Business View Magazine Jan-2019

60 Larry explains,“The way the company is set up, AGCOmanufactures our cast polymer products, our cultured marble, cultured granite, cultured onyx, and it also produces a line of solid surfac- ing materials for a few national brands we do contract manufacturing for.The AGCO side is a true manufacturer.We blend together resins, catalysts, fillers, and pigments to build a coun- tertop, or bathtub, or shower pan, or just a sheet of material that can be re-processed into other products.The Craftmark side of our business is fabrication and processing on natural stone, quartz, and solid surfacing materials similar to what we build.We have about 150 to 160 em- ployees in manufacturing and fabrication; we’re pretty slim on the administration side and we don’t have a very large sales force,which is un- usual for a company that produces as diverse a product line and as much quantity as we do.We have order takers, not really salespeople.” There are no stock units. Every part produced, whether a bath vanity top or kitchen counter- top is built to someone’s specifications, and 98 percent are custom; the only exception: a small amount of standard-size manufactured shower pans and bathtubs.Automation of the manu- facturing operations is a key focus.The stone division–Craftmark–uses CNCmachines and CNC-controlled cutting equipment and polishing equipment. In addition, the marble processing and manufacturing operation has continuous casing machines that blend materials. Being set up as an assembly line manufacturing plant, even custom parts all move through the process in the same location and the same manner. “Competition here is pretty strong,”Larry ad- mits,“but we’ve set ourselves apart in that there are a lot of people doing what we do, but only a handful that can handle the volume we handle. We’ve become a large volume producer of materials.The large national builders that build thousands of homes a year in this area need