Honda of America has presented its Power Transmission Supplier of the Year award to Applied Industrial Technologies. Honda bestows its award to suppliers who excel in the areas of service, quality, cost, delivery, management philosophy and achieving overall end user customer satisfaction. This is the first year the company gave the award to its MRO partners.

Motion Industries has named Sherry Dyar to the position of supplier diversity manager. Dyar will serve as a liaison between minority-owned businesses and Motion Industries by introducing potential suppliers to various opportunities within the company. Motion Industries is an active member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, and is committed to including qualified minority suppliers in its channel.

Hughes Supply has completed the acquisition of Ram Pipe and Supply, a distributor of plumbing and water and sewer products serving the Yuma, Ariz., area. Orlando, Fla.-based Hughes Supply is a diversified wholesale distributor of construction, repair and maintenance products, with more than 500 locations in 40 states.

The Power Transmission Distributors Association holds its 2005 industry summit on Oct. 18-20 at Bally's Las Vegas. Sessions include a North American Economic Forecast. For information, please go to www.ptda.org.

How does your MRO sourcing operation measure up? For PURCHASING magazine's newest book, MRO Purchasing Best Practices, the editors interviewed MRO buyers who have deployed sourcing strategies at their companies considered by their peers to be world-class. The book has stories on MRO buying operations at Tropicana, Cessna, Xerox, Sony, Boeing, Bayer, Saturn and other companies. It also has stories on industrial distribution, integrated supply, e-procurement and purchasing cards. Go to Purchasing's Book Store at www.purchasing.com.