Graco Inc., a manufacturer of industrial fluid-handling equipment, has acquired Smith Manufacturing, Graco said yesterday. The deal expands Graco’s already extensive online exposure and its product lines to include equipment used in building and maintaining roadways and other concrete surfaces.

“Smith is a well-known brand for surface preparation and grinding equipment used in striping, road construction, road maintenance and concrete flooring/surfaces,” said Dale Johnson, president of Graco’s Worldwide Contractor Equipment Division. “Their broad line of products will be a great addition to our pavement maintenance equipment offering and excellent complement to our robust family of line striping equipment.” Graco did not disclose what it’s paying for Smith.

Smith also brings Graco a network of several distributors in the United States, Canada and Panama. A number of these distributors sell Smith’s and Graco’s as well as other branded products through their own e-commerce sites, including: Niagara Machine Inc., at NiagaraMachine.com; Jon-Don, at Jondon.com; EnDiSys Fluid Delivery Systems at Endisys.com; and The Chas. E. Phipps Co., at Chasephipps.com. Customers can link to these distributors’ e-commerce sites directly from a distributor locator section at Smithmfg.com/distributors.

In addition, customers on Smith’s Smithmfg.com can request a product price quote directly from Smith, fill out an online order form, enter credit card account and/or purchase order information, and either email or fax the order form to the manufacturer.

Graco also provides an online distributor locator where customers can choose from a worldwide network of distributors and link to their websites. Many of these distributors sell Graco and other products online, including Motion & Control Enterprises, at the password-only MCEautomation.com.

Products available online range from small metal-cutting tools to products priced at tens of thousands of dollars, such as the Graco LineLazer priced at over $20,000 on Endisys.com, for painting lines on airport runways and other paved areas.

Graco also operates separate online portals linked from Graco.com for its distributors and its suppliers. The portal for distributors—known as GEDI, or Graco Extranet for Distributors Information—lets distributors check current pricing and inventory availability, place online orders from Graco, and check order status. The distributor portal also provides a link for connecting with Graco’s sales force, and it has separate login links for distributors in the U.S., Australia, Europe, China, Japan and Korea.

For its suppliers, Graco provides a portal where they can enter web forms to exchange with Graco business documents including invoices, purchase orders and order confirmation notices. That portal is provided for Graco by IBM Corp.’s IBM Sterling Web Forms.

Graco also provides a Graco Supplier Portal, where its suppliers can access such information as Graco’s product quality standards and barcode requirements for processing shipments to the manufacturer.

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