The Marble Institute of America's (MIA) 2014 Fabricator Benchmarking Survey is now available.

Sponsored by Cosentino NA, Kohler Co. and Tenax USA. The survey boasted 212 participants with 40% of those also completing the 2013 survey. Participation in the survey was available for free to all fabricators in North America and the resulting report allows fabrication companies to compare their firm with firms of similar size. 

MIA has used the data derived from the survey, both the current year and prior year, along with additional industry statistics, to create a one-of-a-kind web portal that contains statistical data, design trends, housing information and more.

While the survey questions were posed to fabricators, the report offers relevant information for suppliers and international companies seeking information about the North American market. The report also highlights key differences between fabricators operating manual versus automated production facilities.

"I was truly amazed to see the variety within the stone industry—from small shops with one or two employees and no showroom, to larger operations with 80 employees and 10,000 square feet showrooms," said Stephanie Guilfoyle, who facilitated the survey for MIA.

According to Guilfoyle, new to the survey this year are: sales, payroll, purchasing broken out by metropolitan area; Internet trends; spending on natural stone as a percentage of all stone and as a percentage of sales and ranking of natural and quartz purchases by geographic region.

“From the additional data collected on region and metropolitan areas, we were able to develop the analysis so that companies could compare their results with results of same size companies in the same region, or in the same size metropolitan area. It makes the results much more useful for the fabricators," said Mike Loflin, MIA's industry research and information manager.

The results of this study, along with several other key industry trends/reports, are posted by MIA’s Industry Research and Information Department on MIA’s online industry statistics web portal.

For more information, visit marble-institute.com.