Rexnord and Zurn: What a Procurement Pro Learned When Two Brands Became Two Companies

The comparison nobody explains until you've already made the mistake

If you've ever inherited a parts list—a real one, with dog-eared pages and handwriting in the margins—you've probably seen both names on the same line item. Rexnord. Zurn. Sometimes written as "Rexnord/Zurn" like they're interchangeable. They're not. But until 2021, they kind of were.

I manage purchasing for a mid-sized plant operation—roughly $250K annually across 12 industrial vendors, reporting to both the plant manager and finance. For the first couple of years in this role, I treated Rexnord and Zurn as one thing, because for most practical purposes, they were. One corporate umbrella. One customer service line. One invoice from the same distributor.

Then they split, and a lot of small procurement habits stopped working. This isn't a "Rexnord vs Zurn, pick a winner" piece. It's a buyer's comparison: what these two brands make, how the 2021 separation changed the day-to-day of ordering, and what you should verify before you spend a dollar on either one.

What each brand actually makes

The fast version:

• Rexnord (now Regal Rexnord) — power transmission. Couplings, industrial roller chain, conveyor components, mounted bearings, gear drives. The stuff that moves heavy things in industrial plants.
• Zurn (now Zurn Elkay Water Solutions) — water management. Backflow preventers, pressure-reducing valves, floor drains, drinking fountains, bottle fillers. The stuff that carries or conserves water in buildings.

Why does this confuse people? Because for years, one sales rep could quote you both. Our 2018 maintenance binder had a section for "Rexnord" that included gear couplings and commercial drain valves back-to-back. Same PO, same payment terms, same phone number to call if something didn't show up.

Now they're separate companies. A coupling half goes through Regal Rexnord's distribution network. A Zurn backflow preventer goes through Zurn Elkay's channels. The only real similarity is the surname—and the fact that most people's records still haven't caught up with the split.

What actually changed: the invisible cost of a corporate separation

Here's the part I didn't expect: the products didn't change at all. The administration changed completely.

Invoicing. Payment terms. Warranty claims. Technical support. Product documentation. All of it now routes through separate systems. What I mean is, the administrative overhead we used to handle in a single phone call now spans multiple phone calls, multiple portals, and multiple patches of genuinely confusing follow-up emails.

Concrete example: we had a Zurn drinking fountain in our break room that needed a replacement valve. In 2019, I'd have called the legacy Rexnord/Zurn customer service line and it would've been sorted in one call. In 2024, I called that number, got redirected, then found out our usual distributor—who was authorized for Regal Rexnord lines—had to pass the Zurn order to a different channel. That took about a week. A drinking fountain valve. One week.

The invoicing issue cost us even more time. After the split, two purchase orders we placed through a multi-line distributor came back with different entity names on the invoices: one Regal Rexnord, one Zurn Elkay. Per the company's October 2021 separation announcements, those were now two distinct public companies. But our accounting system still had them as a single vendor, and it took about six hours of cumulative work to untangle the matching errors.

The surprise wasn't a price difference between the two brands. It was how much the corporate structure—the legal entity, the distributor carve-outs, the invoice routing—mattered to our day-to-day purchasing.

The verification habit that saved us

I told you I learned some of this the hard way. Here's the story:

In 2022, I found what looked like the same coupling we'd always ordered—same part number, same drawing reference—from a distributor offering a price about $200 lower than our usual source. We were mid-maintenance-cycle, the plant manager wanted costs down, and I wanted to be the person who found the savings.

So I skipped the verification step. I didn't check the part number against the current Rexnord catalog. The part arrived two days late—we'd opted for ground shipping to save $80, which felt smart at the time—and it didn't fit. The bore was right. The keyway was right. The hub face profile was different. Turns out our legacy part number had been superseded, and the distributor cross-referenced it to the closest current equivalent without telling us.

Five days of downtime, a rush machining job, expedited freight, and a very uncomfortable conversation with the plant manager. Total cost: about $850 on top of the original order. The $200 "savings" turned into a net loss of more than a thousand dollars when you count the labor. The 'budget vendor' choice looked smart until we saw the fit. Net loss: more than we'd saved.

Since then, I run a short checklist before any order that references a legacy part number:

1. Check the live catalog. Not the PDF from 2019. The current manufacturer's online catalog. Part numbers get superseded quietly.
2. Confirm the brand lineage. If the part predates October 2021, it might be Rexnord, might be Zurn, might be discontinued. When unsure, send the spec sheet to both current manufacturers.
3. Verify distributor authorization. "We stock Rexnord" is not the same as "we're an authorized Regal Rexnord distributor for this product line." Ask specifically.
4. Get warranty and return terms before payment. Not after. The return policy that exists before you buy is a very different document from the one that exists after you need to return something.
5. Confirm who to call if it doesn't fit. Get a name. Confirm the routing before you need it, not while the line is down.

Why do I do this? Because 5 minutes of verification beats 5 days of correction. I know that sounds like a slogan—or rather, it sounds like the kind of slogan a manager would put on a poster. But I've got the write-off in the budget spreadsheet to prove it.

Five minutes of verification beats five days of correction. More often than not.

So glad I started taking screenshots of every part number page before ordering. Almost didn't, and we'd have had zero record of what we actually installed when the catalogs updated a month later.

Which one should you actually buy from?

Here's the practical answer, with the caveat that I'm a buyer, not an engineer:

• Buy from Rexnord / Regal Rexnord when you're replacing or specifying power transmission components: couplings, roller chain, conveyor components, mounted bearings, gear drives.
• Buy from Zurn Elkay when you're replacing or specifying water products: backflow preventers, valves, drains, drinking fountains, water coolers.
• Buy from a multi-line distributor when you have recurring orders and they're explicitly authorized for both lines. Some are. Just get it in writing—I've had verbal assurances that didn't survive contact with an invoice.

Don't hold me to the exact percentage, but I'd estimate that roughly 3 in 10 legacy part numbers in our system needed re-verification after the split. Probably lower if you bought exclusively from one product line, but our plant bought both couplings and plumbing parts, so we ended up on both sides of the divide.

A few things I'd tell anyone taking over this kind of purchasing role:

• Update your vendor master file now. Separate Rexnord/Regal Rexnord and Zurn Elkay into distinct vendors before the split causes an invoice mismatch—not after.
• Take screenshots or PDFs of the part number pages you reference. They'll change, and you'll want to know what you actually ordered, not what the catalog says now.
• When in doubt, ask both companies. A spec sheet sent to both costs an hour. The wrong part costs days.

The bottom line

Rexnord and Zurn share a name and a history up to 2021. They don't share a catalog, a warranty department, an invoicing system, or a distributor network anymore.

In the years since the split, the biggest procurement risk I've noticed isn't product quality or price. It's assumptions. Assumptions that the part number is current. Assumptions that the distributor covers both lines. Assumptions that the invoice will route the way it did two years ago.

Skipping a five-minute verification to save a little time is how you end up with a five-day correction. The checklist I created after the 2022 coupling mistake has saved us an estimated $8,000 in potential rework—maybe more, maybe less, I'd have to go through the change logs. Either way, it's the cheapest insurance I've ever implemented.

Rexnord and Zurn won't show up on the same purchase order anymore. That's fine. Just make sure you know which one you're actually buying from.