A year and a half in the making, Ryerson Inc.'s restructuring is positioning the company to focus locally—a focus that will help the Chicago-based metals distributor and processor drive to fill its geographic holes, according to company executives, although that's only one piece of the multi-point growth plan.

Ryerson went "from a highly centralized to a far more decentralized organization" as the company implements its growth strategy, Stephen Makarewicz, Ryerson's chief executive officer, said in an interview with AMM.

"All the purchasing and credit activities were run out of Chicago, (but now) the company functions better decentralized in terms of touching customers and suppliers. We wanted to increase the local activity. We wanted the credit people to understand the credit profiles of local customers and work with them more...