Vendor Letter

Thank you for your interest in doing business with Marland.  We sincerely hope that your relationship with Marland will be a positive and profitable experience.  Please feel free to contact me at any time should your experience with Marland prove unsatisfactory in any way.

            Marland is committed to Continuous Process Improvement as espoused by W. Edwards Deming.  A significant feature of Dr. Deming’s teachings is to, “End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price alone.  Make partners of your vendors.”  Of course Marland desires the best product, service and delivery.  These go without saying.  We want something more from our vendors, however, and this is harder to define.  Generally, we want you to be our partner to improve our products and services to better serve our customers.

            “That is all well and good,” you might say, “but how do we do that?”  We don’t have a ready-made answer for you, but let me suggest a few examples. 

• Do not be married to our Purchase Order or specifications.  If you feel that there is a better product or service, please let us know so that we might make a more informed decision.
• If a longer term commitment to purchase an item will allow you to give us better pricing, service or quality, please feel free to suggest that.
• If there are training opportunities of which you are aware that you think might be helpful to Marland personnel, let us know. 
• Marland will enter into long-term agreements with vendors if such agreement can be mutually beneficial.
• Marland maintains an active R&D function and we conduct experiments to test materials and products with respect to various performance characteristics.  If there are materials, products or services that you think Marland should consider, please let us know.
• Please visit Marland and let us share our short and long-term concerns so that you might better understand how to contribute to our effort to enhance the quality of all that we do.

            This is new territory for us and we appreciate your thoughts and feedback on your experience of working with us.  Please know that we welcome your experience and input into making our products the best they can be.

            Marland is owned 100% by its employees and retirees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.  On behalf of our Employee-Owners, thank you for your support in contributing to our success.

Written by:
John A. Barmack, President/CEO