快扣 (FAST) 2024 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Fastenal second quarter 2024 earnings results conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

早安，歡迎參加 Fastenal 2024 年第二季財報業績電話會議。（操作說明）提醒各位，本次會議正在錄音。

I would now like to turn the call over to Taylor Ranta of Fastenal Company. Thank you, you may begin.

現在我將把電話轉給 Fastenal 公司的 Taylor Ranta。謝謝，你可以開始了。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2024 second quarter earnings conference call. This call will be hosted by Dan Florness, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Holden Lewis, our Chief Financial Officer.

歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2024 年第二季財報電話會議。本次電話會議將由我們的總裁兼執行長丹·弗洛內斯和我們的財務長霍爾頓·劉易斯主持。

The call will last up to one hour and will start with a general overview of our quarterly results and operations with the remainder of the time being open for questions and answers. Today's conference call, the proprietary Fastenal presentation and it's being recorded by Fastenal. No recording, reproduction, transmission or distribution of today's call is permitted without Fastenal's consent.

電話會議將持續最多一小時，首先將對我們的季度業績和營運情況進行總體概述，剩餘時間將用於提問和解答。今天的電話會議是 Fastenal 的專有演示文稿，並且 Fastenal 正在錄音。未經 Fastenal 同意，不得對今天的通話進行任何錄音、複製、傳輸或分發。

This call is being audio simulcast on the Internet via the Fastenal Investor Relations homepage, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until September 1, 2024, at midnight Central Time.

本次電話會議將透過 Fastenal 投資者關係主頁 investor.fastenal.com 進行網路音訊同步直播。網路直播的回放將在網站上保留至美國中部時間 2024 年 9 月 1 日午夜。

As a reminder, today's conference call may include statements regarding the company's future plans and prospects. These statements are based on our current expectations, and we undertake no duty to update them.

提醒各位，今天的電話會議可能涉及公司未來的計劃和前景。這些聲明是基於我們目前的預期，我們不承擔更新這些聲明的義務。

It is important to note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from anticipated results are contained in the company's latest earnings release and periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and we encourage you to review these factors carefully.

值得注意的是，公司的實際業績可能與預期業績有重大差異。可能導致實際結果與預期結果不同的因素已包含在公司最新的收益報告和定期向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中，我們建議您仔細閱讀這些因素。

I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Dan Florness.

現在我想把電話交給丹‧弗洛內斯先生。

Thank you, and good morning, everybody, and welcome to the second quarter 2024 earnings call. Before I start on the quarter, I just wanted to share a couple of things. First off, I wanted to share a story about an [Onsite] of ours in Sweeny, Texas and I was speaking with Steve Diekman, our Regional Vice President based out of Houston, and for those of you that -- I suspect most people on the call are aware that Houston periodically gets hurricanes, and they had a hurricane.

謝謝大家，早安，歡迎參加2024年第二季財報電話會議。在開始本季的工作之前，我想先分享幾件事。首先，我想分享一個關於我們在德克薩斯州斯威尼的[現場]的故事。當時我正在和我們位於休士頓的區域副總裁史蒂夫·迪克曼交談，我想在座的各位——我猜大多數參加電話會議的人都知道休斯頓會定期遭受颶風襲擊，而他們那裡就遭遇了颶風。

And typically, what happens when there's a hurricane, and this might be Steve Diekman in Houston and might be Bob Harper down in Florida. Oftentimes they'll get a call from Europe from [Casey] and to see these industries before, this everything's gone.

通常情況下，當颶風來襲時，休士頓的史蒂夫·迪克曼可能會報道，而佛羅裡達州的鮑勃哈珀可能會報道。他們常常接到 [Casey] 從歐洲打來的電話，看到這些產業以前的樣子，現在一切都消失了。

And we often remind them of we got their back. And what that means is, when you're in the chaos of the moment, you're forced to make decisions on the fly and there's a lot of things going on and somebody with 2020 hindsight a week later might pick apart a decision you make at 3:00 in the morning to solve a problem. My comment to Steve and Bob, as always, we've got your back, make great decisions to take care of our customers and to protect your employees, period.

我們經常提醒他們，我們會支持他們。這意味著，當你身處混亂之中時，你會被迫倉促做出決定，而且當時有很多事情正在發生，一周後，一個擁有 2020 年經驗的人可能會對你在凌晨 3 點為了解決問題而做出的決定吹毛求疵。我對史蒂夫和鮑伯說的話是：我們永遠支持你們，請做出正確的決定來照顧我們的客戶並保護你們的員工，就這麼簡單。

So -- and the second thing, and this happened a few years ago, read an article about a retirement community in Florida during the hurricane. They were without power and without resources for a few days. And when you read something like that, you are kind of like, how the hell does that happened in today's world?

所以——第二件事，這件事發生在幾年前，我讀了一篇關於佛羅裡達州一個退休社區在颶風期間的文章。他們停電停水，物資匱乏，持續了好幾天。當你讀到這樣的事情時，你可能會想，這在當今世界怎麼會發生呢？

And so, one thing I often will throw in there and say, hey, make sure your branches are paying attention to facilities around their area. There might be a hospital, there might be retirement home, whatever it is, call them up to see if they're okay, so they need something. I don't care if they're a customer of ours or not. Be there to help because that's what we are, we're a supply chain when people need stuff.

因此，我經常會補充一點，那就是，確保你們的分支機構關注其所在區域周圍的設施。可能有醫院，可能有養老院，不管是什麼地方，打電話問他們是否安好，是否需要什麼幫助。我不在乎他們是不是我們的客戶。隨時準備提供協助，因為我們就是這樣的人，我們是人們需要物資時的供應鏈。

So we have an Onsite in Sweeny, Texas with Phillips 66, it's a refining facility. Refining facilities can be demanding customers. You think about what they we do, it's a facility where really bad things can happen if they're not on their A-game. And so, they need something, they don't need it tomorrow. They don't need it next week, they need it.

我們在德州斯威尼與菲利普斯66公司合作，那裡是一家煉油廠。煉油廠可能對客戶要求很高。你想想他們在這裡做什麼，這是一個如果他們沒有發揮出最佳水平，就可能發生非常糟糕事情的地方。所以，他們需要某樣東西，但不是明天就需要。他們不是下週需要，而是現在就需要。

And so, Wade, one of our employees at the Onsite. He comes into work on Sunday evening, doesn't normally come into work on Sunday evening. He came to be there all night long because if they need something, he's there to supply that need.

韋德是我們現場的員工。他週日晚上來上班，他通常週日晚上不來上班。他整夜都待在那裡，因為如果他們需要什麼，他就會去滿足他們的需求。

So the hurricane hit on Monday about 2:00 in the morning, I think it lasted about six hours in that area. Good chunk of Houston is without power right now. But our customers in that area gets served by Fastenal. If you go to our branches, you'd find a lot of our branches right now have no power.

颶風於週一凌晨2點左右登陸，我認為它在該地區持續了大約6個小時。目前休士頓大部分地區停電。但該地區的客戶由 Fastenal 提供服務。如果您去我們的分行，您會發現我們很多分行現在都停電了。

Their point-of-sale system and their lights are being run by generators, which means when there's 106-degree heat index, it gets a little warm in there. So in the afternoon, they happened to their pick-ups, and they go call on their top 15 customers, they'll call their other customers is there anything we need?

他們的銷售點系統和照明設備都是由發電機供電的，這意味著當體感溫度達到 106 度時，裡面會有點熱。所以到了下午，他們就去取貨，然後給前 15 名客戶打電話，再給其他客戶打電話，問他們有什麼需要嗎？

Most other businesses are hunkered down -- maybe not being there in the same way, we're all there for a pragmatic reason on the way you're going to get AC at 1:00 PM in the afternoon in 106-degree heat indexes be in your truck. But goes to your customer, let them know we're there to serve, great thing about Fastenal and thank you to Wade for doing the night shift on Monday morning.

大多數其他企業都蟄伏起來——也許方式不同，但我們都出於務實的原因而存在，比如，在下午 1 點，體感溫度高達 106 度的情況下，你還得待在你的卡車裡才能吹空調。但要讓客戶知道我們隨時準備為他們服務，Fastenal 的這項特質非常棒，也要感謝 Wade 在周一早上值夜班。

Secondly, I want to touch on is I want to congratulate our technology team. Last fall, we did a lot -- we're starting some projects around AI or as I prefer to refer to it internally, FI. It's not artificial intelligence, it's Fastenal intelligence because the source data is our data and it's a really robust system that we decided to go out and build.

其次，我想說的是，我要祝賀我們的技術團隊。去年秋天，我們做了很多工作——我們正在啟動一些圍繞人工智慧的項目，或者我更喜歡在內部稱之為金融智慧的項目。這不是人工智慧，而是 Fastenal 的智能，因為來源數據是我們自己的數據，而這是我們決定要建立的非常強大的系統。

And our goal is to roll it out in the second quarter for our folks starts using it. Rolled out on June 28. It's out there, our folks are using it. And I had the ability to test it some in early June. What amazed me, it's scary good what this technology can do. And the way it's set up is we have a general information -- it's our chat bot Blue that we created about five years ago

我們的目標是在第二季推出這項服務，讓我們的員工開始使用它。於6月28日推出。它已經面世了，我們的人都在用。六月初我有機會對它進行了一些測試。令我驚訝的是，這項技術的功能強大得令人難以置信。它的設定方式是這樣的：我們有一個通用資訊平台——也就是我們大約五年前創建的聊天機器人 Blue。

In the old system had 130,000, 140,000 Q&A payers, and based on a probability match, you got what you got. Now, you actually get a well thought out answer and it tells you the source of your information and you can look internally at Fastenal only data. So it's Fastenal intelligence.

舊系統有 13 萬、14 萬問答付費用戶，根據機率匹配，你得到的就是你得到的。現在，您實際上會得到一個經過深思熟慮的答案，它會告訴您資訊的來源，而且您可以查看 Fastenal 內部的專屬數據。所以這是 Fastenal 的智慧系統。

And if you want to go deeper, you can go externally if you want. But you know the source, and you know how it is, the source of information is the quality of information. And sometimes you get what you get when you're on the wild web.

如果你想深入了解，你也可以從外部進行探索。但你知道資訊的來源，也知道情況如何，資訊的來源就是資訊的品質。在魚龍混雜的網路上，有時候你只能接受現實。

But it's great information on general supply chain questions. We have embedded Bob Kierlin's [book departed] fast on people. So there's great leadership inside. Think you're asking Bob a question. It's published right now in 30-plus languages. And the next piece we're working on is going to deploy here in Q3 is an AI-assisted sourcing tool.

但它提供了關於供應鏈一般性問題的寶貴資訊。我們已經迅速地將鮑伯‧基爾林的[著作]深深地印在了人們的腦海中。所以公司內部有非常優秀的領導團隊。你好像在問鮑伯一個問題。目前已有超過30種語言版本出版。我們正在開發的下一個產品將於第三季部署，它是一款人工智慧輔助採購工具。

And conceptually, what we're after is an employee to be able to look -- hop on this tool and identify what is the side the customer is asking for? What else is it? So I can help rationalize clear product substitutions, depending on if you need it right now, maybe this isn't available for three days.

從概念上講，我們想要的是讓員工能夠查看——使用這個工具，並確定客戶要求的是哪一方？還能是什麼呢？這樣我就可以根據您是否現在需要該產品，幫助您合理地選擇替代產品，因為該產品可能三天內都無法供貨。

But we have three things that could substitute for it what do you need, and then understanding the supply chain. This is readily available. This is difficult to get and you could have that discussion with your customer and then understand the market for that, what's the price in the market, what should you expect to pay for it? Maybe it's something we haven't sold before.

但是我們有三樣東西可以取代它，你需要什麼，以及了解供應鏈。這很容易就能買到。這很難取得，你可以和你的客戶討論一下，然後了解市場狀況，市場價格是多少，你應該預期要付多少錢？或許這是我們以前沒賣過的東西。

But it really is a tool that's being built, going to roll it out in the third quarter. We're excited about it, and we'll see how it goes from there, but Fastenal intelligence, not artificial intelligence.

但這確實是一個正在開發中的工具，我們將在第三季推出。我們對此感到興奮，我們將看看接下來的發展如何，但這是 Fastenal 的智能，而不是人工智慧。

Third, take a look at the [flip book]. Talk a little bit about the quarter. Tough quarter, net sales grew about 2%. Underlying market remains challenging. EPS was $0.51, down about 2%. The item I shared with the Board yesterday, the team within Fastenal looks in a mirror and says, what are we being paid to do? Are we being paid to defend margin? We're growing 2%. Or are we being paid to figure out how to not grow 2%?

第三，看一下[翻頁書]。簡單談談本季的情況。本季情勢嚴峻，淨銷售額成長約2%。基礎市場依然充滿挑戰。每股收益為 0.51 美元，下降約 2%。我昨天向董事會分享的內容，Fastenal 團隊內部的每個人都在捫心自問：我們拿薪水到底是為了做什麼？我們拿工資是為了捍衛利潤率嗎？我們成長了2%。還是說我們拿薪水是為了想辦法讓成長率低於 2%？

The bias goes towards the latter, but we put emphasis on the former as well. And so, I think we found the appropriate balance. That mean we did everything perfectly? No. There's always room for improvement. But I think we're appropriately balancing where we're going and how to not grow 2% with defending the margin at 2%

雖然我們傾向後者，但我們也重視前者。所以，我認為我們找到了合適的平衡點。那是不是代表我們做得完美無缺？不。總有進步的空間。但我認為，我們正在適當地平衡發展方向以及如何在不達到2%成長的同時，將利潤率維持在2%。

As you see in the table in the next slide, I'll get to that in a few minutes, but we continue in that sub-50 ISM, the Purchasing Managers' Index, and that's 19 of the last 20 months. We saw a blip in March that proved to be a [head fake]. It's an uncommonly long duration that weighs on US Industrial Production and consequently affects our daily sales rates because 75% of our revenue is industrial.

正如你在下一張投影片的表格中看到的那樣，我稍後會談到這一點，但我們繼續關注低於 50 的 ISM（採購經理人指數），在過去的 20 個月中，有 19 個月低於 50。我們在三月看到了一個小波動，但事實證明這只是一個小波動。[頭部假動作]這是一個異常漫長的時期，對美國工業生產造成了壓力，進而影響了我們的日常銷售額，因為我們75%的收入來自工業。

Our efforts to accelerate our customer acquisition remain encouraging. Year, year-and-a-half ago, had some pretty frank discussions on this call about some missteps that we saw occurring in 2021 and 2022, where our focus on a common goal became blurred.

我們在加快客戶獲取方面所做的努力仍然令人鼓舞。一年半前，我們曾在這個電話會議上坦誠地討論過 2021 年和 2022 年出現的一些失誤，當時我們對共同目標的關注變得模糊不清。

I think there was a few -- little bit too much of what I'm doing and not what we're doing. And when everyone individually is successful, but we're not successful, something's wrong with the alignment. So aligned all the sales organization under Jeff Watts at the time. Jeff's a proven strong leader of the organization. I have to say, Jeff's done a wonderful job in the last 12 to 18 months of pulling this thing together.

我覺得有些地方──太多地方都在講我正在做的事情，卻沒有講我們正在做的事情。當每個人單獨都成功，但我們整體卻不成功時，表示團隊的協調性出了問題。因此，當時所有銷售部門都由傑夫·沃茨領導。傑夫是組織中一位久經考驗的優秀領導者。我必須說，傑夫在過去 12 到 18 個月裡為完成這項工作做出了巨大的貢獻。

But it wasn't just Jeff, it's Jeff and his team. It's Casey Miller stepping up in the US. It's Miguel and Tony stepping up international. It's [Bill Perez-Kowalski] stepping up, and everybody else that supports them, including me, stepping up their game to support the sales team as we align on a common goal. And I think you're seeing that in the second straight quarter of strong Onsite [FMI] signings and low double-digit growth in national contract counts.

但不僅僅是傑夫一個人，而是傑夫和他的團隊。這是凱西米勒在美國嶄露頭角。這是米格爾和東尼進軍國際舞台。是比爾·佩雷斯-科瓦爾斯基挺身而出，其他所有支持他的人，包括我，也都全力以赴地支持銷售團隊，因為我們朝著共同的目標努力。我認為，連續第二季強勁的現場[FMI]簽約量和全國合約數量的兩位數低成長都印證了這一點。

As I mentioned earlier, we believe we have the right balance for managing our costs, and we continue to maintain this balance. But I have reemphasized with our leadership team and, as well as Holden and everybody else. This isn't a two-person endeavor, this is a 23,000 person endeavor.

正如我之前提到的，我們認為我們在成本控制方面找到了合適的平衡點，我們將繼續保持這種平衡。但我已經再次向我們的領導團隊、霍爾頓以及其他所有人強調了這一點。這不是兩個人的事，這是23000人的事。

We need to be really tight with spending in the current environment. The one thing that helps us in the latter half of '23, excuse me, and the first half of '24 is we have some wiggle room because of declining incentive comp. That wiggle room keeps getting thinner and thinner. And so, we need to be more dialed in.

在當前環境下，我們必須嚴格控制開支。2023 年下半年（抱歉，應該是 2024 年上半年）對我們有利的一點是，由於激勵薪酬的下降，我們有一些迴旋餘地。這種迴旋餘地越來越小了。所以，我們需要更專注。

Again in all frankness, we felt in the first quarter as we were exiting the second quarter was going to play a little differently. We realized as we went through April, that was not to be the case. In early May, we tighten it down a bit and we've tightened down some more here in July.

坦白說，我們在第一節結束時就感覺到第二節的比賽會有些不同。隨著四月的進行，我們意識到情況並非如此。五月初，我們收緊了一些措施，七月我們又進一步收緊了一些。

As you would expect from a distribution business, we continue to generate a very healthy operating cash flow and we have an incredibly flexible and strong balance sheet. The page 4 is probably a weird chart. I have I told them, hey, can we just put the table in? Because I have this nice table of ISM data going back -- he's going to go back 50, 60 years or whatever the heck it is, but I haven't gone back a decade.

正如你所預期的那樣，作為一家分銷企業，我們持續產生非常健康的經營現金流，並且擁有極其靈活和穩健的資產負債表。第 4 頁的圖表可能有點奇怪。我跟他們說，嘿，我們能把桌子放進去嗎？因為我有一張很好的 ISM 數據表，可以追溯到很久以前——他要追溯到 50 年、60 年或其他什麼時間，但我還沒有追溯到十年以前。

I think we showed that -- and I think it's really good for our investor and our employees to appreciate the environment that we're in. And so, we had all these numbers in there, and then Holden came in a couple of days ago and said, we actually can't publish that because that's a subscribed service.

我認為我們已經證明了這一點——而且我認為這對我們的投資者和員工來說都非常有好處，讓他們能夠欣賞我們所處的環境。所以，我們把所有這些數字都放進去了，然後霍爾頓幾天前進來告訴我們，我們實際上不能發布這些數據，因為這是訂閱服務。

I said, well, can you just put in blanks and put a red square wherever the sub-50 is so you can at least see magnitude. He's like, yeah, we can do that. So what you see here is a lot of nothing, except for the fact you can see the duration of sub-50 ISM over the last decade plus 12 years. And you can see that since November of 2022.

我說，好吧，你能不能把空格填上，然後在小於 50 的地方畫一個紅方塊，這樣至少能看出數值大小？他回答說，是的，我們可以做到。所以你在這裡看到的其實沒什麼特別的，除了你可以看到過去 10 年加 12 年中低於 50 ISM 的持續時間。從 2022 年 11 月起，這一點就顯而易見了。

Except for March of this year, we've been sub-50. So we had 16 consecutive months and now 19 out of 20 months. And if you look at that little table in the bottom left, there's eight periods that Holden highlighted with extended sub-50 PMI ratings. The third one of July of '81 to June of '83 was the longest period. I remember that. I was in college, just getting out of high school.

除了今年三月之外，我們的數值一直低於50。所以我們連續16個月都維持這樣的狀態，現在20個月裡有19個月都是如此。如果你看一下左下角的小表格，你會發現霍頓重點列出了八個時期，這些時期的 PMI 評級長期低於 50。從 1981 年 7 月到 1983 年 6 月的第三個時期是最長的。我記得這件事。我當時正在上大學，剛從高中畢業。

You don't realize when you're in college, how bad the economy is, other than -- because I can find a part-time job and fortunately, school was a little cheaper back in the early 80s than it is today. But I remember being pretty tough for my parents and family farm.

在大學的時候，你不會意識到經濟狀況有多糟糕，除非——因為我能找到一份兼職工作，而且幸運的是，80 年代初的學費比現在便宜一些。但我記得我以前對父母和家裡的農場很辛苦。

The second one is August 2000 to January 2022, about 18 months there, and that was the dot-com meltdown. And from a duration standpoint, the third one is right now and that was the 16 months that -- so it's 19 months, 18 months and then 16 months duration before we had a blip. But you can see all these periods would have impacted Fastenal negatively. Every one of these eight that we cite, and some were severe, some were long in duration. Early 80s was both.

第二個時期是 2000 年 8 月至 2022 年 1 月，約 18 個月，那是網路泡沫破裂的時期。從持續時間來看，第三個時期就是現在，也就是 16 個月——所以是 19 個月、18 個月，然後是 16 個月，之後我們遇到了一些小問題。但可以看出，所有這些時期都會對 Fastenal 產生負面影響。我們列舉的這八個案例，有的很嚴重，有的持續時間很長。80 年代初期兩者兼具。

I'll let the listener conclude on what you think that should mean to an industrial distributor. Internally, we say, okay, nobody jump out the window. Let's focus on what we're doing to add business. Let's focus on what we're doing to grow the business. And for that customer, that's business down, support the help hell out of them.

至於這對工業分銷商意味著什麼，就留給聽眾自己去思考吧。內部來說，好吧，誰也別跳窗。讓我們把重點放在我們正在採取哪些措施來增加業務。讓我們專注於我們正在做的事情，以促進業務成長。對這位客戶來說，生意就受到了影響，要盡力幫助他們。

Page 5. 107 signings in the second quarter and active sites finished at 1,934. So we're approaching that 2,000 active Onsites, 12% above where we were a year ago and we grew low single-digits. A lot of our older Onsites are negative right now. If you have the bulk of a customer's business and their business is down 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%. Our revenue will follow suit, if it's OEM fasteners, it follow suit in magnitude. If it's MRO, it followed suit directionally

第 5 頁。第二季簽 107 人，活躍站點總數達 1,934 個。因此，我們的活躍現場用戶數量即將達到 2,000 個，比一年前增加了 12%，實現了個位數低成長。我們許多較早的現場檢測結果目前都是陰性。如果你擁有客戶的大部分業務，而該客戶的業務下降了 10%、20%、30%、40%。如果是OEM緊固件，我們的營收也會隨之成長，而且增幅會非常顯著。如果是MRO，那麼它的方向也隨之而來。

FMI Technology. When I stepped into this role in 2015, I remember saying to the group. In 2014, we signed 49 devices day, and we frankly pulled way too many out. There's two things we need to do. We have to start pulling out 20%-plus of our installed base. And we have to grow that 49 a day to 100 a day and we need the infrastructure to do it, and we slowly built it and slowly built.

FMI技術。我記得2015年我擔任這個職務時，曾對團隊說過。2014 年，我們每天簽 49 台設備，坦白說，我們撤回的設備數量太多了。我們需要做兩件事。我們必須開始撤出超過 20% 的已安裝用戶群。我們必須將每天 49 個增加到每天 100 個，我們需要相應的基礎設施來實現這一點，我們一步一步地建造了它。

7,188 devices in the second quarter, that's a 112 per day. Our install base is now 119,000 weighted devices, an 11% increase from last year. So we're taking market share. We're planting flags and we're making the business more resilient and efficient.

第二季共售出 7,188 台設備，相當於每天 112 台。我們的安裝基數目前為 119,000 台加權設備，比去年增長了 11%。所以我們正在搶佔市場份額。我們正在樹立標桿，讓企業更具韌性和效率。

And interesting thing happens. A lot of customers love the technology because they believe in their facility. It steps up their internal game because when they see that OEM fasteners in this Kanban bin, that has RFID chips and it's not messy, it's not chaotic, it's well managed.

然後，有趣的事情發生了。很多客戶喜歡這項技術，因為他們對自己的設施充滿信心。這會提升他們的內部管理水平，因為當他們看到看板箱裡的 OEM 緊固件帶有 RFID 晶片，而且擺放整齊有序，沒有雜亂無章，管理得井井有條時，他們就會更加重視內部管理。

Maybe you should do that throughout the production line. Maybe you should do that once it replaces and it challenges everybody in the facility to step up their game and that includes Fastenal. So in the -- we have about 42% of our sales are now going through an FMI Technology.

或許你應該在整個生產線上都這麼做。也許你應該等它被取代後再這樣做，這樣就能促使工廠裡的每個人提升自己的水平，這其中也包括 Fastenal。所以，目前我們約有 42% 的銷售額是透過 FMI 技術實現的。

And earlier I mentioned the impact of the economy. I'll share a few statistics that we get. One thing with FMI, it get a lot of statistics on what's going through all these things. So in our FASTStock, and that's where we're going now with an Android device that were scanning bins and we're managing it with a combination of technology and labor.

前面我也提到了經濟的影響。我將分享一些我們獲得的統計數據。FMI的一大優點在於，它能獲得大量關於所有這些事情的統計數據。所以，在我們的 FASTStock 系統中，我們現在正使用 Android 裝置掃描垃圾箱，並透過技術和人工相結合的方式來管理它。

In January of 2024, we did 16,387 orders per day through scanning technology and our average order was $224. I already shared that from February to March, it dropped from $200 -- it was $225 in February. It dropped to $216 in March. About 60% of that was volume while 40% of that was price. Since then, it's been $216, $214, $217.

2024 年 1 月，我們透過掃描技術每天完成 16,387 個訂單，平均訂單金額為 224 美元。我之前已經說過，從二月到三月，價格從 200 美元降了下來——二月是 225 美元。3月跌至216美元。其中約 60% 是成交量，40% 是價格。從那以後，價格分別是 216 美元、214 美元、217 美元。

So our dollars per order is down about $7 from $224. I didn't calculate the percentage here, so I apologize for that. But our orders per day have grown to 17,640 because we're deploying, we're deploying, we're deploying. So we have 1,253 more orders per day, a 7.5% increase.

因此，我們每筆訂單的平均金額從 224 美元下降了約 7 美元。我沒有計算這裡的百分比，對此我深感抱歉。但由於我們一直在部署、一直在部署、一直在部署，我們的每日訂單量已成長到 17,640 筆。因此，我們每天的訂單量增加了 1253 筆，成長了 7.5%。

Interestingly enough, when I look at our customer acquisition. We were -- a number we've always tracked and it's our core accounts. It was maybe more meaningful statistic when we were branch-based and opening branches.

有趣的是，當我查看我們的客戶獲取情況時。我們是——一個我們一直在關注的數字，也是我們的核心帳戶。當我們還在以分支機構為基礎並開設分支機構時，這或許是一個更有意義的統計數據。

But last year, our core accounts with some of the chaos and things we were doing, and some execution missteps and some intentional steps are cores per day from January to June were down about 4%. This year, they're up about 7%. Part of that is us working through some indigestion.

但去年，由於一些混亂和我們正在做的事情，以及一些執行失誤和一些有意為之的措施，我們的核心帳戶從 1 月到 6 月每天下降了約 4%。今年，它們的漲幅約為 7%。部分原因是我們正在克服消化不良的問題。

Part of that is Jeff, in our sales team getting traction. And part of it is just overall execution by everybody supporting them. But bottom line is it's $217 every time we scan a bin and not $224, but we're scanning 7.5% more bins.

部分原因是我們的銷售團隊中的 Jeff 正在取得進展。一部分原因在於所有支持他們的人的整體執行力。但關鍵是，每次掃描箱子的成本是 217 美元，而不是 224 美元，但我們掃描的箱子數量增加了 7.5%。

If I look at vending -- and I look at vending, I'm not looking at FASTBin because it's not mature enough to really look at the data because it moves around too much because we're deploying so fast, but we have a lot of vending machines out there.

如果我關注自動販賣機——而我確實關注自動販賣機——我不會關注 FASTBin，因為它還不夠成熟，無法真正查看數據，因為數據變化太快，因為我​​們的部署速度太快，但我們有很多自動販賣機。

In January -- now this is not an order number. This is a monthly number. In January, we did $1,578 per weighted device per day. And recall when we started vending years ago and I'm old enough and I've been around long enough to remember those days. We talked about $2,000 when we talked about it with the analyst community. We talked about where can we get that to?

一月——現在這不是訂單號碼了。這是每月的數據。1月份，我們每個加重設備每天的收入為1578美元。還記得我們多年前開始擺攤賣東西的時候嗎？我年紀夠大，閱歷也夠豐富，還記得那些日子。我們在與分析師群體討論時，談到了 2000 美元。我們討論了從哪裡可以得到那個東西？

We started in the less than $1,000 category. We got it up into that $1,000 to $1,100 and we were stuck there for the longest time. And I have to say our teams and our FMI teams that support them led by Jeff, who have done a wonderful job of challenging and optimizing those machines over time that now we're doing close to $1,600, but we didn't do close to $1,600 in June. We did $1,454 per device.

我們從1000美元以下的類別開始。我們把金額提高到了 1000 到 1100 美元，然後就一直卡在那裡很久。我必須說，我們的團隊以及在 Jeff 領導下支持他們的 FMI 團隊，他們出色地完成了挑戰和優化這些機器的工作，現在我們的產量接近 1600 美元，但我們在 6 月份並沒有接近 1600 美元。每台設備我們收費 1454 美元。

So about $124 less, but about almost 8% less revenue per device, that's the economy. Because the -- we've added more devices, as I mentioned, our FMI Technology is up about 11% -- over 11% from a year ago. But the customer needs fewer things. One advantage to Fastenal in the marketplace is by having our type of supply chain.

所以價格少了大約 124 美元，但每台設備的收入卻減少了近 8%，這就是經濟狀況。正如我之前提到的，由於我們增加了更多設備，我們的FMI技術成長了約11%，比一年前成長了11%以上。但顧客需要的東西越來越少。Fastenal 在市場上的優勢之一在於我們擁有這種類型的供應鏈。

Not only are we a great supplier and supply chain partner to our customers, we can help them dial their expenses down faster when their business slows down and it doesn't pile up because everything's on autopilot. And I believe that makes us a better partner.

我們不僅是客戶的優秀供應商和供應鏈合作夥伴，還能在客戶業務放緩時幫助他們更快地降低成本，而不會因為一切都處於自動運行狀態而導致成本不斷累積。我相信這會讓我們成為更好的合作夥伴。

Our eBusiness rose about 25%. The eProcurement side is really the driver of that. Our eCommerce side is okay, it's not great. But some of the things we're doing with AI is intended to improve that over time on the unplanned spend side.

我們的電子商務業務成長了約 25%。電子採購才是真正推動這項轉變的因素。我們的電商業務還可以，但不算出色。但是，我們利用人工智慧所做的一些事情，旨在隨著時間的推移，改善計劃外支出方面的情況。

Finally, on Digital Footprint, 59.4%, that's taking all of our eCommerce, all of our FMI, eliminating the double counting saying what percent of our business has gone through one of those two. It was 59.4% in the second quarter.

最後，關於數位足跡，59.4%，這包括我們所有的電子商務和所有 FMI，消除了重複計算，即分別說明我們業務中有多少百分比是透過這兩者之一實現的。第二季為 59.4%。

Actually, in June, it hit 60%. We had expected maybe we'd get about 66% this year. We now think it's about [53%]. And that's not because we're not acquiring customers, it's because customers are spending less, and it shows up in our numbers.

事實上，6 月這個數字達到了 60%。我們原本預計今年大概能達到 66% 左右。我們現在認為這大約是[53%]。這並非因為我們沒有獲得客戶，而是因為客戶的消費減少了，這點從我們的數據中就能看出來。

With that, set up and turn it over to Holden.

就這樣，設定好一切，然後把它交給霍頓。

Great. Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. I will begin my comments on slide 6. I think Dan covered the current business conditions. I won't add a lot there, but I can add some additional color from regional leadership.

偉大的。謝謝你，丹，大家早安。我的發言將從第6張投影片開始。我認為丹已經涵蓋了當前的商業環境。我對此不做過多補充，但我可以從區域領導的角度補充一些資訊。

We continue to experience sluggish business activity that has persisted long enough at this point to be spurring an uptick in layoffs and shift reductions. There were more and longer shutdowns around the July fourth holiday. Some of those, frankly, are continuing.

我們持續面臨業務活動低迷的局面，這種情況已經持續了足夠長的時間，以至於開始出現裁員和減少輪班的情況。7月4日假期前後，停工次數更多，時間更長。坦白說，其中一些情況仍在繼續。

And overall industrial production continues to exhibit modest declines as we saw in April and May with the key machinery component being weaker than the overall index. And we're feeling that.

正如我們在 4 月和 5 月看到的那樣，整體工業生產繼續出現小幅下滑，其中關鍵機械行業的下滑幅度弱於整體指數。我們也感受到了這一點。

If I look at our business, total manufacturing grew 2.7%. Our fastener product line was down 3% with contraction in MRO and OEM products. All other end markets declined 1%, reflecting continued contraction in non-residential construction and reseller end markets.

從我們公司的情況來看，製造業總產量增加了2.7%。由於MRO和OEM產品萎縮，我們的緊固件產品線下降了3%。其他所有終端市場均下降了 1%，反映出非住宅建築和轉售終端市場的持續萎縮。

This was partly offset by strong growth in warehousing customers, which combined with good FMI installs, went a long way to driving our 7.1% growth in safety products. The profile of the second quarter in terms of performance by end market product and customer size was largely unchanged from the preceding quarter.

倉儲客戶的強勁成長在一定程度上抵消了這一影響，再加上良好的 FMI 安裝，極大地推動了我們安全產品 7.1% 的成長。從終端市場產品和客戶規模來看，第二季的業績概況與上一季基本保持不變。

We did have negative pricing in the period of 30 to 60 basis points. Fastener prices remain down, which is not new, but we also experienced some slippage in price from non-fastener products. I don't want to overstate the impact. I mean, our price cost was very modestly positive in the second quarter of 2024.

在30到60個基點的這段時間內，我們確實經歷了負定價。緊固件價格依然低迷，這並不新鮮，但我們也發現非緊固件產品的價格出現了一些下滑。我不想誇大其影響。我的意思是，我們在 2024 年第二季的價格成本略有成長。

However, it did ease from where it was in the first quarter of 2024, that's partly from comparisons. And the softer market has made things a bit more challenging. Even so, we believe we can improve our own discipline in this area and intend to address the matter in the third quarter of 2024.

不過，與 2024 年第一季相比，情況有所好轉，部分原因是由於比較關係。市場疲軟也讓事情變得更具挑戰性。即便如此，我們相信我們仍能在這一領域改進自身的紀律，並打算在 2024 年第三季解決這個問題。

Setting aside the cycle, we are increasingly encouraged over efforts to accelerate customer acquisition. The first half of 2024 has produced strong Onsite and FMI signings in a highly successful customer Expo. We are also experiencing accelerating growth now in the double-digits and improved mix in a number of our national account contracts.

拋開週期不談，我們對加快客戶獲取速度的努力越來越感到鼓舞。2024 年上半年，在非常成功的客戶博覽會上，現場和 FMI 簽約量強勁。目前，我們的一些全國性客戶合約也實現了兩位數的加速成長，產品組合也得到了改善。

Regional leadership attributes these improvements versus 2023 to better alignment between our teams, a sharpened focus on selling and the relative stability of the business environment, which is allowing teams to focus on winning business.

區域領導層將這些與 2023 年相比的進步歸功於團隊之間更好的協調、對銷售的更加重視以及相對穩定的商業環境，這使得團隊能夠專注於贏得業務。

Given our traditional lack of forward visibility, it is unclear when business activity will improve. It's also unclear how impactful holiday shutdowns or the hurricane in Texas will be on July. Even so, barring further erosion in macro conditions, the strong signings activity of the first half of 2024 should benefit sales trends in the second half of 2024 and into 2025.

鑑於我們歷來缺乏對未來情勢的預測能力，目前尚不清楚商業活動何時才能改善。目前還不清楚假日停工或德州的颶風會對7月造成多大影響。即便如此，除非宏觀經濟狀況進一步惡化，否則 2024 年上半年強勁的簽約活動應該有利於 2024 年下半年和 2025 年的銷售趨勢。

Now to slide 7. Operating margin in the second quarter of 2024 was 20.2%, down 80 basis points year-to-year. Recall in the April earnings call that we discussed a likely impact in the second quarter of 2024 from expenses related to our customer Expo and actions taken to support certain warehousing customers in anticipation of additional future business.

現在來看第7張投影片。2024 年第二季營業利益率為 20.2%，較去年同期下降 80 個基點。回想一下我們在 4 月份的財報電話會議上討論過的，與我們的客戶 Expo 相關的費用以及為支持某些倉儲客戶而採取的措施，可能會對 2024 年第二季度產生影響，以期未來獲得更多業務。

The combined impact was roughly 30 basis points in the second quarter of 2024 as expected. Some modest impact will carry into July, but the effect on margins in the third quarter of 2024 should be well below what we incurred in the second quarter.

如預期，到 2024 年第二季度，綜合影響約為 30 個基點。一些輕微的影響會延續到 7 月，但 2024 年第三季對利潤率的影響應該遠低於我們在第二季所遭受的影響。

Gross margin in the second quarter of 2024 was 45.1%, down 40 basis points from the year ago period. This is primarily due to product and customer mix. SG&A was 24.9% of sales in the second quarter of 2024, an increase from 24.6% from the year ago period. Total SG&A was up 3% due to deleveraging of employee related expenses, customer Expo expenses, higher costs for selling related vehicles as we refresh the fleet and higher general insurance costs.

2024 年第二季毛利率為 45.1%，較上年同期下降 40 個基點。這主要是由於產品和客戶組合造成的。2024 年第二季銷售、一般及行政費用佔銷售額的 24.9%，較去年同期的 24.6% 成長。由於員工相關費用減少、客戶博覽會費用增加、車隊更新過程中相關車輛銷售成本上升以及一般保險成本上升，銷售、管理及行政費用總額上升了 3%。

We continue to believe we are effectively spending where we need to spend to support future growth and scrimping where we can scrimp. And that is as growth picks up, we will leverage the P&L. Putting everything together, we reported second quarter 2024 EPS of $0.51, down 2% or $0.52 in the second quarter of 2023.

我們仍然相信，我們在需要花錢的地方有效支出，以支持未來的成長，並在可以節省開支的地方節省開支。隨著成長加速，我們將利用損益表。綜合所有因素，我們公佈 2024 年第二季每股收益為 0.51 美元，比 2023 年第二季下降 2%（即 0.52 美元）。

Now turning to slide 8. We generated $258 million in operating cash in the second quarter of 2024 or 88% of net income. While below the prior period when we were deliberately reducing layers of inventory, the current year's conversion rate is above historical second quarter rates.

現在請看第8張投影片。我們在 2024 年第二季產生了 2.58 億美元的經營現金，佔淨收入的 88%。雖然低於我們之前刻意減少庫存層級的時期，但今年的轉換率高於歷史第二季的轉換率。

With good cash generation in a soft demand environment, we continue to carry a conservatively capitalized balance sheet with debt being 6.3% of total capital, down from 9.4% of total capital at the end of the second quarter of '23.

在需求疲軟的環境下，憑藉良好的現金流，我們繼續保持保守的資本充足率，債務佔總資本的 6.3%，低於 2023 年第二季末的 9.4%。

Working capital dynamics were consistent with recent trends. Accounts receivable were up 2.8%, driven primarily by sales growth and a shift towards larger customers which tend to have longer terms. Inventories were down 3.9%, which continues to reflect primarily the softer marketplace. The reduction of inventory layers built a year ago demands supply constraints and modest inventory deflation.

營運資金動態與近期趨勢一致。應收帳款成長了 2.8%，主要原因是銷售額成長以及轉移到付款期限較長的大客戶群。庫存下降了3.9%，這主要反映了市場疲軟的現況。減少一年前累積的庫存層需要供應限制和適度的庫存通貨緊縮。

While we will continue to focus on continuous improvement as it relates to inventory management, the rate of decline in our inventory balances will likely moderate going forward as the process of rightsizing our stock is now largely complete. Net capital spending in the second quarter of 2024 was $52.6 million, largely flat was $53.9 million in the second quarter of '23.

雖然我們將繼續專注於庫存管理方面的持續改進，但隨著庫存調整過程基本完成，庫存餘額下降的速度可能會放緩。2024 年第二季淨資本支出為 5,260 萬美元，與 2023 年第二季的 5,390 萬美元基本持平。

For the full year, we have increased our anticipated net capital spending to a range of $235 million to $255 million, which is up $10 million from the prior range. We anticipate higher spending for vending devices where our mix of signings has been more heavily weighted towards higher cost and scaled units.

全年預期淨資本支出範圍已上調至 2.35 億美元至 2.55 億美元，比先前的預期範圍增加了 1,000 萬美元。我們預計，在自動販賣機領域，支出將會更高，因為我們簽約的產品組合中，成本較高、規模較大的設備佔比更大。

The projected increase in net capital spending for the full year of 2024 is driven by higher outlays for hub automation and capacity, the substantial completion of an upgraded distribution center in Utah and increase in FMI to spend -- and FMI spend to support increased signings and higher information technology purchases.

預計 2024 年全年淨資本支出增加，主要原因是樞紐自動化和產能方面的支出增加、猶他州升級後的配送中心基本完工以及 FMI 支出增加——FMI 支出用於支持增加的簽約和更高的信息技術採購。

Now before turning to Q&A, I wanted to offer a higher level perspective on the quarter. The market's tough and the various cyclical forces at play are impacting our growth and profitability. That's not something we control. What we do control is our ability to grow share in the marketplace.

在進入問答環節之前，我想先從更高的層面談談本季的情況。市場情勢嚴峻，各種週期性因素正在影響我們的成長和獲利能力。那是我們無法控制的。我們能夠掌控的是我們在市場佔有率成長的能力。

A year ago, we weren't as effective as we believe we could be. Today, it's becoming increasingly clear that the changes we made in leadership approach and focus are favorably impacting our ability to win new customers.

一年前，我們的效率還沒有達到我們所認為的水準。如今，我們越來越清楚地看到，我們在領導方式和重點方面所做的改變，對我們贏得新客戶的能力產生了積極影響。

Progress is not always a straight line, of course, but we believe we will build on the successes we've achieved in the first half of 2024, and that it brightens our short and intermediate-term outlook regardless of the cycle. Of course, we're most excited for what it means for our growth when activity levels among our existing customer base stabilizes.

當然，進步並非總是一帆風順，但我們相信，我們將在 2024 年上半年的成功基礎上繼續前進，並且無論經濟週期如何，這都將提振我們的短期和中期前景。當然，我們最興奮的是，當現有客戶群的活躍度趨於穩定時，這對我們的成長意味著什麼。

Before we turn it over to Q&A, I going to pass it back to Dan.

在進入問答環節之前，我先把問題交還給丹。

Thanks, Holden. And earlier this morning, as you all know, we'll put out our earnings release and just before market opened, we put out a second release. Normally, we would have put that release out after the market closed, but it's a Friday and we didn't want to -- I'm not a politician, I don't bury news into the weekend. I aspire to be a leader and we put news out, good and bad and this is good news.

謝謝你，霍爾頓。如大家所知，今天早上我們發布了獲利報告，就在市場開盤前，我們又發布了第二份報告。通常情況下，我們會在市場收盤後發布新聞稿，但今天是星期五，我們不想——我不是政客，我不會把新聞埋沒在周末。我渴望成為領導者，我們會發布消息，有好消息也有壞消息，而這是個好消息。

I mentioned earlier about the transition that we had with Jeff walks stepping into the Chief Sales Officer role. One thing I've learned from Jeff being in that role, first off, the sales leaders have stepped up. Their game to support Jeff, and that explained the role.

我之前提到過，傑夫沃克斯接任首席銷售官一職，我們經歷了人事變動。我從傑夫擔任這個職位中學到的一點是，首先，銷售領導者們都挺身而出。他們全力支持傑夫，這也解釋了他們的角色。

But of equal importance, maybe more important, everybody else has embraced Jeff and Jeff has embraced them back from the standpoint of he's not a salesperson trying to figure out his way outside of sales. He's a business leader. He always had a great relationship with our finance team, with our HR team, with technology, with supply chain.

但同樣重要，甚至可能更重要的是，其他人都接納了傑夫，而傑夫也接納了他們，因為他不是一個試圖擺脫銷售工作的銷售人員。他是一位商業領袖。他一直與我們的財務團隊、人力資源團隊、技術團隊和供應鏈團隊保持著良好的關係。

But what he did is he took a big step in the last year, year-and-a-half and said, I want to embrace more, and I want to learn more. And he humbled themselves to listen and learn. He challenged some things back, as a result, we're a better organization.

但他在過去一年半的時間裡邁出了一大步，他說：“我想擁抱更多，我想學習更多。”他們謙卑地傾聽和學習。他提出了一些質疑，結果，我們成為了一個更好的組織。

And I'll give you an example of (inaudible) team oversees, our supply chain and distribution. A number of years ago, and we're always doing this. We did a very significant reclass. And what that is as you're deciding what the stock and distribution and we remove some stuff.

我舉個例子來說明（聽不清楚）團隊的海外運作、我們的供應鏈和分銷。幾年前就開始了，而且我們一直都在做這件事。我們進行了一次非常重要的重新分類。而當你決定庫存和分配時，我們會移除一些東西。

And when Tony stepped into that role, we all challenged him, but Jeff continued to challenge them. But we all challenged them about think about supply chain not as what we stock in distribution, a distribution center. Think about supply chain as how we get product to the customer and where we stage it because we'll be a better organization.

當托尼擔任那個角色時，我們都對他提出了質疑，但傑夫繼續挑戰他們。但我們都挑戰他們，讓他們不要把供應鏈僅僅看作是我們在分銷中心儲存的庫存。將供應鏈視為我們如何將產品送到客戶手中以及產品的存放位置，因為這將使我們成為一個更好的組織。

I don't care if our inventory goes up or down in distribution. Holden cares about our total investment, so do our shareholders, but we really care about how to best serve our customer. And Tony went to work on it and again, was challenged by a lot of people. So we're doing actually a do-over reclass, and we're adding about 18,000 SKUs into distribution in the next six months or so.

我不在乎我們的庫存是增加還是減少。霍頓關心我們的總投資，我們的股東也關心，但我們真正關心的是如何最好地服務我們的客戶。於是托尼開始著手這項工作，但再次受到了許多人的質疑。因此，我們實際上正在進行重新分類，在接下來的六個月左右的時間裡，我們將向分銷管道增加約 18,000 個 SKU。

Between now and year-end, we'll probably add around $17 million of inventory to our balance sheet once in place. Some of that will start to burn through. We think that will drop by about a third by March. And we think ultimately 18 months from now, the net impact is zero because we're restaging. We're moving stuff around and we're normalizing the quantity on hand.

從現在到年底，一旦到位，我們的資產負債表上的庫存可能會增加約 1700 萬美元。其中一些會開始燃燒殆盡。我們認為到三月份，這個數字將下降約三分之一。我們認為，從現在起 18 個月後，淨影響將為零，因為我們將重新舉辦。我們正在調整庫存，並使庫存數量恢復正常。

We believe the annual improvement to cost of goods is more than the initial investment in inventory. So that $17 million we think is worth [about $20 million] because when you buy it that way, you're not hurried, you're not scrambling, you buy it more effectively because you can decide where you're sourcing it as opposed to an emergency spend.

我們認為，商品成本的年度改善幅度大於庫存的初始投資。所以我們認為這 1700 萬美元的價值約為 2000 萬美元，因為這樣購買時，你不會感到匆忙，也不會手忙腳亂，你可以更有效地購買，因為你可以選擇從哪裡購買，而不是緊急支出。

From a brand perspective, not only will they have these 18,000 SKUs available, their workload will actually go down. We cut about [3 million] peels a year at the branch and Onsite level. 300,000 of those POs relate to this product. So we'll cut our peal workload by about 10% at the branch and Onsite level and enhance our gross margin and our service to our customer at the same time. We think this is a winner.

從品牌角度來看，他們不僅可以擁有這 18,000 個 SKU，而且他們的工作量實際上還會減少。我們在分店和現場每年切割約 300 萬個果皮。其中 30 萬份採購訂單與此產品相關。因此，我們將把分行和現場的 Peal 工作量減少約 10%，同時提高毛利率和客戶服務水準。我們認為這一定會成功。

When I think about what [Jeff's] doing, couple of years ago, I really sat down with the Board and said, I'm turning 60, November of 2023. You really have to be -- you have to get to know our entire team better. I challenge them to -- we scheduled some field trips. We were doing field trips last several years.

當我想到傑夫正在做的事情時，幾年前，我真的和董事會坐下來談過，我說，我將在 2023 年 11 月年滿 60 歲。你真的需要——你需要更了解我們整個團隊。我向他們發起挑戰──我們安排了一些實地考察。過去幾年我們一直在組織實地考察。

I challenge them to come to our employee Expo in December, our customer show in April and beat our leaders. And I really ask them to get to know Jeff what's better. And we announced this morning that Jeff has been elevated to President of Fastenal. I'm excited for Jeff. I'm more excited for Fastenal because my motivation is simply this. It should be to our motivation is simply this. It a means to grow faster, and I believe Jeff will help that happen.

我向他們發出挑戰，讓他們來參加我們12月的員工博覽會和4月的客戶展，並擊敗我們的領導者。我真的希望他們能更了解傑夫。今天早上我們宣布，傑夫已升任 Fastenal 總裁。我為傑夫感到高興。我對 Fastenal 更感興趣，因為我的動力很簡單。我們的動機其實很簡單。這是實現更快成長的一種途徑，我相信傑夫會幫助實現這一點。

I also I sat down with John Soderberg. I talked earlier about some of the things John has done and his team have done as it relates to Fastenal intelligence about artificial intelligence. And I sat down with John and I said, John, Jeff and I are going to drive you crazy, and I apologize for that.

我還和約翰·索德伯格坐下來談了談。我之前談到了約翰和他的團隊在 Fastenal 人工智慧領域所做的一些事情。我坐下來和約翰談了談，我說：“約翰，傑夫和我可能會把你逼瘋，對此我深感抱歉。”

But we're going to punch you from both sides, and we believe we can move even faster. And so, I'm excited for everything. But Jeff, congratulations. John will try not to be too crazy, and to everybody else supporting Jeff and the organization. Thank you.

但我們將從兩面夾擊你們，而且我們相信我們還能更快。所以，我對一切都感到興奮。但是傑夫，恭喜你。約翰會盡量克制自己，不要太瘋狂，也感謝所有支持傑夫和組織的其他人。謝謝。

With that, we'll turn it over to questions.

接下來，我們將進入問答環節。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Tommy Moll, Stephens.

湯米·莫爾，史蒂芬斯。

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to start with a follow up on the pricing commentary you provided. The deflation in Fastenal has been ongoing for some time and is well known. But the new news today, I believe is in the safety category. So I was just curious if you could give us any context for what you've seen there. And then when you referenced taking steps to be a little more disciplined in the coming quarter? If you could give any insight on that. Thank you.

早上好，感謝您回答我的問題。我想先就您提供的定價評論做一些後續說明。Fastenal的通貨緊縮已經持續了一段時間，這是眾所周知的。但我認為今天的新聞屬於安全領域。所以我很好奇，您能否為我們介紹一下您在那裡看到的情況？然後，您提到將在下一個季度採取措施，讓自己更加自律？如果您能就此提供一些見解就太好了。謝謝。

Yes, yes. And again, bear in mind that I don't think it had a meaningful adverse impact in the second quarter. But we look at trends too. And the reality is our price cost was fairly neutral versus being somewhat positive last quarter. And I think the pricing in the marketplace was a contributor to that. As you indicated, and I'm not overly concerned about the Fastenal side.

是的，是的。再次強調，我認為它在第二季並沒有造成實質的不利影響。但我們也會關注趨勢。而實際情況是，我們的價格成本基本上持平，與上個季度略有上升的情況相比有所改善。我認為市場定價也是造成這種情況的原因之一。正如您所指出的，我並不太擔心 Fastenal 那邊的問題。

Prices down, but service cost and frankly, I think the organization has done a nice job managing those two dynamics in that product line. And the reality is we have a unique value proposition there and that does make it easier, but we also have a unique value proposition in safety. And in light of that, we just -- I just don't think we were disciplined about, how we're thinking about price in a challenging market and the safety world. And then I would say we weren't terribly disciplined in parts of other product categories either.

價格下降了，但服務成本卻上升了。坦白說，我認為該組織在該產品線中很好地管理了這兩種動態。而現實情況是，我們在這方面擁有獨特的價值主張，這確實讓事情變得更容易，但我們在安全方面也擁有獨特的價值主張。有鑑於此，我認為我們在思考如何在充滿挑戰的市場和安全領域中製定價格策略方面，缺乏足夠的自律性。而且我認為，我們在其他產品類別的某些方面也缺乏足夠的紀律。

Now when I think about how we address that, the first step is just to elevate the issue. And then I think Dan and I and Jeff and everybody involved in sales leadership have been raising the awareness as you're pursuing business in a soft market, we need to be fairly mindful of the solutions that we're bringing to the table and what we should be compensated for bringing those solutions to bear. And I think we've done a lot of talking about that and raising that awareness.

現在，當我思考如何解決這個問題時，第一步就是要提高這個問題的關注。然後我認為，我和丹、傑夫以及所有參與銷售領導的人員一直在提高人們的意識，因為在疲軟的市場中開展業務時，我們需要相當注意我們提出的解決方案，以及我們應該因提出這些解決方案而獲得怎樣的補償。我認為我們已經就此進行了很多討論，也提高了人們的這種意識。

But the second thing is to have tools that can provide insights into the field real tangible financial tools. And over the last three, four, five years, we spent a lot of time building and refining those tools learning how to operate those tools and navigate them. And you know, that's intended to provide greater insight into what the market cost for something is, what pricing is, what costing is et cetera.

但第二點是，我們需要一些能夠提供該領域真正切實可行的金融工具的工具。在過去的三年、四年、五年裡，我們花了大量時間來建立和完善這些工具，學習如何操作和使用這些工具。你知道，這樣做的目的是為了更深入地了解某物的市場成本、定價、成本計算等等。

And we use those tools to trying to incentivize behavior among our blue team colleagues. And we're going to use those tools in the third quarter of 2024 due to do exactly that. And so at the end of the day, I think that we need more discipline among our contract sellers and more disciplined in our field personnel and they need to trust the tools because the tools are in great shape and we're just going to we're just going to use the levers that we have at our disposal to take an organization that's more aware of the challenge that this marketplace has given us and respond accordingly.

我們利用這些工具來激勵藍隊同事的行為。我們將在 2024 年第三季使用這些工具來實現這一目標。所以歸根結底，我認為我們需要加強合約銷售人員的紀律性，加強現場人員的紀律性，他們需要信任這些工具，因為這些工具狀態良好，我們只需要利用我們所掌握的資源，讓組織更加意識到這個市場給我們帶來的挑戰，並做出相應的回應。

Thank you, Holden. As a follow-up, I wanted to ask about the nexus between some of the warehousing customers where you've been ramping and the gross margin trends. It sounds like the impact from the warehousing ramps was as planned in Q2 and should ease into Q3. But any other context or any way you can quantify that would be helpful. And then if you've set that against your typical gross margin trends Q2 to Q3 and maybe even into Q4. How does that net out in terms of what you might forecast for this year versus the typical just given some of these new dynamics.

謝謝你，霍爾頓。作為後續問題，我想詢問您一直在擴大規模的一些倉儲客戶與毛利率趨勢之間的聯繫。聽起來，倉儲坡道的影響在第二季度如預期般加劇，並且應該在第三季逐漸減弱。但任何其他背景資訊或任何可以量化的方法都會有所幫助。然後，如果你把這個結果與你典型的第二季到第三季甚至第四季的毛利率趨勢做比較。考慮到這些新的動態因素，你對今年的預測與往年相比會有什麼不同？

Now recall that I had indicated that some of the gross margin trends that were impacting Q2 were going to be largely contained to Q2 and some of those may have bled into July a bit. But for the most part, I think that statement remains true if we remove that dynamic, then I think the gross margin on that process is unremarkable for safety products, frankly.

現在回想一下，我曾指出，影響第二季度的一些毛利率趨勢將主要局限於第二季度，其中一些趨勢可能會延續到七月。但總的來說，我認為如果我們排除這種動態因素，這個說法仍然成立；坦白說，我認為安全產品的毛利率並不突出。

Going forward now, do I think the investments that we've been making and the actions we've been taking puts us on pace to get additional revenue from that customer set in the back half of the year I do, but it shouldn't have an appreciable mix impact on the safety margin as a category. That answer the question.

展望未來，我認為我們一直在進行的投資和採取的行動，將使我們能夠在今年下半年從這群客戶中獲得額外的收入，但我認為這不會對該類別的安全邊際產生明顯的組合影響。這個問題的答案就在這裡。

Yeah. And maybe just to tie it all together, if you think about and this is consolidated results, I'm talking to here your typical progression for gross margins from Q2 to Q3. How would you characterize that typical progression and is there anything this year where there's a noteworthy good guy or a bad guy.

是的。最後，為了把所有內容連結起來，如果你仔細想想，這是綜合結果，我在這裡談論的是從第二季到第三季的典型毛利率成長。您如何描述這種典型的劇情發展過程？今年有沒有出現值得關注的好人或壞人？

Almost feels like a third question, I would tell you that does it just traditional gross margin pattern from Q2 to Q3 for the company. I'm it's typically Q2 and Q3 looks fairly typical or looks fairly similar one another. Relating it back to the question that you originally asked on the warehousing side of the business. I think a lot of that impact that we talked about last quarter, very little of it is going to remain in the gross margin. So I think about seasonality and maybe a touch better than that based on the absence of some of those expenses.

感覺像是第三季，我會告訴你，這是否符合公司從第二季到第三季的傳統毛利率模式。通常情況下，第二季和第三季看起來相當典型，或者說彼此非常相似。這讓我回想起你最初提出的關於公司倉儲方面的問題。我認為我們上個季度討論的許多影響，最終只會對毛利率產生很小的影響。所以我考慮了季節性因素，而且由於沒有這些費用，情況可能比這更好。

Got it. Thank you. Hold, and I'll turn it back yes.

知道了。謝謝。稍等，我這就把它轉回去。

Stephen Volkmann, Jefferies.

Stephen Volkmann，傑富瑞集團。

Hey, good morning, guys. Maybe since we're on a P&L I'll just -- I'll stick with it and go to the next level here. Holden, I think you said maybe Bill said several times there, our real focus on SG&A control and I know that some of the unusual SG&A expenses from the second quarter probably go a trail off. So I'm curious how you're thinking about sort of leverage on SG&A, Holden in the second half?

嘿，大家早安。既然我們已經在做損益表了，那我就堅持下去，爭取更上一層樓。霍爾頓，我想你或許說過比爾也說過好幾次，我們真正關注的是銷售、一般及行政費用控制，我知道第二季度一些不尋常的銷售、一般及行政費用可能會逐漸減少。所以我很好奇，您打算如何在下半年對霍頓公司進行銷售、管理及行政費用的槓桿操作？

You know, as always looking through it, I'm going to dodge the question a little bit because what I've observed is you're going to tell what you're going to build in for our revenue growth. If I look at Q2 and Q3 SG&A historically, as an example, what I find is that when Q3 revenue growth accelerates versus Q2, our SG&A dollars -- are the dollar growth of our SG&A accelerates as well and vice versa, right.

你知道，像往常一樣，我看了看，打算稍微迴避一下這個問題，因為我觀察到，你會告訴我們你將為我們的收入成長制定哪些計劃。以第二季和第三季的銷售、管理及行政費用為例，我發現，當第三季的收入成長速度比第二季加快時，我們的銷售、管理及行政費用——也就是我們的銷售、管理及行政費用的美元增長速度也會加快，反之亦然，對吧。

And so it's hard for me to answer that question without knowing what you're going to build in or what you're going to build in for your revenue growth and we don't have time for that in this. And so I would encourage you to figure out what you do with the revenue line. And traditionally you'll see SG&A growth between Q2 and Q3 kind of tracks that trend.

因此，在不知道你們打算建構什麼或你們打算如何實現收入成長的情況下，我很難回答這個問題，而且我們這次也沒有時間討論這個問題。因此，我建議你們好好想想如何處理這部分收入。通常情況下，你會發現第二季到第三季之間的銷售、一般及行政費用成長與此趨勢大致一致。

Now I do anticipate that will be tighter in Q3 than we were with Q2 with costs that might mitigate that impact to some degree. But the reality is, I know everyone kind of wants to say, well, let's just look at the dollars in a vacuum and what is historically happened, but when 70% to 75% of your SG&A is labor and there's a significant component of your labor that is variable cost.

現在我預計第三季的情況會比第二季更加緊張，但成本可能會在一定程度上緩解這種影響。但現實是，我知道每個人都想說，好吧，讓我們孤立地看待這些錢，看看歷史上發生了什麼，但是當你的銷售、一般及行政費用中有 70% 到 75% 是勞動力成本，而你的勞動力成本中又有很大一部分是可變成本時，情況就不同了。

I can't separate the analysis from the analysis of revenue, and so build in your revenue forecast. Take a look at what historically Q2/Q3 is has played out, make your assumptions. And on top of that, I would argue that we expect to be a little bit tighter on costs than perhaps seasonally we have been in the past, and that's how I'd think about our SG&A trajectory in the next quarter or two.

我無法將分析與收入分析分開，因此請將您的收入預測納入其中。回顧一下歷史上第二季/第三季的情況，做出你的假設。除此之外，我認為我們預計在成本控制方面會比以往季節性情況更加嚴格一些，這就是我對未來一兩個季度銷售、管理及行政費用走勢的看法。

Okay. Fair enough. And since you sort of teed me up on this, in terms of thinking about the revenue trend going forward? Should we read anything into kind of the better cadence of the quarter, you know, May better than April, June better than May. Do you think there's any kind of an inflection happening? Or is it more just that your ability to outgrow is kind of starting to gain some traction? Or is it just kind of the numbers are still small and we shouldn't read too much into it.

好的。很公平。既然你已經向我介紹了這方面的情況，那麼就未來收入趨勢的思考而言呢？我們是否應該從季度節奏的改善中解讀出什麼訊息？例如，5 月比 4 月好，6 月比 5 月好。你認為現在是否存在某種轉捩點？或者說，更確切地說，是你超越自身限制的能力開始逐漸增強了？或者說，只是因為數字還很小，我們不應該過度解讀。

I believe our ability to gain traction has improved. I think some of the underlying statistics I cited are evidence of that I also said in April that we talked about 50 in ISM in March, and that felt kind of good and three weeks later, two weeks later, I was going to likely all that good ended really fast. But it's a noisy fall.

我認為我們獲得市場認可的能力有所提升。我認為我引用的一些基本統計數據證明了這一點。我在四月也說過，我們在三月談到了ISM指數達到50，當時感覺還不錯，但三週後，兩週後，我意識到所有這些好日子可能很快就結束了。但這是一場喧鬧的墜落。

Last I've heard there's a US presidential election and you're like most years, it's kind of a boring event. But I think there's going to be a lot of noise in the market and but some of the stuff, the fed's looking at doing is positive. I don't know that that changes things in the next three to six months. But the fact that there are talking about it is positive.

我上次聽說美國總統大選，和往年一樣，真是一件無聊的事。但我認為市場會有很多波動，不過聯準會正在考慮採取的一些措施是積極的。我不知道這是否會在未來三到六個月內改變現狀。但人們在討論這件事本身就是一件好事。

If you look, if the questions about green shoots, I don't have a lot of green shoots for you on the macro side. Where I do think we're accelerating, though, is on the self-help side, right with the contract signings and the Onsite signings and the FMI signings, the reality is you sign an onsite today. It's not generating revenue tomorrow. There's a period of time it takes for those sorts of things.

如果你仔細觀察，如果問題是關於嫩芽的，那麼在微距攝影方面，我並沒有太多嫩芽可以給你。不過，我認為我們正在加速發展的是自助服務方面，包括合約簽署、現場簽約和 FMI 簽約，事實上，你今天就可以簽署一份現場合約。它明天不會產生收益。這些事情需要一段時間才能完成。

To start, just to start to hit our results, in the first half of 2024, we are feeling the impact of relatively low signings in 2023. I think in the back half of '24, you're going to begin to feel the benefits of the stronger signings in the first half of 2024, whether the FMI whether that be Onsites, whether that be contracts. And so I think we're very encouraged about what we're doing to acquire customers. But I don't have a lot of green shoots at the macro level.

首先，為了在 2024 年上半年取得預期成績，我們感受到了 2023 年簽約人數相對較少的影響。我認為在 2024 年下半年，你會開始感受到 2024 年上半年更強有力的簽約帶來的好處，無論是 FMI、現場考察還是合約。因此，我認為我們對目前獲取客戶所採取的措施感到非常鼓舞。但從宏觀層面來看，我還沒有看到太多正面的跡象。

All right, thank you guys for.

好的，謝謝大家。

Nigel Coe, Wolfe Research.

Nigel Coe，Wolfe Research。

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I want to go back to the price deflation on the safety and other products. I mean, obviously you addressed the question from Tommy, but is this just a function of a more competitive environment, so you're seeing a bit more pressure from competitors maybe because they've got more products with excess inventories or is this just more elective from your RVPs trying to gain share. I mean, obviously, you've been very successful in contract signings, Onsite, et cetera. So I was wondering if this is a bit more offensive or defensive?

謝謝。各位早安。我希望安全用品和其他產品的價格能夠回到通貨緊縮的水平。我的意思是，顯然你已經回答了 Tommy 提出的問題，但這只是競爭環境加劇的結果嗎？所以你感受到來自競爭對手的壓力更大，可能是因為他們有更多庫存過剩的產品，還是這僅僅是你們區域副總裁為了爭取市場份額而採取的更積極的措施？我的意思是，很顯然，你在合約簽署、現場服務等方面都非常成功。所以我想知道，這算是進攻型還是防禦型的？

I don't know that I have a great way to parse that out. We are in the marketplace trying to win business. I don't think that we need to compete on price. We historically haven't competed on price, but the reality is the marketplace is challenging and that introduces different stresses than would be the case when it's not right. And so I can't tell you it's 60 40 one way or the other. I just I don't I'm not in those minds when they're having those conversations, but I don't have any reason to believe that the two things aren't related, to be honest.

我不知道我是否有很好的方法來分析這個問題。我們身處市場，努力贏得業務。我認為我們沒必要在價格上競爭。我們歷來沒有在價格上競爭，但現實情況是市場充滿挑戰，這帶來的壓力與市場不景氣時的情況有所不同。所以我無法告訴你具體是 60 比 40 還是其他什麼比例。我只是……我不了解他們在進行這些對話時的想法，但說實話，我沒有任何理由相信這兩件事沒有關聯。

We are hungry to grow and that influences decisions. Our customers are hungry to save costs that influences decisions. And that isn't necessarily a negative, oftentimes where the source of saving cost and that helps us some of our traction with national consigning. Some of our traction with FMI might be a customer that's a little bit slower right now and they're looking for ways to save costs and where the ticket and we're seeing that in our success.

我們渴望發展，這會影響我們的決策。我們的客戶渴望節省成本，這會影響他們的決策。但這未必是件壞事，很多時候，節省成本的來源正是如此，這有助於我們在全國各地開展寄售業務。我們與 FMI 的一些合作可能源自於一些目前進展稍慢的客戶，他們正在尋找節省成本的方法，而我們的成功也印證了這一點。

So to the degree that part of the question is Fastenal consciously willing to accept lower margins in order to win business?

所以，從這個角度來看，Fastenal 是否為了贏得業務而有意接受較低的利潤率？

I would tell you the answer is no. There's individual decisions being made in the field based on conversations that are being had and judgments that that makes sense that individual in that situation at that time. So there's not a -- we aren't winning business because we said, don't sweat the margin. We think the margin the return on our business is very important.

我會告訴你，答案是否定的。在現場，人們會根據正在進行的對話和判斷做出個人決定，這些決定和判斷對於當時情況下的個人來說是合理的。所以，並不是因為我們說「不要在意利潤率」而導致我們沒有贏得業務。我們認為利潤率，也就是我們業務的報酬率，非常重要。

But you know, there is nonetheless a challenging marketplace and different individuals react differently to that marketplace than I just think that you're getting. Can you some analysis where the nexus between both the market and the conversations with customers?

但你知道，市場依然充滿挑戰，不同的人對市場的反應也與你現在所感受到的不同。您能否分析一下市場與客戶溝通之間的關聯？

Yes. No, that's a great answer. Thanks for that. And my follow-up is on the on-site performance and the material on site looks like mature Onsites sales are maybe down low single digits, and that's around. Obviously, we saw this trend develop last quarter and you made some management changes around that. Just wondering maybe just a bit more detail on what you've seen in these mature Onsites and so pathway to improve performance?

是的。不，這是一個很好的答案。謝謝。我的後續問題是網站表現，網站上的內容看起來已經成熟，網站銷售額可能下降到個位數，大概就是這樣。顯然，我們在上個季度就看到了這種趨勢的發展，你們也針對此做出了一些管理調整。我想了解您在這些成熟的現場培訓計畫中觀察到的情況，以及提高績效的途徑，能否提供更詳細的資訊？

That's production. Dan said it I think in his preamble, right, when you have one customer, the defeat of your business hinges on what the experience of that one customer is and as a business were 75% manufacturing within our onsite world, I bet you it's substantially above that level. And so if there's a manufacturing environment that's challenging.

這就是生產。我想丹在他的前言中說過，對吧，當你只有一個客戶時，你的企業成敗取決於這個客戶的體驗。而我們公司 75% 的產品都是在現場生產的，我敢肯定，我們的體驗遠高於這個水準。因此，如果存在一個具有挑戰性的製造環境。

The Onsites are going to feel that to a greater degree, the Onsites are going to be more heavily oriented towards production. That's why you're seeing our OEM Fastenal grow in the mix, along with Onsites growing in our sales mix and so, I think you have a combination of the impact of macro on that particular customer category combined with the fact that again, it does take a little while for the signings success that we're having today to translate into revenues tomorrow.

現場工作人員會更強烈地感受到這一點，現場工作人員會更加重視生產。這就是為什麼你會看到我們的 OEM 廠商 Fastenal 的業務成長，以及現場服務業務在我們銷售組合中的成長。我認為，這不僅是宏觀經濟對該特定客戶群的影響，也是因為我們今天的簽約成功需要一段時間才能轉化為明天的收入。

So I think you're bearing a disproportionate burden of the macro in the first half of this year doesn't appear in the second half of the macro's going to be a lot better. But I do think that some of the signings that we've enjoyed in the first half were going to begin to grow in that environment. And that side probably characterizes.

所以我認為，今年上半年你承受了不成比例的宏觀經濟負擔，而下半年宏觀經濟狀況似乎不會好轉。但我認為，我們在上半季簽下的一些球員會在這種環境下開始成長。而這一方面可能正是其特徵。

I'll comment on the mature on-site. I'll just throw a little nugget, and that is our Eastern and Western United States business units have been separate business units since 2007 a year ago. We pulled them together back into one and Casey Miller overseas that $6 billion business in the US. Casey was a regional vice president in the Kentucky Tennessee area originally from Kentucky lives in Nashville now.

我會就成熟的現場情況發表評論。我只想透露一個小訊息，那就是我們位於美國東部和西部的業務部門自 2007 年起就一直是獨立的業務部門。我們把它們重新整合為一個整體，凱西米勒負責管理美國價值 60 億美元的業務。Casey 曾是肯塔基州和田納西州地區的區域副總裁，他原籍肯塔基州，現在住在納許維爾。

And our Casey's business and by extension Eastern US, which he led for the last eight years, is great at customer acquisition, great at it. One observation you made as you've gotten into the Western business unit because the Western business unit wasn't as great at customer acquisition, but they were great at maturing and farming those relationships.

我們凱西的業務，以及他過去八年領導的美國東部地區，在客戶獲取方面非常出色，真的非常出色。你進入西部業務部門後觀察到的一點是，西部業務部門在客戶獲取方面不太出色，但他們非常擅長培養和維護這些關係。

And so the one benefit of combining the US into one business unit, I think the Eastern Western halves of our business, you can really learn a lot from each other. And I think that's a positive and a win for our customers, our employees, and our shareholders.

因此，我認為將美國業務合併為一個業務部門的一個好處是，我們業務的東部和西部兩部分可以從彼此身上學到很多東西。我認為這對我們的客戶、員工和股東來說都是好事，都是雙贏。

Great. Thanks, Dan.

偉大的。謝謝你，丹。

Thank you.

謝謝。

David Manthey, Baird.

David Manthey，Baird。

Good morning and congratulations to Jeff on the new title. Just one question this morning. I'd like to zoom out and maybe ask you about some secular factors here. Could you refresh us and how you think about outgrowth versus industrial production and your contribution margin expectations. Here I'm thinking not about the next year, but long term over the cycle? Thanks.

早安，恭喜傑夫榮升新職。今天早上只有一個問題。我想把視角拉遠，問你一些世俗因素方面的問題。能否請您簡單介紹一下您如何看待自產自銷與工業化生產之間的關係，以及您對邊際貢獻的預期？我這裡考慮的不是明年，而是整個週期的長期影響。謝謝。

I would say historically, I'll say recent history last decade or so, we have typically found that our outgrowth against industrial production has been in the 5 percentage-point to 6 percentage-point range. One of the reasons that we have made -- that we made, the changes that we made 12, 15, 18 months ago was because, frankly, we had slipped in that regard and it's probably been running in the 3% to 4% range, which is below what we are typically accustomed to.

從歷史角度來看，尤其是最近十年左右的歷史，我們發現，我們的經濟成長率通常比工業生產高出 5 到 6 個百分點。我們做出改變的原因之一——坦白說，我們在 12、15、18 個月前做出的改變——是因為我們在這一點上有所下滑，而且可能一直維持在 3% 到 4% 的範圍內，低於我們通常習慣的水平。

The changes that we've made, we're very confident will move us back to that 5% to 6% range. But quite frankly, I think our objective over time and look we have to prove to everybody that we can do this. But I think our objective over time is increase that five to six or something greater than that. Because we think that the value we bring to the market warrants or the ability to grow faster.

我們非常有信心，我們所做的這些改變將使我們重回 5% 到 6% 的區間。但坦白說，我認為隨著時間的推移，我們的目標和願景是，我們必須向所有人證明我們能夠做到這一點。但我認為，隨著時間的推移，我們的目標是將這個數字增加到五到六，甚至更多。因為我們認為我們為市場帶來的價值值得我們擁有更快的成長速度。

And so what you're seeing in terms of the changes in personnel, the changes in approaches. It's really just the first step to kind of correcting something that maybe we weren't doing as well a year and a half ago. And then we're going to build on that. And I think from a secular standpoint, we'd like to do better than that 5% to 6%, you know, in excess of IP in future from a incremental margin standpoint, a contribution margin standpoint, I think we've always said 21%, 22% type operating margin is the business that's where we think we can operate effectively, while still growing and significantly and gaining market share.

所以，你現在看到的是人員變動和方法的改變。這其實只是糾正我們一年半前可能做得不夠好的地方的第一步。然後我們將以此為基礎繼續發展。從長遠來看，我們希望未來能做得更好，超過 5% 到 6%，你知道，從增量利潤率和貢獻利潤率的角度來看，我們一直認為 21% 到 22% 的營業利潤率是我們認為能夠有效運營，同時還能顯著增長並獲得市場份額的業務水平。

And in this environment of 2% growth, we've given up some of that margin. But I do believe that as the business gets better when the business gets better, I think we still have the capacity to leverage the P&L and return to that 21%, 22% range.

在目前2%的成長環境下，我們已經放棄了一部分利潤空間。但我相信，隨著業務好轉，我們仍然有能力利用損益表，恢復到 21%、22% 的水平。

Appreciate it all. And thanks for the update.

非常感謝。謝謝你的更新。

Thanks, Dave.

謝謝你，戴夫。

Ryan Merkel, William Blair.

瑞安·默克爾，威廉·布萊爾。

Hey, guys. Thanks. Thanks for taking the question. I just have one as well, and it's on the macro. So can you just level set us on the macro? Is it fair that the industrial economy has just slowed sort of slightly versus 1Q or is it more pronounced? That's the first part of the question. And then I'm hearing that it could stay a little weak until after the election. I know that's crystal ball stuff, but what do you think about that?

嘿，夥計們。謝謝。感謝您回答這個問題。我也有一個，它在宏裡。所以你能直接在宏裡給我們設定一下等級嗎？工業經濟成長與第一季相比只是略微放緩，這種說法公平嗎？還是說放緩的幅度比較大？這是問題的第一部分。然後我又聽說，這種情況可能會持續疲軟到選舉之後。我知道這有點像是預言未來，但你對此有什麼看法？

I will say that in terms of regional feedback, I've probably got a few more comments about extended shutdowns, layoffs, things like that. It doesn't feel to me that the overall level of activity has changed. It does feel to me like our customers have decided to some extent, throw in the towel on the near term and make some adjustments to their cost structures in light of what has been a fairly lengthy downturn.

我想說的是，就地區回饋而言，我可能還有一些關於延長停工、裁員之類的意見。我感覺整體活動量並沒有改變。我覺得我們的客戶在某種程度上已經決定放棄短期內的抗爭，並鑑於經濟低迷期已經相當長的時間，對他們的成本結構進行了一些調整。

So I don't feel like the floor has fallen any further, but I feel like customers are saying this could last longer than we expected and making cost adjustments to react to it. That's how I'd probably characterize it.

所以我感覺市場底線並沒有進一步下降，但我感覺客戶們表示這種情況可能會持續比我們預期的更長的時間，並且正在做出成本調整以應對這種情況。我大概會這樣形容它。

In terms of the crystal ball, I don't know. It's I don't have a good answer for you. I'm afraid, as you know, we don't have a lot of forward visibility. You know that and I'm going to choose not to express an opinion about the elections. Dan, can feel free to. I'm not touching that one with a ten foot.

至於水晶球能預測什麼，我不知道。我沒有好的答案給你。恐怕正如您所知，我們對前方情況的了解並不多。你知道這一點，所以我選擇不對選舉發表意見。丹，請隨意。我連十英尺的距離都不會碰它。

Yeah, I get that. I was just sort of hearing that from some of the feedback and was just curious. Yes, RVPs, we're hearing that. Yes. I can tell you that Lowe's is from the election, I think his history.

是的，我明白了。我從一些回饋中聽過類似的說法，所以我很好奇。是的，區域副總裁們，我們都聽到了。是的。我可以告訴你，Lowe's 與選舉有關，我認為是他的過往經驗。

I can tell you that people say it goes up. And yes, I can tell you, Ryan, that we are getting a lot of feedback from the regionals that people are holding their powder until something gets resolved on the election, I'll leave it to the listeners to determine how much they think that is true, not true valid, not valid impact will not impact.

我可以告訴你，人們都說它會上漲。是的，瑞恩，我可以告訴你，我們從地區代表那裡得到很多回饋，人們都在觀望，直到選舉結果出來為止。至於這種說法有多少真實性、有多少有效性、有多少無效性、有多少影響、有多少不會產生影響，就留給聽眾自己判斷吧。

No, I meant the election, but I won't because of the 10 political, I suspect there aren't too many customers out. There are players in the market that are expecting anything to wrap up for you. And so I think it will be fairly subdued reputation for predicting things. So I thought maybe you are good at that. But no, I can't predict that.

不，我指的是選舉，但我不會去，因為有10個政治人物，我懷疑外面不會有很多顧客。市場上有一些玩家希望任何事情都能對你有利。所以我認為它在預測方面的聲譽會相當低調。所以我認為你可能很擅長這件事。但是，我無法預測。

Somebody's going to win the elections I suspect.

我懷疑有人會贏得選舉。

Well, thanks, guys. I appreciate the color.

謝謝大家。我喜歡這個顏色。

It is the performance on the hour. Again, thank you for joining us on the call today. I want to extend to Jeff, his wife, Susan, and there are two children. Congratulations on the new role that new opportunity. And thanks, everybody. Have a good day.

這是整點開始的演出。再次感謝您今天參加我們的電話會議。我想把祝福送給傑夫、他的妻子蘇珊，他們有兩個孩子。恭喜你獲得新的職位和新的機會。謝謝大家。祝你有美好的一天。

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.

謝謝。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。現在您可以斷開線路，享受一天剩餘的時間了。