Brown and Sharpe (North Kingston, RI) has received the Competitive Strategy Award from Frost and Sullivan, a marketing consulting and training firm. Brown and Sharpe received the award in recognition of its flexible distribution network of third-party distributors and a direct sales force. The award recognizes the flexible system as one that opens a multichannel approach to selling and keeping overhead costs to a minimum. The award also recognizes Brown and Sharpe's analysis of its manufacturing processes that allowed the company to reduce assembly time for coordinate measuring machines. In some cases, the number of components has been reduced as well. The strategy has resulted in reductions in time-to-market for products and an overall reduction in manufacturing costs.