Motion, known formally as Motion Industries, Inc., is an American distributor of industrial parts and industrial technology headquartered in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama, Jefferson County. The population was 200,733 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List ...

. Since 1972, it has been a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

of Genuine Parts Company.

History

Motion Industries began as Owen Richards Co., an industrial supply company, which Caldwell Marks and William Spencer III purchased in 1946 in Birmingham. They changed the name to Motion Industries, according to the founders, "because everything we do moves – we're in the bearing and transmission business." Marks and Spencer merged Motion Industries with Genuine Parts Company in 1972. Motion Industries now forms the Industrial Parts Group of Genuine Parts. According to Marks, Motion Industries was one of the first industrial distribution companies to establish a central

distribution center A distribution center for a set of products is a warehouse or other specialized building, often with refrigeration or air conditioning, which is stocked with products (goods) to be redistributed to retailers, to wholesalers, or directly to c ...

and set up an electronic parts

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

. In January 2021, Motion Industries announced an official rebrand as Motion. The company announced that "the move to rebrand is intended to solidify the company's structure and advance its position in the marketplace." The rebranding also coincided with Motion's 75th anniversary.

Operations

Motion Industries Branch Office Livonia Michigan

Motion Industries is an industrial parts distributor for products including bearings; mechanical power transmission; electrical and industrial

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

; hose, belting, and gaskets; hydraulic and pneumatics; process pumps; hydraulic and industrial hose; material handling; seals and accessories; and industrial/safety supplies. It also provides fabrication and repair services. The company's business units Motion Automation Intelligence (Motion Ai), Motion Conveyance Solutions and Motion Repair & Services were formed to offer specialized, related products and services in those respective areas. As of 2023, Motion had annual sales of over $8 billion and 200,000 customers. Its customers cross numerous industries, including aggregate and cement, automotive,

chemical A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

and allied products, equipment and machinery, equipment rental and leasing, fabricated metals, food and beverage, iron and steel, lumber and wood, oil and gas, pulp and paper, and rubber products. Motion placed first in Modern Distribution Management's list of Top Bearings/PT Distributors in 2024, and second on ''Industrial Distribution's'' 2023 Big 50 list.

Facilities

There are more than 550 Motion facilities, including branches, distribution and fulfillment centers, and service centers located throughout North America. Additionally, there are more than 150 locations in Australasia.

Acquisitions

Motion has made many acquisitions throughout the decades; a few of the larger ones include Berry Bearing (1993), BC Bearing/US Bearings/Norcan (2010), and Kaman Distribution Group (2022). The acquisition of Inenco (completed 2019), now Motion Asia Pacific, expanded Motion's global markets.

Legal

In 2012 Donald G. Maynor II, an employee, sued Motion Industries for age discrimination, alleging that the company fired him due to his age in violation of the West Virginia Human Rights Act. In 2015 Motion Industries sued Superior Derrick Services for $1 million due to non-payment of a portion of a contract for parts delivered between 2011 and 2014.

References

{{Authority control Companies based in Birmingham, Alabama Business services companies established in 1946 1946 establishments in Alabama