Projects

Since Alliance Minerals’ beginnings, we have engaged in the specialized and demanding work of providing stone and cut to size project.  The first such project, The Astronaut Memorial, was, and is, both massive and distinctive. We have acted as stone supplier on a variety of projects, but we primarily provide cut-to-size pieces for installation by others. We have also taken responsibility for engineering, shop drawings, tickets, fabrication, and engaging the best professionals in the industry to assist us in being responsive to customer needs.

The array of projects presented here represent some of the typical uses for our stone, hospitals, office buildings, residences, retail offices, work by sculpture artists and charitable organizations. These are just a few of the many ways stone from Alliance Minerals has been put to use.

For all projects, we bring together a team to cover the typical questions from conceptual design to installation.

Supplying the stone for a cut-to-size project is not a simple endeavor. It calls on a combination of experience in stone’s natural characteristics, expertise in quarrying and sourcing stone, knowledge of installation, a detailed quality control process, and the infrastructure needed to move across the world. Alliance Minerals has years of experience in supplying its cut-to-size products to both residential and commercial projects.

Quarrying:

Alliance Minerals owns quarries and directly sources blocks from other quarries, so we can always get the best price for the materials. Besides cost of materials, Alliance Minerals controls for quality issues and the availability of the materials, so that our customers can feel confident of the stone quality and quantity for the entire project.

Sourcing:

When Alliance Minerals needs to source stone products from another supplier for a cut-to-size project, it always sources directly from the supplier who owns their own quarries or has a relationship with the owners. Together we decide who has the best quality control system and experience in producing cut-to-size stone for the project, as well as the best customer service to follow through with the project. Alliance Minerals employees come from a wide variety of cultural, language, and experience backgrounds. This diversity allows us to provide straight-forward and accurate communication to explain the details of the project layout, shop drawings, shop tickets and take the ideas from paper to front line fabrication workers. This communication is the key to safeguarding the quality and accuracy of each piece of cut-to-size stone for each project.

Fabrication Quality Control:

For commercial projects, a single piece of stone can involve many details: surface finishes, edge details, quarter miter, kerf, continuous kerf, anchor holes, etc. This level of detail would render normal quality control measures insufficient without detail minded people and strict quality control procedures enforced every step of the way. During the fabrication process, our mission, while infinitely more complicated, is also straightforward. How do we execute the specifications on the shop drawings and shop tickets to each single piece of stone, making sure every piece can be installed onsite without further re-touching? In short, how do we make the plans a reality? For Alliance Minerals the answer is three-fold. We use high-tech machines, operated by our highly trained and skilled employees, along with a quality control system tailored specifically for cut-to-size projects. The latter two points are key.  Our experience has taught us that the right people, with the right skills, can control most of problems that can arise during the fabrication process of cut-to-size stone.

Packing and Handling:

For cut-to-size products each package/crate needs more attention than a tile crate or slab bundle. Once the stone has reached the finish stage, it becomes more fragile. A kerf can easily be broken by a minor collision; and the stone surface can be easily stained by outside impact (oil, water stain, etc). As a result, when we pack cut-to-size finished product, we make sure proper packing material is used. Two of the measures taken to ensure the safety of the stone are, using plastic packing material to protect the stone from water damage and humidity and  using a foam cushion to prevent damage from collision and shaking. We have received the feedback from our customers that they have never seen the packing of the stone is so clean and thorough. Shipping and Handling: Time is the essence. In the world of commercial projects, timing is always critical to finish the project in a timely manner. On the supplier side, to deliver the product within the set time frame is a challenge. For years, we have established a very good shipping management system to handle the stone product, through air, sea and land. Through this system we have been able to deliver the product to the customer’s hand on time.

Teamwork:

Supplying cut-to-size stone could never be an isolated task for the supplier. Even when the testing data sounds good to meet the needs of the project, the way to fabricate each piece of stone is another thing because of the nature of the stone. Alliance Minerals employees experienced “stone people” who have knowledge and experience in installation and fabrication. A prober talk might need to convey suggestions to the designer, engineer and installer in order to make stone “work” on the project. Sometimes an adjustment of the specifications of the stone is needed, depending on different stones and different situations. Above and beyond knowing the stone, we work with local fabricators. This way if a problem, like breakage, should arise we have back up to supply additional stone and solve the problem. Our customers have praised us as  the only company who has delivered every single piece of stone for the project. We attribute these results to our teamwork and the mindset that we never walk away until the job is done.