From tile installations to reputable one-stop-shop, Renaissance Marble and Granite of Urbandale, Iowa, continues to charge forward, despite industry slowdowns, through its commitment to technology and teamwork.

Renaissance Marble and Granite was started in 1997 in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, by Pat Fisher, president. Within a couple months of the opening of the business, Pat’s brother, Jim Fisher, and sister, Chris Fisher, came onboard the new business venture. The business was primarily distributing, contracting and installing tile in the beginning, while also trying to recapture a part of the natural stone market that was becoming more popular at the time.

“After awhile we found that with the fabrication and all the tile, it spread us a little too thin,” said Pat Fisher. “We went in the direction we thought was going to give us the best future. At that time it was the granite fabrication. Once it took off, it just kept getting bigger and bigger for us. I think we made the right choice.”

After four years of being located in downtown Des Moines, Fisher decided the suburbs of Des Moines would be better suitable to grow the business to the next level. In 2001 Renaissance opened the doors to its newly relocated shop just outside of Des Moines in Urbandale, Iowa. The current facility is 23,000 sq. ft. situated on 4.25 acres of land. The move placed Renaissance closer to its product’s actual consumers, thus increasing the shop’s retail traffic.

“The original facility consisted of 8,000 sq. ft. and we were using every bit of that,” said Pat. “The move created an opportunity to expand the physical plant. We built the building on 4.25 acres, which gave us room for increased growth, and the rest is history.”

I THINK I CAN, I KNOW I CAN

The company has not only increased its physical presence since opening its doors in 1997, the family-owned business has also grown from three employees to more than 50 today, and the range of available products also continues to grow for Renaissance.

“I think at the time there was just an overall Renaissance in the granite industry,” said Pat in describing the shop’s original growth spurt. “Everybody getting into business at that time was experiencing significant growth.”

As business was growing, the shop tried to stay a step ahead of the rest in adding and upgrading the newest technologies with the idea of making the shop as efficient as possible. The shop also diversified its business dealings, working with consumers directly, builders, other fabrication facilities and eventually landing a number of national accounts.

“When the housing market slumped, we were still big in remodel work; we had commercial work and we had some national accounts,” said Pat about the recent events in the housing market, and the general slowdown in the industry. “We haven’t seen a noticeable drop-off in what we do even though the new housing starts are down in our area.”

In continuing to push forward, a personal philosophy of the business, Renaissance Marble and Granite currently offers granite, marble, engineered stone, onyx, travertine, limestone, slate and soapstone, and plans to add solid surface to its extensive list of choices this year.

“I think most business owners understand that you constantly have to move forward, and the minute you start to stand still is the day you start to go backward,” said Pat about adding solid surface to the shop’s lineup. “As we do more and more commercial work, we’re just trying to give the owners and general contractors more convenience and comfort by offering other products. It’s not a big stretch from what we presently do. All the way from the estimating through the fabrication process — it ties in, so it’s not like we’re reinventing something.”

THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY

Staying on top of technology has given Renaissance a reputation for being the place to go to in Des Moines when you want countertops. Part of that comes from being able to turn around a project, from template to install, in as little as three days.

“Our real opportunity came when we started to embrace technology,” said Pat. “Technology in the form of CNC machines and waterjet cutting is all built around AutoCAD, and since adding those technologies, we’ve been moving in the direction of uniting the various systems under an AutoCAD umbrella.”

Fisher views technology as one of the leading reasons for Renaissance’s success in the market. “We were employing technologies that, at the time, were leading,” he said. “We were purchasing equipment to fabricate granite when most of our competition were still doing things by hand. As we were making moves, our competition was attempting to make the same kinds of moves — we had just done it at a faster rate and with a lot more commitment.”

From the beginning the shop had purchased straight-line edge polishers. When the shop and production outgrew those first polishers, the jump was made to sawing systems and line polishers. After that, CNC equipment was added to the mix and began the shop’s move to a more automated process. Since the addition of CNC equipment, sawing systems and waterjet technology have become integral in the shop’s automated fabrication processes. Most recently, the shop has begun to utilize laser templating, which reduces the jobs into just one necessary file to work with.

The shop efficiencies now? According to Fisher, “it’s huge.”

The technology and machinery allows for the shop to guarantee the overall quality of its products. “With out discounting the skill of the fabricators, what this technology affords is the consistency of the product,” explained Fisher.

One thing that the shop can more easily provide for its consumers is an upgrade on edges. “We actually offer any edge,” said Joe Grant, shop manager. “If they want a custom edge, we can do any edge that a customer requests. We have diamond [tooling] suppliers that can make any profile we request, so we can do any edge that anyone wants.”

“The granite industry has gotten somewhat homogenized with its edges,” added Fisher. “Everyone offers some type of flat, bullnose or ogee, but we still view ourselves not unlike a woodworking shop, where we can do just about any edge that people can think of. That’s a combination of both machine work and hand work.”

The shop has also recently purchased a water reclamation unit from Water Treatment Technologies, a filter press which has greatly reduced the cost of water said Fisher, and will begin utilizing new project management software this year, Global Stone Pro.

“The business software will be a priority this year,” explained Fisher. “Inventory control is certainly going to be right up there. We’re at that stage where the problem is not the time that it takes to produce something. It’s everything in between. What will it take to get the slab to the saw? What will it take to get that cut project to the CNC and then over to hand fabrication? It’s these aspects of efficiency that we’re concentrating on now with the software.”

In the future, Renaissance will most likely be looking at adding another waterjet and keeping an eye out for what the various manufacturers bring to the marketplace. A lot of the systems the shop is expecting to consider in the near future will most likely fall in line with duplication of machinery already in the shop, rather than advancement in machinery. Also on the agenda for future purchases is an air filtration system.

“We’re very conscious of what the working conditions are like and the impact of what the stone industry has on the environment,” said Fisher. “This year, we’re taking a look at the overall air quality and we’re starting to address that. For 2008, that is at the front end of our want list.”

CREATING A PRESENCE

While technological advancements in the shop have been a huge factor in Renaissance’s business success, technology outside of the shop has begun a larger and more vital role in generating business.
Aug. 6, 1991, marked the beginning of public access to the World Wide Web and the effects of the Internet since then have been enormous. An ongoing project for Renaissance has been the development of the shop’s own Web presence.

“The Web site is something that we dabbled in over time,” said Fisher, who attributes the most recent site development successes to Nick Nystrom, project manager. “We initially got involved in the Web site because everyone else has a Web site, but because Nick is involved with this, it’s helping us to realize some of our visions and then to act on those ideas.”

For Renaissance, Web site development is a priority as an ongoing project. “In trying to employ a Web site in the past, we’ve used different companies that specialize in Web development, but nothing ever really clicked until Nick started working with it,” explained Fisher. “Nick’s done all the photography. He’s pretty much responsible for all of it.”

The site, www.renaissancemarbleandgranite.com, currently offers access to the company’s stone selection as well as provides information on the shop’s processes and procedures. The Web site also provides customers with the ability to receive an online quote, among other features.

TEAM EFFORT

As the shop continues to promote the growth and development of technology, the company is also pursuing a separate business venture in the distribution arena. Because of the amount of fabrication the shop does daily, going through an average of 75 slabs of stone per week and producing roughly 120 projects a month ranging from basic kitchen installations to fabricated projects that ship nationwide, the shop is purchasing quite a bit of product.

“We were buying from local suppliers or regional suppliers, and while there are some fine suppliers out there, I was finding that some of the material we were buying at times just wasn’t meeting our quality standards,” explained Jim Fisher, general manager. “In trying to stay competitive, I started purchasing materials from India and Brazil, as well as a lot of materials that we use on a daily basis. That purchasing has grown and the materials that we were receiving, in our estimation, were better than what we were buying in supply houses. It was just a natural progression.”

While moving into the area of distributing, the shop was concerned about being perceived as a threat to other competition. “We’re in the process of putting together a company to distribute, which might be looked upon as competition to some of the fellow fabricators, but I think we can show them value and a quality of product and service that this area has been looking for,” added Jim. “I do think we can get a niche out there and get both the engineered stone product and the granite slabs to other fabricators.”

From a distributor standpoint, Renaissance has spent a lot of time working with the smaller shops rather than competing with them, wanting to provide options and service to the other shops to promote their businesses and help the industry as a whole to succeed.

“Our hope and my vision is that this new venture will not be threatening,” explained Jim. “I’m selling in areas that really aren’t cross-over markets, and we have some things that we can offer a fabricator in regard to our capacity of production.

“If another shop is backed up and it doesn’t have the capacity to produce a larger number of projects, we could cut those projects for it and the shop can still install the projects, maintaining its customer base,” Jim continued. “In situations where we might cut slabs, a project might be a slab and a half job, and where they’re forced to buy two slabs from a normal distributor, we’ll cut that slab here at no additional cost for them and that will put $200 to $300 back in their pocket so they don’t have a lot of waste. We see that as being a value to these fabricators, especially for the smaller shop when things could be tight. Then, we have the very extensive remnant yard. If they don’t need a full slab and we have a remnant, we’ll sell that at a discounted price. We’re not here to take their business. We’re here to grow their business, because as they grow, we will grow.”

CLAIM TO FAME

Renaissance Marble and Granite has had the vision to grow and commitment to continuing that growth from day one, for itself and the industry as a whole. Jim describes this success in terms of access: “When we started the business, at least in our area, granite was for the wealthy. But with our technology and what we’ve done here, I think we have made granite a staple item for new construction in our market, which has afforded a lot more granite fabricators to be out there, because the industry has grown since we’ve been doing this. We have made it so more people have access to this kind of product, and I am proud of that. I would think that would be our biggest claim to fame.”

Renaissance Marble and Granite can be reached at 4124 NW Urbandale Drive, Urbandale, IA 50322; 515-276-4260 or information@renaissancemarbleandgranite.com.

Assistant Editor Marci Presser can be reached at marci@surfacefabrication.com