Document DdZxaDoE4ORV18NJEkna1rv4B

National Ajtonnotive ftxta Association In 1925, Ralph Boozer and Don Test met in Detroit with a number of other independent automotive parts distrib utors in an effort to set up an organization which could establish standards of distribution and business guidelines for the emerging replace ment parts industry. The result was the National Automo tive Parts Association (NAPA). The objec tive of NAPA members was simple: a distribution system which would make any part for a car available overnight at any point in the United States. Today this organization has grown to include 53 automotive replacement parts distribution centers in principal market ing areas of the United States. Included under the NAPA banner are more than 4,000 independently owned jobbing out lets which are in reality the heart of the organization, since it is through these jobbing stores that all parts finally pass into the hands of the mechanic who will put them to use. In fact, the men who guide NAPA in an executive capacity and who pass on all products and services which will bear the NAPA seal, have as their credo: "It is good for us only if it is good for our jobbers." This voluntary association of manu facturers, distributors and jobbers has pioneered techniques of distribution, inventory control, record-keeping and sales analysis that no single company could ever have achieved on its own. The 53 NAPA-associated distribution centers (12 of which are GAP-owned) receive their products principally from a carefully selected group of independent parts manufacturers, many of whom also supply original equipment parts. These products are warehoused in the distribu tion centers and sold to the more than 4,000 NAPA jobbers who stock and resell them to service stations, new and used car dealers, independent garages, fleet owners, and even to the man who does his own tinkering on the family car. The benefits of being a part of NAPA are great, although the association is strictly voluntary. NAPA's executive staff, with head quarters in Chicago, prepares a wide range of materials and programs aimed solely at helping the jobber operate a more efficient and profitable business. One basic NAPA program, originally conceived by Don Test Sr., is the Mer chandise Classification and Obsolescence Plan. The first in the industry, this com prehensive stock regulation plan assures ready availability of all needed parts with minimum inventory investment and eliminates the risk of financial loss due to obsolescence. From the awesome array of 85,000 part numbers handled by NAPA distrib ution centers has evolved a series of "Quick Reference" catalogs which let any NAPA-served mechanic find the correct part in seconds, determine its cost and price the repair job on the spot. National advertising is costly, but by pooling resources. NAPA members have produced a handsome and hard-working advertising campaign designed to keep NAPA-member names in front of not only the service fraternity and fleet owner, but the farmer and motoring public as well. Training programs and sales clinics make jobbers better salesmen; NAPAdesigned bookkeeping systems bring order to records kept by even the small town parts jobber; group insurance plans protect NAPA members, their employees and families; while NAPA operating and sales manuals literally show the jobber a better and more profitable way to run his own business. NOVO16052