We asked Josh Cosford, who works for Higginson Equipment, which is both a manufacturer and a distributor this question: What’s the advantage of buying a cylinder through a manufacturer or distributor?

We see the challenge of some of our suppliers that offer all their products online. When it comes down to it, these things are application products. If you know exactly what your part number is, if you know exactly what you want and you know it’s going to fit into your application, by all means you can cut out the middleman, you can have your purchasing team just buy another one.

If you’re designing from scratch or if you’re trying to build a machine, there are application specific things that you need to know. You need to know your power requirements, your speed requirements, any kind of electronic controls or the valving that is used to get the performance that you want. This is where you count on all the sales engineers and the staff that work for you … companies like Aventics that can provide you with the unknowns and all the engineering capabilities, to back up all their products.

When you’re just buying it online, it’s just a simple thing where it’s a part number where you don’t have that after sales service, you don’t have somebody backing up with warranties and sales support.