Integration Updates

August, 2007

Dear MSC/J&L Customer,

Since we announced the acquisition of J&L Industrial Supply by MSC a little more than a year ago, our goal has always been to minimize change. Many of you have told us that we have done a great job of doing that and that you’ve appreciated the communications we provided.

There have been some of you that have, thankfully, reached out to us to tell us that you have started noticing a few changes and in some cases, you have challenged us where you see a difference or an improvement opportunity. So I start out this letter by thanking all of you for constantly providing your feedback and asking you to please continue to communicate with us because our goal has not changed... it is to provide you with a better overall experience, the best of both worlds. Additionally, we want to hear from you so we can continue to address your concerns. For those of you that have been impacted in some way, I apologize for the inconvenience and assure you that we have a process in place to review and address each concern that is raised. So at the risk of repeating myself, please keep the feedback coming!

I'd like to recap some of the recent changes that we’ve made, changes that are helping us to achieve our end goal of providing you with the best of both worlds:

• Expanding our distribution network – In order to provide you with better shipping services, we have begun to ship the J&L inventory out of four Customer Fulfillment Centers, located throughout the country, without making any changes to the freight programs and cut-off times that you have always enjoyed.
• Communications – The documents you now receive from J&L have changed in look and feel and provide more relevant information for you.
• Website Enhancements – Our website has been enhanced with 12 features to improve your security and overall website experience.

Over the coming months, we will take some additional steps towards bringing you the best of both worlds:

• NEW J&L METALWORKING CATALOG! – We are very excited to announce that coming this October, we will publish a new, updated J&L metalworking product catalog!! With more than 100,000 items focused on all of your metalworking needs, the new catalog features SIX new brands, including Stanley, SPI and Gibraltar. The catalog will be available to you in print or on our website.
• One Sales Contact per Customer – We continue to work to provide you with one sales point of contact to assist you with all of your procurement needs. We hope to have this completed over the next few months, with the goal of having one MSC/J&L sales associate per customer.

Again, while we have begun the process of integrating some of our operational functions, MSC and J&L are still operating as two separate companies. This means you will not notice any changes to your Order Process, Cut-Off Times, or our Shipping Services.

I want to personally thank you again for your business and encourage you, should you have any questions about these changes or any other questions, to email me directly or talk to your J&L Sales or Customer Service Associate.

Best Regards,

Thomas Cox
tomc@mscdirect.com
Executive Vice President,
Sales and J&L Industrial Supply