Fine Line Pacific, Kent, Wash.

November 6, 2007

And as well they should have, as they’d been competitors for nearly 15 years and had seen mountains of change in the solid-surface countertop business over the years.
During that time, both companies had grown considerably both in reputation and in profitability, becoming two of the premier shops in the region: one specializing in residential work, the other commercial.
But, as is the case with most smart mergers, the entity that resulted quickly proved to be far more than just the sum of its parts. And it turned out that Moore and Risinger were even more successful as partners than they were as competitors.
Shortly after the merger, the newly named Fine Line Pacific moved its solid-surface shop into a 25,000 ft² facility in Renton, Wash., which also included the company’s offices and a large showroom space.
And, observing the growing popularity of granite and quartz materials on the part of new home builders and contractors in the area, Fine Line Pacific quickly flexed its newfound muscle by opening an additional 16,000 ft² natural stone and quartz-surface facility in nearby Seattle.
In the years that followed, Fine Line Pacific saw continued growth in each of the three segments of its business, eventually producing nearly equal numbers of natural stone, quartz-surface and solid-surface countertops.
That sustained growth quickly caused the company to outpace even the combined capabilities of its 40,000-plus square feet of working space, however, and in the spring of 2006, the company and its employees celebrated the grand opening of a massive new 110,000 ft² facility in Kent, Wash.
The company today also operates two smaller satellite locations, in Spokane, Wash. and Portland, Ore. which are doing much the same work, but allowing for local customers in those areas to get some hands-on experience.
The Spokane location consists of a 15,000 ft² facility, while the Portland location is a 26,000 ft² space. These new digs, and especially the Kent, Wash., location – which house a new showroom, the company’s complete stock of materials, and a sparkling lineup of new high-powered equipment from CMS/Brembana – are already helping to put even more distance between Fine Line Pacific and their competitors, according to Risinger and his son, Nick, who currently serves as the company’s director of marketing.

NEW FACILITY, NEW BUSINESS
Fine Line Pacific currently produces about 85 percent of its countertops for residential customers, including dealers, home centers, builders and contractors; and another 15 percent of its work through its commercial division, which produces countertops for industrial buildings, health-care facilities and military bases, among others. Between all three locations, Fine Line Pacific now keeps 250 employees busy.
Combined, the company’s divisions now produce nearly 40 kitchens per day. Not bad, especially considering that today’s rate is four times what it was during the time period immediately after the merger, almost seven years ago.
This growth, adds Tom Risinger, is due to a multitude of factors, not the least of which is an ongoing commitment to utilizing digital technology whenever possible.
“One of the biggest reasons we’ve grown the way we have over the past few years is because we’ve just tried to become more and more digital the entire time, regardless of whether that was related to the equipment and production, or even just processing paperwork,” he says. “That’s really the key to our efficiency: the whole system is digital.”
That means record-keeping, order processing and other vital administrative tasks are all done electronically to whatever extent possible. And in today’s stone industry, having a completely digital system means having plenty of tech-heavy production equipment as well.
For Fine Line Pacific, that includes the company’s five CMS/Brembana Maxima CNC machines, which operate at the flagship location, and three more identical CNC machines operating at the Spokane and Portland locations. An additional CMS/Brembana Maxima CNC and CMS/Brembana Sprint bridge saw are currently en route to the Kent facility.
“In this business, you really need to have big equipment to grow quickly,” Tom Risinger says.
Other heavy movers during recent years have included a CMS/Brembana Antea 750 CNC automatic bridge saw, a Marmo Meccanica bridge saw, and a Marmo Meccanica LCV flat edge polishing machine for creating backsplashes.
But for Fine Line Pacific, the term high-tech and its underlying concept doesn’t just apply to CNC machines and office software, it also applies to the behemoth new facility itself.
The facility has at least one feature that would easily make it the envy of fabrication shops almost everywhere, according to Nick: a set of six overhead cranes that served the metal-goods fabrication business that previously occupied the building. Two cranes can lift 22 tons each, and the other four can handle 15 tons each.
“It’s obviously pretty unique for a fabricator to have that capability in material handling,” says Nick Risinger. “Not many people have that type of equipment, and it benefits us both in terms of efficiency and safety. The cranes allow us to drive the trucks into the building, unload them, and drive right back out.”
With the increased efficiency created through the digital production system, combined with the overhead cranes and the added space in the new facility, the company is now able to keep a staggering amount of raw material in stock.
Nick Risinger estimates that about 25 percent of the 110,000-plus ft² main facility is used to stock a substantial range of natural stone (primarily a selection of 3-cm granite, branded as Artisan Stone CollectionTM, but also small amounts of travertine and marble) that Fine Line Pacific sources by the container, as well as quartz surfacing (Cambria® and DuPont Zodiac®), and solid-surface product (DuPont Corian®.)
Tom Risinger says that the new facility allows the company to stock anything that sells, and that the product mix now changes freely when one product experiences more interest than others.
In natural stone, for instance, the company stocks almost exclusively granite because it’s currently popular, but it has the capability to add other types of stone at any moment.
“We do a fair bit of new construction, and [granite] is all that those guys want and that’s what sells the fastest,” he says. “We can and will stock anything that sells, but that’s what sells today.”
In addition to material storage, the new facility also provides the company with a sprawling 5,000 ft² showroom, complete with model kitchens and a quartz pallet wall. Most notably, the showroom also showcases full slabs of all of the ArtisanTM natural stone colors that are in-stock, providing one more eye-catching feature for customers.

IN FLUX
While some growing companies might shy away from being referred to as a factory because of the negative connotations associated with the quality of mass-produced goods, Tom Risinger knows he has nothing to fear from the label.
“I think we’re all right with being referred to as a factory,” he says. “Even though we produce a lot, we do it at a higher quality level as well. By using CNC machines and doing everything digitally the way we do, we end up with a more-consistent and nicer countertop than you would get in most cases if you did it by hand in a small shop, so we don’t really mind the term itself.”
And in a greater stone industry that often appears to be shifting towards a two-tiered system of large factories and small mom-and-pop operations (with fewer and fewer mid-ranged shops in between), he’s comfortable in his belief that growth, if done correctly, can be a win-win situation for all parties involved.
It’s only natural for efficiency and economies of scale to prevail, he says.
“I think it comes down to a normal development in the industry,” he says. “What it takes in order to grow in the stone business is big equipment. It’s pretty much that simple. Equipment allows you to be more efficient, which allows you to grow. That is going to cause mid-level companies to grow into large ones.
“But,” he continues, “you can always produce a countertop in someone’s driveway, too, so there will always be operations like that for people who want to go that way. That’s just a natural development in the business.”
And he notes that other factors come into play that affect growth as well, including safety regulations.
“When people have very small shops, they go under the radar as far as all the safety aspects of the industry,” he says. “When you’re a mid-sized shop or larger, they come to visit you. You have to do it right to succeed past that middle point, and that’s an important concern for our industry.”
But regardless of why a company grows, what is more important is how a company grows, and how that affects the quality of the finished product, he says.
And Tom Risinger feels confident that Fine Line Pacific is growing with all of these important values in mind, and the results—all 40 kitchens per day of them—are plain to see.
Jake Rishavy is a Denver-based freelance writer in the industrial graphic arts market.