INTRODUCTION OF STONE INDUSTRY:The stone industry (marbles, granite, red stone, white stone, green stone etc...

) in India has been flourishing ever since ages, which has made India the fourth largest producer of in the world after Belgium, France and Greece. Stones which are mainly made of different molecules for different stones by compression of carbon oxides, carbon carbonate, gypsum and sulfer. The Indian stone industry is not only confined at production or supply of the stone but export of highly acclaimed stones such as blocks, flooring, calibrated (ready to fix tiles), monuments, slabs, structural slabs, tomb stones, cobbles, cubes, sculptures, artifacts, pebbles, kerbs, and landscape garden stones has also been its important part. The distribution and logistics in stone industry plays a very important because the raw material are not easily available at one place, in reference to ACME company, For the raw material which they take sometimes from the suppliers who own the farm of stones in the city where they carried out the stones from gang Shaw and all. Sometimes they get it directly from the gang Shaw owners and sometimes from the mines owners. So transportation which becomes the very hectic job for them. Even some times it becomes very difficult for them to get the appropriate demanded raw materials because many different types of stones are there and then size, colour, pattern and quality also matters a lot. They usually import the stones from Rajasthan only and in Rajasthan few specific places are there where stones are taken from mines which are alwar, kota, Dholpur, Ajmer, kishangarh, Dungarpur, Udaipur, chittorgarh etc.

MARBLE HOUSE
ACME STONES AND MARBLES

INTRODUCTION
Acme stones and marbles is a small company which is running from past 25 to 30 years. This company is comprises of 12 permanent workers where one accountant, one supervisor and one manager and sometimes outsource the workers from outside as per

the extra work requirement on daily wages. This company is having an annual supply of 12-15 thousand square feet of marbles worth Rs.1.5 crore. They operate their work through computer numetic control machine which cuts the stones according to predetermined instructions given by the instructor and also they carried some handicraft work which all mainly done by skilled workers by their hand. The machine gives the whole information about mapping where we can develop the map for the desire cutting, we can fix the time and can see that how much stone is already have cut in how much time, when you cut a marble. The supply chain in Acme stones is following:-

Mine owners

Gang shaw

Suppliers

Acme stones
Pricing of product
For pricing of product they do not follow any proper costing. But they generally follow the process of process costing. They add the total cost and decide the cost of product. Their costs are:Raw material + labor + Transportation + Wastage= Total cost.

The normal losses they transfers on customer but in case of high abnormal loss, the company have to bear it because in most cases the price of the product is fixed earlier and the company have to supply the product to the customer on predetermined price.

Labor force
The company has its 12 permanent workers and they hire more temporary workers according to the workload. The temporary workers are easily available. The wages of permanent workers is on fixed rate system and for temporary workers they follow both piece rate system and hour rate system. Works which require less skills like-cutting of marbles, they follows piece rate system and the works which require more skills like designing, they follow hour rate system. They were not having any incentive kind of system so they were not rewarding anything to their workers. Due to the power failure, shortage of the raw material they usually pay the full wages to their workers in case of temporary workers where they work on hour rate system.

Inventory
The company generally keeps one week of inventory with them. They dont have any proper store for keeping of raw material. But they classify the product according to their value and maintain it according to its value, like they keep the inventory of mosaic marbles separately from other general marbles because ultimately its all depend on the demand of the products and here the demand for any product is not fixed as the products are used mainly for the decoration purpose so its not fixed that what kind of raw material will be required to fulfill the particular demand, its all depend on the customers because company is not producing similar kind of product. For this instantly they have to supply the raw material from suppliers. They keep the low inventory to cut down the cost of inventory and the marbles are also easily available (except some). Even it is small organization where they do not have to produce in bulk so they do not have to keep inventory in bulk. They transport the raw material as per their requirement.

Technology
Acme Stones Company is having the advanced technology in their manufacturing unit. They are having two computer numetic control machine where in these machine they are able to fix the map for desired product. By the help of computer operating, time can be set and also it can show that how much stone has cut while cutting the stone. So to do these all work you no need to put the skilled and unskilled labour to perform the job. But here they just need a person to operate the machine so likewise they were able to cut down their cost.

Location
The location is very good for them as many gang shaw and other marbles firms were there so for general material could be easily available for them as they do not have to run far away. By this they are able to reduce their cost cutting as they do not have to pay more transportation cost and also for searching cost. They are doing their business over there from many years so they are having the good contacts with gang shaw owners and other marble firms owner so they are able to get the raw materials on credit and can pay the amount later on to them.

Government interruption:There is lot of interruption from the government side and due to this organizations have to bear extra costs. Its happens in the stone industry that due to the cutting of marbles, there is high exploration of marble dust particles which are very dangerous to environment and thus government closed down the mines and sometimes its happens that due to the some law norms government close the mines which is producing unique quality of stones. In that case organization has to go for other places and its leads to the high costing for the firm. Sometimes government also dont allow the transportation and catch the vehicles which are taking the raw materials, this leads to

the high gap in procuring and producing of finished goods and sometimes in cancelling of orders, and also lead to the high transportation cost because in this time the owners of vehicles start asking for high transportation cost. And thus these all things lead to the high costs to the firm. Udaipur, chittorgarh etc. So they always have to keep hunting to go in those places in search of marbles as well as other stones.

Challenges faced by stone industry

The marble is calcium carbonate and cutting of marble is very harmful for environment. So there is a lots of government intervention which creates hurdles in operating business in stone industry. The availability of raw material is varies, some of the raw material are easily available and some of are rarely available. As marble is a natural product the manufacturers cant do anything regarding increasing the availability. The price of marbles varies according to their size, as big the marble is the price is high. But the marbles of large sizes are rarely available. In stone industry there is not standardization and not any fixed standard norms. So sometimes they found it difficult in distributing the cost and deciding the cost of the product.

Suggestions
If any standard norms should fixed in this industry then it should be easier to control the operations. A unique outlet should be opened with the help of businessmens carry business in stone industry, where all types of marbles are easily available. The government has to reduce its intervention in stone industry so that it can grow up. If the channel members are reduced then the profits can be maximized and the products are available at a lower cost. The government has to invest in this industry so that more opportunities will create and more investors should attract towards this sector which leads to development of this sector.