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We train all of our customers who purchase a mold and equipment package and provide them with the guidance and ongoing support necessary to produce excellent quality products and operate a successful factory. Operating a marble factory without proper training is like hiking in the wilderness without a compass. To operate a cultured marble factory, it requires Molds, Equipment, Raw Materials, and most important, Training. You can have the best equipment, molds and raw materials that the industry has to offer but if you don’t know how to use them, what good are they? If you are not well trained, not only is the quality of your products going to suffer but your material and labor costs are going to soar and your profits will end up in the trash can.
When you come in for training after purchasing your mold package, you will learn the basic principles of working with polyester resins. Resins, like a cat, seem to have a mind of their own. You can’t train them to do what you want them to do, but instead you have to know how they’re going to act and work with them accordingly. We’ll also be working with weights & dimensions, and how to use the molds and equipment to manufacture marble, onyx, granite, solid surface, spray granite, solid colors, textures, light weight marble, inlays and the other formulas and techniques that you can see on the Formulas page. “You don’t know what you don’t know until you finally know it”, so be prepared for a busy week when you are in for training since we will be covering a lot of territory in one short week. My time is yours during this week of training. The more you can learn during this week the easier everything will be when you go home and start producing your first cultured marble products.
Being the training director for Tiffany Marble for fourteen years, I learned that if I skipped something or ran out of time and wasn’t able to cover a certain segment, that would be the topic I received questions on later. I have a training schedule that I try to adhere to so during your week of training, we will cover as much as can be crammed into one week. I write every formula and many techniques on a chalk board, and I always encourage everybody to take notes. If I find it important enough to write on the board, you should find it important enough to write it down in your notes as well. If you write it in your own words you will be more likely to remember it and you’ll have the notes to refer to later. You’re also welcome to take photos or video. I don’t know anybody in the industry who has conducted training classes continuously for so many years, and over the years I learned to use some techniques to simplify the process and maximize the trainees comprehension. But even so, one can’t expect to retain 100% so your notes, photos, videos, and the training manual will all help you later when are home in your own factory.
I realized after the first few training classes at Tiffany Marble that each class is unique. When it comes to training, I'm as practical as possible and I strive to produce as many things (formulas, techniques, etc.) as possible during training. At the same time, I always move at a pace that allows everybody in the class to understand exactly what we are doing before moving on to the next chapter. Throughout the years at Tiffany Marble, and since, one complaint I sometimes received from the trainees is that they don’t get to do as much ‘hands-on’ work as they would have liked. I always allow as much ‘hands-on’ as we have time for, but if we are running a little behind, I have found that it’s better to allow a little less ‘hands-on’ and move on to what's more important. I have fouond that learning all the formulas and techniques that require some demonstration are more important which I think you will realize later when you start producing products in your own factory. Calculating and seeing the formula and techniques being produced will be more beneficial than your repeatedly waxing the molds or pouring matrix on the mold.
Of course it’s important to learn all the basic formulas such as cultured marble, onyx, granite, spray granite, inlay type of appearances, textured flooring, decorative picture inlays, densified solid surface, tortoise shell, various finishes, etc. It will also be very beneficial for you training in a working marble factory. This way, even though we are not doing their production work that will end up in their customers hands, you’ll get to observe the day-to-day operation in a working factory and see all the various products being poured to the customers specifications. You will get to see them pour some larger pieces such as double bowl vanity tops, shower pans, and shower surrounds and other products that you are going to be producing in your own factory. It’s a good experience to see a wide variety of products being produced, and you’ll also get to experience the interaction with customers that will be coming and going to place their orders or pick up products.
Since molds are your biggest investment, I will be discussing molds throughout the week. I will be pointing out the types, styles, sizes and the products they produce. Near the end of training, we will go through your list of molds item-by-item and discuss each mold in detail. I won’t simply sell you a package of molds and send you on your way. I will be working with you closely to make sure that you are going to end up with molds that you are going to use everyday and that will give you the best return on your investment. You can see some of the mold packages that I have put together on the Mold Packages page. These are good examples but every geographical area may require a different set of molds. We’ll want to discuss your market and what you want to produce and change your mold package to meet local requirements.
Additional In-Factory Training:
Training in a newly established factory after it is set up is a huge advantage to the new manufacturer and something you may want to consider after setting up your factory. Going to the new manufacturers factory allows me to train each employee in their own specific areas, using their own equipment, their own molds, in their own surroundings and using the raw materials they will be working with every day. To have someone come in for this sort of in-factory training will cut the learning curve down tremendously. A picture is worth a million words but seeing it performed in realtime is priceless.
As I mentioned in the Introduction, the first factory I visited after leaving Tiffany Marble was Mr. Faromika’s factory near Lagos, Nigeria. Between the time I initially trained him at Tiffany Marble till the time I traveled to his factory, over 16 months had lapsed. While he was waiting on the molds, he had built a new building and had installed a factory full of equipment including the roller track conveyor lines, set up lines, buffing line, spray booth, grinding booth, and a gel coat spray system. If you want to learn more about equipment, you can refer to the Equipment page. You can also read this article, http://searchwarp.com/swa25128.htm, which outlines the benefits of adding equipment to your cultured marble factory and how it will pay for itself in a short period of time.
I was in Lagos for a month (yikes!) which gave us ample time to train each employee in their respective positions. We set up and organized each area, and I trained the designated person for their area to perform their tasks with maximum efficiency. The setup crew became proficient in setup, learning all the principles and little tricks and shortcuts to set up customers orders correctly. When you’re setting up the molds, you have to start thinking ‘upside down & backwards’ since the finished products are manufactured upside down. (This comes naturally to some people) They learned the foolproof way of determining right from left, forward to aft, preventing costly manufacturing errors. They learned how to set up floating bowls, using the various divider bars, assembling two-part molds, working with radius, and all the little tricks to make the job more simple, faster, and without error.
The gel coating crew learned how to use their new gel coat spray system efficiently, getting a properly catalyzed layer of gel coat uniformly sprayed over the mold and at the proper thickness. They learned the techniques required to spray granite and make the spray granite inlay effect, as well as the art decorative inlays.
I taught the mixing crew how to determine the proper weights for each part and how to calculate and mix the formulas for mixing cultured marble, onyx, granite, solid surface, etc. We also experienced how temperature and the quantity of catalyst affect the gel times with each formula, and how to achieve the recommended gel times. They learned about the various types of resins for the various formulas and some basic chemistry about polyester resin and how they react with the different fillers they use for the different formulations, and how they too affect gel times.
The two that were doing the pouring learned the different veining and pouring techniques, veining by hand, veining in the blender, making a tortoise shell style of veining, pouring granite over gel coat, solid surface granite, creating granite and picture inlayed designs, and some tips on what kinds of veining look best for various parts and with different materials. We started pouring simple single bowl vanity tops and ended with pouring double bowl vanities, bathtubs, shower pans, wall paneling, and making a huge conference/training table top, all of which ended up in their showroom to proudly show both their skills and their products.
Last but not least, training has to include detailing (buffing/grinding/polishing), so I trained the detailing personnel everything there was to know to make a near perfect finished product ready to send out the door to the customer. They also learned ‘mold repair’ and ‘mold maintenance’, since it was in their interest to have the best part possible product come off the mold in good shape rather than wasting their time sanding and buffing.
With the equipment installed, it only took seven workers in the factory to effectively run the operation, and we cross trained employees in every section of production. By doing this, the place didn’t come to a screeching halt for the day if someone was absent.
If you’re employing sales people for your organization, it’s very beneficial to have them attend the training session as well. It allows them to become familiar with all the products and formulations and they can better understand which products are most suitable for the customers, which products best suit your manufacturing capabilities, and which products are most profitable for the company.
In-factory training shouldn’t only include training inside the factory. It is great to have the opportunity to visit a couple of construction sites with those who will be working in sales promoting your products. They will learn what the contractors’ requirements are and you can see first-hand the interaction between me and the contractor and how to answer the contractors questions. In the construction trade, there are always places where you have to improvise, so on a job site I am able to show a few examples of this. With a couple of short visits to job sites, you can gain a huge lesson in marketing your quality cultured marble products. You can learn how to take measurements, bid a job, and working the job through the factory manufacturing process. We can also touch on Using Templates, which you can read more about on the Blog on this website.
What a customer is looking for is a dependable, professional company who can supply a beautiful and affordable product, and as the manufacturer, we’re looking for customers to sell our excellent quality products to, for a profit. Though general contractors will probably be your biggest customers, other potential customers include plumbing related contractors, tile contractors (they’ll love your shower pans), plumbing supply stores, kitchen and bath boutiques to name a few. Don’t overlook selling retail, direct to the public. This is where your biggest mark-up is. Putting the effort into building a showroom will more pay for itself many times over. You may eventually consider establishing a retail bath and kitchen retail store and offer other bath and kitchen related items such as shower surround enclosures, faucets, etc.
It's very important that you establish a smooth flow in your factory to continually increase your production. It can be easy to overwhelm a new factory with too much work. You might find it easier to get more jobs than your factory can handle in the beginning so you’ll want to be careful. But, regardless how busy you get, don’t sacrifice quality. If you always produce excellent quality products and dependable service, your customers will come back again and again, but if you start sacrificing quality due to a bigger workload than you are prepared to handle, word gets out and a bad reputation is hard to reverse.
There will be a learning curve to get your factory up to speed but with good training and proper discipline in your factory, you can shorten this learning period tremendously which will increase your daily production. If you’re working on a 10-day delivery time, then you ‘have’ to deliver in 10 days because the contractor will have the plumber scheduled to follow up behind you on the 11th day, the mirror & glass contractor is scheduled on the 12th, the painting contractor on the 13th day, etc. If you know you’re nearing a 12 day delivery schedule, tell them it will take twelve days. You don’t need a bunch of screaming customers calling you up because you’re late on deliveries. Pay close attention to delivery times. Your credibility and your business will depend on it.
In trading commodities, it’s not only how many successful trades you make that is important, but also what your gains are on each trade. The same applies to your marble sales. Some of your products will be more profitable than others, and some markets (custom vs tract) will be more profitable than others. It makes sense, especially in the beginning, to concentrate on those projects which may be easier and result in higher gains. You may find that there are some projects you’re not ready to tackle. That’s fine. You can start out by simply producing tubs, pans, surrounds and sinks, and work your way into some of the more difficult installations.
Every factory I have visited and trained has been a different experience and each one has had a few of their own glitches to overcome but the desired end result is always the same. Every cultured marble factory wants to manufacture excellent quality cultured products in the most efficient way possible, minimizing waste and increasing profits. If you see bad habits creeping up in the factory, correct them immediately. The longer bad habits are left unchecked the more ingrained those bad habits become. The longer they are left to use those bad habits the harder it is to undo them and get them on the right path. Several factories who bought molds and were trained elsewhere have contacted me in recent months. They had been struggling and were debating on whether to invest in additional training. My opinion is to ‘do it’ and get the show on the road. They later realized that trying to save a dollar ended up costing a lot more in the long run. Stop the chaos and the waste, and put the dollars in your pocket that would otherwise end up in the dumpster in the months and years to come.
Cultured Marble has been around for about a half century. In the early stages, cultured marble was a pretty crude mixture of polyester resin and crushed limestone with a catalyst thrown in to make it get hard. Today, it is a huge industry and its not simply cultured marble sinks any more. You can now make cultured onyx, granite, solid surface, etc., and by mixing these raw materials in different variations, can make up to a dozen or more different formulations and techniques, and the selection of molds available today is incredible.
The resin, filler and other raw material suppliers have to be credited for the success of this cast polymer industry. Even though 25% of the cultured marble matrix mix is resin, I give the resin 95% of the credit for making a good product. Simply put, if you don’t have a good resin, you’re not going to produce good quality products. There are several good resin companies that cater to the cultured stone industry and they have formulated resins for specific applications like cultured marble, onyx, granite, spray granite, solid surface densified, flexible marble products, etc. There are some gel coats on the market today that are superb as well. Just like with any job, you need to use the proper tool (resin) to do the job.
In the past year, I have tested more resins from overseas resin suppliers than I had in all my previous years in the business. I have found that some of them to be less than par, some pathetic, but at the same time I’ve found some really good sources for resins worldwide. But, don’t expect your local hometown resin supplier that produces resin for fiberglass or paint products to have a resin for your purpose. Some may be willing to formulate a resin for you but I’ve found that more times than not, getting your local resin manufacturer to formulate and manufacture a good quality resin for your purpose is no small feat. At least in the beginning, you’re not going to be using enough volume to make it worth their while to manufacture a resin for you. Regardless, a good quality resin is available to you, but it’s just a matter of finding the closest source.
More and more of the factory employees I have trained have their own e-mail address so that makes it easy for them to e-mail me their questions directly. This saves them and the factory owner a lot of time, and by their asking me the their questions directly. By answering them directly assures them the question is getting addressed correctly. I also stress to the employees that if they come up with some little trick, technique, or time saving tip, to let me know so I can pass it along to others. It’s all a constant learning process, and the more we stay on top of the latest trends, tricks, and raw materials, the more profitable it will be for all of us.
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