Bill Weisberg, chairman and CEO of Affiliated Distributors, will lead the new company. Rounding out the executive team are Steve Cosgrove, chief operating officer, formerly president of Thrall Distribution; John Ludlam, vice president/operations, ADNE's president and key architect of the company's integrated supply technology; and Diane Mirvis, chief technology officer, formerly global accounts director for SAP America.

In addition to developing a comprehensive electronic catalog of commercial, industrial and construction supplies, the new company will act as the e-business center point for regional and local distributors in servicing large national accounts and participating in Web commerce at the individual market account level.

The supplyFORCE.com Web site, scheduled to go live in late first-quarter 2000, will eventually offer customers access to more than 2 million products in addition to value-added services. A-D's existing relationships with more than 200 manufacturers will give users access to product and application information as well as messaging services and industry links.

A-D expects to become the leading provider of end-to-end supply chain management solutions for the industrial and construction industries and will launch the distribution industry's most complete e-business portal site, according to the company.

"Affiliated Distributors was created to help strong independent distributors compete on a national scale," said Weisberg, who is also president and CEO of supplyFORCE.com. "SupplyFORCE.com takes that concept to the next level by providing the technology and expertise required for local and regional distributors to more effectively serve national accounts. Furthermore, supplyFORCE.com will provide the opportunity for these same successful distributors to engage in a sophisticated Internet commerce strategy without incurring the major costs of going it alone."

SupplyFORCE.com will attempt to leverage ADNE's proprietary technology solution that focuses on integrated supply, including order entry and routing, fulfillment, consolidated invoicing and on-site warehouse management. The end-to-end solution will also include the integration of supplyFORCE.com with its end-users' automated procurement platforms and participating distributors' automated order-management platforms.

Overall, the combination of advanced integrated supply and e-business solutions is intended to drive down supply channel costs.

A-D is the largest distribution network in North America with more than $13 bilion in annual sales.