SDI

The Digital Supply Chain Company

Our History

1971
In 1971, we opened under the name Industrial Systems Associates (ISA) above a local hardware store in Philadelphia. Space was limited – our passion for customer service was not. It’s this attitude that drove our success in the early years, and it’s been driving our consistent success (and our clients’ successes) ever since.

The first process improvement program implemented by ISA was systems contracting -- designed to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies in the heavily burdened paper trail of the traditional four-part requisitions, purchase orders, receiving and invoicing process.
1980
We opened the first on-site storeroom management program, In-Plant Store®, was opened in Philadelphia, PA at Yale (now NACCO Materials Handling Group).
1994
Publicly traded on NASDAQ. Strategic Distribution, Inc. acquired the In-Plant Store® operating subsidiary, and later changed the name from ISA to SDI in 2004.
1995
The success of the In-Plant Store® program led Strategic Distribution, Inc. to expand into Mexico through a second subsidiary, Strategic Distribution of Mexico (SDM). SDM became a leading provider of all levels of industrial MRO supply chain management via the In-Plant Store® Program.
1996
Launch of ‘InSite’, our proprietary information system specifically for MRO.
1999
We begin supply chain services in Canada.
2000
Strategic Sourcing department created.
2002
Central Operations Group created to manage all transactions – from requisition to payment. Roll-out of InSite® Online, Web-based catalog to enhance e-Procurement. Established partnerships with specialized data cleansing companies.
2003
We acquire cutting-edge inventory management technology.
2004
We changed our name to SDI, Inc.
2007
We were acquired by Platinum Equity LLC
2011
We were acquired by private equity firms led by Philadelphia based LLR Partners, Pouschine Cook Capital Partners, and Celerant Capital Partners
2014
We announce a strategic alliance with Universidad TecMilenio, part of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. We also renewed our engagement with Penn State’s Center for Supply Chain Research.
2016
We launched MRO As-a-Service. We also successfully completed the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) No. 16 Service Organization Controls Report #1 (SOC 1) examination.
2016
SDI was recognized by Spend Matters on their 50 to Watch List, highlighting providers disrupting the status quo in supply chain management.
2017
We announced a strategic partnership with Radwell International to bolster our specialty asset component-level refurbishment, repair, and warranty tracking program, RPM.
2019
We repositioned SDI’s brand as The Digital Supply Chain Company and launched ZEUS, our cloud-based digital supply chain management platform.
2020
We launched PPE As-a-Service® to help a market in crisis and the mobile app to simplify procurement for schools.
2021
We launched IPM, our Integrated Parts Management solution and the IPM mobile app to expand supply chain value creation to the multi-site facilities management space. We also developed APIs to integrate live data feeds into ZEUS from UPS, FedEx, and many other LTL carriers, and announced additional strategic partnerships including with intelligent sourcing platform, Fairmarkit.
2022
We opened our 24/7 Remote Buy Desk to a market in crisis as another way to immediately alleviate supply chain constraints. We also partnered with the IFMA Foundation to launch the Supply Chain Scholarship Program as part of the Eric Teicholz Sustainability Facility Professional® (SFP®) Scholarship Program.