Kuriyama growth leads to new U.S. distribution center

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—In some ways Kuriyama of America Inc. (KOA) may seem like one of the best-kept secrets in the hose and accessories market.

But for those who deal with the Schaumburg, Ill.-based firm, they know KOA has a lot to offer, including what is among the broadest scope of goods and services in the business.

Brian Dutton, president of Kuriyama of America, in fact, said he is pretty certain the firm is one of the few suppliers out there offering a full line of rubber and plastic industrial and hydraulic hose, along with industrial couplings made of every kind of brass, steel and aluminum.

It even offers specialty rubber-blended layflat hose products designed for firefighting, mining, agricultural, irrigation and other sectors around the world. That line came with the 2015 purchase of the Tipsa Group of companies by KOA parent, Osaka, Japan-based Kuriyama Holdings Corp.

"A big part of the Kuriyama value is its breadth, bringing the convenience for our distribution base that they only have to go to one place to find everything—from high pressure, low pressure and everything in between, including assembly equipment," Dutton told Rubber News at the recent NAHAD Annual Convention in San Diego.

And those strengths have enabled Kuriyama of America to follow a steady growth path, which led to the opening of a new centralized distribution center in February in Huntley, Ill., not far from KOA's headquarters.

The 329,000-sq.-ft. center boosts the footprint for the central hub by more than 2 1/2 times, according to Dutton. Coincidentally, that's the same percentage KOA's sales have grown by since it first moved to Schaumburg in 2005. KOA's exact financials and the investment in the Huntley center were not disclosed.

"The biggest motivation (for the new distribution facility) was to be a more efficient fulfillment center for our branches," the KOA president said. "That warehouse not only services regional customers but also our four regional branches across the country, and we just simply needed more space, a bigger footprint, to be able to properly store, stage and ship products."

Kuriyama of America has regional centers in New Jersey, Georgia, Houston and Reno, Nev., the latter replacing a Southern California branch that became too costly to operate. Some products still will be shipped directly from the factories to the branches, but the bulk will be sent to Huntley first, and then distributed to the satellite centers.

Dutton has spent more than 30 years in the hose business, and just celebrated his 22nd anniversary with Kuriyama. In his earlier years with KOA, he helped launch its product line before the firm took the big step forward to launch a true distribution program that offered distributors one-stop shopping capability.

The business grew faster then he could imagine, necessitating the hiring of more team members to manage the growth. Dutton went from sales manager, to director of sales, and then vice president of sales and marketing, before being promoted to president in 2020.

He said the two flagship lines are its Tigerflex-brand PVC, polyurethane and rubber-blended suction hoses, along with its Kuri Tec-brand of long-length PVC hoses for industrial beverage. A 2005 acquisition brought in the Piranha line of high pressure hoses.

Kuriyama also has a longstanding arrangement, Dutton said, to be the exclusive marketer of Italy's Alfagomma S.p.A.'s rubber hoses to the distribution market in the U.S. and Mexico. For the OEM markets, the two firms have a joint venture that produces assemblies of Alfagomma lines for sale to OEM customers.

It's a business relationship that has worked out well over the years, he added. Alfagomma gets access to KOA's extensive distribution network without having to make the big investment that entails, while Kuriyama gets to offer for sale a top-notch rubber hose line.

KOA's business structure may seem a bit complicated, Dutton acknowledged, but the bottom line is Kuriyama produces roughly 65-70 percent of what it sells in North America. Its North American operations produce plastic hose lines, including urethanes, thermoplastic rubbers, PVCs and polyethylenes. Tigerflex does include some rubber hoses, though most of KOA's rubber lines come from Alfagomma. And the Tipsa layflat rubber hoses are produced at a Kuriyama facility in Spain.

Dutton said there are two common misunderstandings about KOA. "One is that we're simply a wholesaler. We're not simply a wholesaler. We are a producer and a wholesaler," he said. "And the other misconception is that everything comes from Asia. It doesn't. The predominance of our products that we sell are produced in North America."

Some also may not realize how much technological know-how Kuriyama can offer.

"We can produce products and engineer and develop goods specifically around an application," Dutton said. "And that's what separates us from the wholesalers."

He added that he believes KOA is viewed most favorably as a rapid service and convenience partner for our distributors.

"We relieve the burden on our customer base having to inventory a lot of products. We're their supplemental warehouse," Dutton said. "What we want to be better known for is what we've been doing for a long time that maybe people don't know as well. And that is as a problem solver and a technical producer."

When people hear the name of the company, some may think it's part of a Japanese trading company that only provides solutions for logistics. And that can't be further from the truth, Dutton said. "Logistics is a strength of ours, but it's not our only strength," he said. "We are regarded in a lot of the market as the leader for technical solutions, when it comes to thermoplastic hoses, both high pressure and low pressure."

Among the markets KOA focuses on are industrial, agricultural, construction and food processing, among a variety of others. He said the firm isn't overly strong in automotive, and that's by choice. But it does offer an air brake tubing that has a significant spot in the market.

He said KOA and its counterpart in Canada have a good deal of autonomy in running their operations, as its Japanese parent Kuriyama Holdings isn't as deeply involved in the hose business as its North American subsidiaries. Kuriyama Holdings, though, began to add managers on their board of directors several years ago, and Dutton said he has the privilege of serving on the parent company board.

It's a bit of a change of philosophy for the Japanese-based parent. He said as those other business units became a larger part of the overall group's revenue and income, Kuriyama Holdings has looked to involve them more in the overall vision and strategy of the group.

KOA, like many hose and accessories suppliers, does the majority of its business through distribution, though it does have some direct OE business.

Dutton said 2024 started out very strong, and remains robust despite the potential economic woes some are talking about. "There is anxiety about geopolitical situations and high interest rates and so forth. Maybe we're seeing a little bit of softening, but by and large it's still pretty strong," he said.

The highest ceilings in terms of opportunities for KOA are with investments in infrastructure, an area the company's products can play a big role in. Food processing is another area that can provide growth for the company, along with high-pressure thermoplastic hoses.

"I think despite all the headwinds, we're still going to see decent demand for our products," Dutton said. "There are a lot more question marks about 2025 for us than there are in 2024. We still think things are going to be pretty good for us for the remainder of the year."