The Story Behind StoneEx

StoneEx did not begin as a software startup.

It grew from a working stone business and a simple question: how can technology make the work easier, more organized and more reliable?

The roots of that idea go back to 2004, when we began building our first automation tools. An engineering background in mechanical and electrical systems naturally influenced the approach. If something could be calculated, organized or transferred automatically, there was little reason to keep doing it manually.

The first tools were modest by today’s standards. A local application helped calculate countertop projects. Scheduling moved online soon afterward.

But those early experiments established an idea that has remained at the center of everything that followed:

Information should follow the work.

A measurement made in the field should not have to be recreated in the office. A decision made during estimating should remain connected to production. Drawings, schedules, materials, customer decisions and field activity should not become separate islands of information as a project moves through the company.

Built Inside a Real Business

Over the following years, those ideas were tested and developed inside an operating stone company.

The experience eventually ranged from a small shop with relatively simple equipment to digital templating, CNC fabrication, automated production, project management, scheduling, installation and field operations.

That experience matters because the system was never based solely on a theoretical picture of how a stone company should work.

It grew from seeing what actually happens when an estimate becomes a contract, a contract becomes a job, a measurement becomes a drawing, and a drawing eventually becomes a finished piece of material that has to arrive at the right jobsite with the right crew.

It also grew from seeing where that process breaks down.

Information gets duplicated. Details disappear between departments. Schedules change. Drawings are revised. Photographs, emails, measurements and customer decisions end up in different places. Experienced people compensate with phone calls, spreadsheets, memory and judgment.

That can work remarkably well.

It is much harder to scale.

AGM System

By 2014, years of individual automation tools and operating experience had developed into AGM System, our first complete cloud-based operating system.

It was built around the real workflow of Absolute GM and continued evolving through daily use.

Over time, AGM System became increasingly capable and mobile. It connected office operations with production and field work and demonstrated that many traditionally separate parts of a stone business could operate as one connected information system.

By around 2020, however, another lesson had become clear.

The concept worked extremely well, but the architecture had grown organically around one company. Turning it into a product capable of serving many different businesses would have required rebuilding much of it.

The idea had proven itself.

The technology needed another generation.

A Different Technology Moment

For years, rebuilding a system of this scope would have required development resources and investment that were difficult to justify.

Then the technology changed.

Cloud infrastructure matured. Mobile devices became everyday business tools. Software development became faster and more modular. And artificial intelligence began changing both what software could do and how quickly sophisticated systems could be created.

Problems that once required large development teams and long development cycles could suddenly be approached differently.

That made it possible to return to an old idea without being constrained by the old architecture.

StoneEx System is the next generation of that work.

StoneEx carries forward what was learned through years of quoting, templating, fabrication, scheduling, installation and field operations, but rebuilds those lessons as a modern platform intended for the broader stone industry.

The objective is not simply to replace paper with screens.

It is to connect the business.

A drawing can become part of a quote. A quote can become a job. The job can carry its drawings, files, materials and customer decisions forward. Scheduling can connect the office with the field. Production information can remain attached to the project that created it.

Information can follow the work.

Where AI Fits

Artificial intelligence opens another boundary.

We do not see AI simply as another chat window added to business software. Its greater potential is operational.

AI can help interpret information, organize communication, recognize what requires attention and assist people in making decisions.

As fabrication becomes increasingly digital, that intelligence can eventually reach farther into the production cycle as well.

The digital chain can already extend from field measurements to drawings and from drawings to CNC equipment. Over time, the distinction between business information and production information will continue to narrow.

With appropriate permissions and human control, intelligent software can do more than record what has already happened.

It can help determine what needs to happen next.

Built From Both Sides of the Industry

StoneEx reflects experience from very different stages of the same industry.

It includes the reality of a small shop where every hour, every slab and every mistake matters. It also includes experience with automated fabrication, CNC equipment, digital templating and more complex production.

It includes the office and the shop floor.

And it includes the field — templaters, installers, drivers and other people who need useful information while standing at a customer’s home or construction site rather than behind a desk.

That is why StoneEx is not being built simply as office management software.

The goal is to connect the people and information involved in actually getting the work done.

Growing Together

We also know how difficult it can be to maintain and grow a business in this industry.

Equipment is expensive. Materials are expensive. Skilled labor is difficult to find. Mistakes are expensive. And smaller companies increasingly have to provide the speed, organization and customer experience expected from much larger organizations.

Technology should help close that gap.

For that reason, StoneEx includes free tools and will continue to use promotions that give businesses access to capabilities they might otherwise postpone or never try.

A small company should be able to start with what it needs today and add more sophisticated capabilities as it grows.

There is also a simple principle behind that strategy:

If our customers become stronger, StoneEx becomes stronger with them.

We believe those interests can reinforce each other.

What Comes Next

StoneEx is not intended to be a finished answer to an industry that continues to change.

Machines will change. Materials will change. The way customers interact with businesses will change. Artificial intelligence will change what software itself can do.

StoneEx will change with them.

But the idea behind the system has remained surprisingly consistent since those first automation experiments more than twenty years ago:

• Information should follow the work.
• Technology should reduce unnecessary work.
• And people should have better information when they need to make a decision.

That was the reason for building the first tools.

It is still the reason we are building StoneEx today.

The stone industry is not a simple industry. Our goal is to help make sure it continues to benefit from the same technological progress transforming the rest of the world — and to bring the possibilities of the newest technologies into the real, everyday work of stone businesses.