The Timken Company (Canton, Ohio) has added its industrial e-business storefront to the PTPlace.com storefronts operated by partners SKF, INA and Rockwell/Dodge.

The four companies formed CoLinx LLC several months ago in order to build an online marketplace for selected industrial products.

PTPlace.com had been established by Rockwell Automation and had previously been Rockwell Automation's Power Transmission group storefront. PTPlace.com was re-launched on April 30 as the e-commerce site for industrial bearings and accessory products offered by the four partners.

The group also acquired SKF's captured-audience vendor storefront management portal, endorsia.com.

PTPlace.com is open to all visitors. However, only current authorized distributors for INA, Rockwell Automation, SKF or Timken are invited to fill out applications for approval to execute transactions online. Each company's particular PTPlace.com storefront is separate and autonomous, so distributors will need to file separate applications for each company's storefront they wish to use.

Non-affiliated companies interested in using PTPlace.com should be aware that it is designed primarily to support each manufacturer's existing industrial distributors. As such, the storefronts are part-number oriented, currently carrying very little application information or dimensional specifications. Previous users under Rockwell Automation will find PTPlace.com still works very much the same way it did for Dodge industrial bearings.