At Test Equipment Distributors (TED), customer-service interactions increased 50-fold. The increase tested whether TED could route requests, assign responsibility, and resolve issues without leaving customers waiting for answers.
Michael Ninacs, TED’s president, made that challenge an executive priority. He focused on building an operation that could take on greater volume while keeping purchasing, customer service, and delivery accountable to the same customer outcome.
TED works with more than 40 manufacturer and vendor partners and serves customers in aerospace, aviation, automotive, petrochemical, nuclear and electronics industries. In that environment, a customer request can involve a product question, an accessory, a safety requirement, equipment availability, or coordination with a manufacturer. The request needs a clear path from the first contact through resolution.
Volume Reveals the Gaps
A 50-fold increase in customer-service activity put TED’s operating model under pressure. Each request could involve a customer-service representative, a buyer, a manufacturer, or a delivery team. Without clear ownership, a question could move through several departments without anyone responsible for bringing it to a close.
Ninacs addressed that problem by making the path of a customer request visible from intake through resolution. The work required clearer expectations for who handled each stage, when an issue needed further review, and how quickly customers could expect an answer.
TED reduced issue-resolution time to less than 24 hours while managing the increased volume. The result showed whether the company could grow without allowing responsibility to blur, which is the central test of the operating model Ninacs built.
Service Requires Technical Context
Growth did not simply require TED to process more customer requests. It required customer-service staff who could recognize when a routine order carried technical implications.
In a technical distribution business, a representative may be asked about an accessory, a safety product, or an item required for a specialized testing application. The question may require product knowledge, an understanding of the customer’s application, or further technical review.
Ninacs developed training plans and standardized processes to give customer-service personnel a stronger grounding in NDT methods, product applications, and best practices. The work also included identifying staffing needs and setting expectations for response and follow-up.
The purpose was to help representatives distinguish between requests they could handle directly and those that required additional attention. That gave TED a more reliable way to manage higher demand: not by treating every request alike, but by making sure the right questions reached the right people before an order moved forward.
Purchasing Supports Execution
Customer service was not the only part of TED’s operation that changed as demand increased. Ninacs also helped centralize purchasing across locations in Michigan, Oregon, California, New Jersey, and Ohio.
Instead of allowing individual warehouses to manage purchasing plans independently, TED moved that responsibility to a smaller group of specialized buyers at the corporate level. The change was designed to reduce duplicated work, unnecessary inventory, and purchasing errors while improving productivity.
The procurement redesign supported the same goal as the customer-service changes: clearer ownership. Purchasing decisions moved through a defined structure, rather than being handled separately at each location. That gave TED a more consistent way to manage growth across the business.
Growth Requires Ownership
At TED, growth is not measured only by how many requests enter the business. It is measured by whether those requests retain an owner as they move from customer service to purchasing, manufacturer coordination, and delivery.
Ninacs has built his approach around that test. By clarifying how work is assigned, reviewed, and carried forward, he has made execution a leadership responsibility rather than a problem for whichever department receives the request first.
