september 2023
INSIDE THE SHOP
Sandya Dandamudi of GI Stone talks about shop efficiency, as well as investments in machinery and employees, which have led to the overall success of her fabrication business
Fabricator Spotlight:
GI Stone Increases Shop Efficiency and Production
by Jennifer Richinelli

Photo courtesy of GI Stone
GI Stone, founded 28 years ago by Rani Dandamudi and located in the west side of Chicago, IL, is a full-scale fabricator and installer of stone products. Today, Rani’s daughter Sandya Dandamudi is company president, and she also is Stone World’s 2020 Fabricator of the Year. Stone Word is happy Dandamudi stays in touch to share updates on GI Stone, as well as her overall experiences in the stone industry. Recently, Dandamudi spoke with us about steps GI Stone took to become more efficiency and increase production.
“The last time I spoke to you, I said we did something really simple like clean our shop,” said Dandamudi. “It literally increased our efficiency by approximately 10%. I don’t have any hard values on it. It’s more intuitive. We actually know where we can find things, so people have been more efficient.”
Dandamudi went on to say GI Stone recently invested in a Fastback edge polisher from Park Industries, which also led to increased efficiency. “Because it was so fast, we needed to feed it,” she explained. “So we ended up buying a BACA dual table with a robotic arm and it has quadrupled our capacity.”
To hear more of what Dandamudi had to say, watch the video here.

mikimad/Digitalvision vectors / via getty Images
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