The number of gas and welding distribution businesses has diminished remarkably in the past 20 years, and business models for distributors have changed dramatically.

The industry has grown from an unfocused, sprawling group of isolated shops to organized big-box locations that provide truly one-stop shopping for a number of industries.

Much of the industry's consolidation has been led by the publicly-held Airgas, now the largest U.S. distributor of industrial, medical, and specialty gases and related hardgoods, such as welding supplies. The Radnor, Pa.-based Airgas certainly set the model for the industry, and has become preeminent in the field.

However, as implied in the concise feature article on industry consolidation that we have in this issue, the mergers and acquisitions have had a two-fold effect, and both sides of that have been for the good of the industry.

The consolidations put into effect by the largest companies in the industry — companies such as AirGas, Praxair, Air Liquide, and Matheson Tri-Gas — have consolidated the industry to make it more efficient and competitive.

They have built extensive gas production and service networks that can take classic advantages of the economies of scale to deliver goods and services to customers of almost any size across North America and, with their most recent extensions, around the world.

Those organizations are built on service models that are tried and true, and designed to use the latest technologies to deliver products competitively and as their customers need them, whether on a just-in-time basis, in bulk quantities or through dedicated facilities.

An important facet of these huge operations is that ability to take advantage of the latest technologies. New technologies often require significant investments that challenge smaller organizations and push them toward ignoring — rather than accepting — the latest development.

On the other hand, the small distribution operations that remain have been required to change the way they do business — often with great gnashing of teeth — to remain viable.

That has forced smaller distributors out of complacency and into new markets, where they are finding new growth opportunities and — it is to be hoped — greater profit.