Stone Industry Tech

The technology in the stone industry has developed rapidly in the last ten years.  The industry has really taken off in the last 15 years due to the housing boom.  Now with the bust it has been harder for the industry to keep growing.  There are more fabricators going out of business than ever before because the market has gotten so small.

The future in the stone industry will see a lot more automation.  In the past decade CADCAM machines have entered the industry and have sped up production for all fabricators.  Companies, such as Northwoods and Park Industries, have introduced these machines and have been fine tuning them by adding updates to the software and adding more capabilities to the machines themselves.  These machines had been adapted from other industries and have been restructured in order to be used in the stone industry.  These machines are taking the place of hand polishing workers.  They are capable of mostly finishing the product without any worker touching it.  Of course there still is finishing work that a hand fabricator must do before the product goes out the door.  A new development in the industry is the sawjet.  This machine has software to layout the raw material and can be programmed to cut it.  This will also speed up production by allowing the fabricator have the sawjet cut the raw material while they are able to program the machine to cut the next project. The sawjet uses a combination of a waterjet, to cut out corners, and a regular saw to cut straight lengths on the material. This machine also helps the fabricator save 35% his material.  These machines are a costly investment to any company with the CADCAM machine pricing around $265,000, and the sawjet pricing around $365,000.  With more production and the need for less workers the prices machines can potentially pay for themselves, in a good economic environment.

Technology in the industry between wholesalers and fabricators is moving rather slowly.  With a natural raw material every piece or slab is unique.  I do believe that the wholesalers need to make their inventory more available, through the use of technology, for the fabricator.  This allows the fabricator the ability to show a slab of material to a customer without having to go to the wholesaler and physically see it.  Some wholesalers have started to do this but the quality of the representation of the material is poor.  I think new developments are necessary to be able to better service the customer.

I believe the future of the stone industry will focus more on making the process of design and material selection easier for the customer.  Software, such as the Slabsmith, will become more the norm and will allow for a smoother process.  With new and changing material being quarried out of the ground everyday the slabs are constantly changing.  So being able to keep up with all of the new material that comes to market will be essential to everyone in the process.  Each fabricator will have to jockey for position with new technology because, with all new technology, there will be kinks to be worked out.  Adapting new technology to the stone industry has historically been hard and will continue to because of the uniqueness of each piece.  But with every expanding industry the things are bound to happen.