming of logic devices and testing services.[1] The Company distributed over 250,000 different products manufactured by over 5000 suppliers to more than 250,000 global customers which included a wide range of original equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers and value-added resellers. Marshall Industries was sold to Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT) [2]
The Company's dramatic transformation and growth from $400 million to $1.8 billion was chronicled in W. Edwards Deming's last book The New Economics, a Harvard Case Study, and Free Perfect and Now,[3] by Marshall President and CEO from 1992 to 1999 Robert Rodin, a protégé of Deming's.