Why STPL introduced Robotics and Automation in the Extremely Volatile Diamond Industry

In the forever versatile diamond industry, the big MNC miners like DeBeers and Russia’s ALROSA have been selling rough diamonds at mutually agreed-upon rates, but the prices the manufacturers get after polishing the diamonds many a times do not cover the costs incurred or are inadequate for the same.

In such a scenario where the costs of roughs are high and profit margins are slim, diamond manufacturers have no other option but to look within to gain a competitive edge in this highly competitive market.

STPL, deeply understands the woes of the diamond manufacturers and has always been in the forefront of introducing revolutionary technologies which have changed the way diamonds are manufactured forever. In the process, it has won many accolades in the form of awards like the Good Design Award from Japan and the Vision Systems Innovators Award from the US.

To help diamantaires reduce diamond processing cost overheads, be less dependent on an increasingly unreliable workforce and to get the best bang for the buck, it has introduced ROBOCUT and ROBOMATIC features in its sawing and 4P machines respectively.

STPL realised that for its clients to be competitive in this market, they need to embrace robotics and automation to boost production and save costs. The ROBOCUT feature in its sawing machines automates all processes like diamond alignment, laser mapping, auto-focusing and even offers 100% banding automatically. This leaves the operator to just physically place the diamonds in the machine and press ENTER while the rest of the processes like stone setting and cutting parameter setting will be done automatically by ROBOCUT. On the other hand the ROBOMATIC feature in the 4P machine automates work even further- you can place 200 diamonds in the machine, transfer the cutting parameters from the planning machine and ROBOMATIC will do the rest- from automatic stone setting, cutting to moving onto the next stone automatically without any intervention. In fact, here only a single operator is enough to handle 5 machines.

Depending on the feedback from these diamond manufacturers, STPL is continuously striving to better its products and ROBOCUT/ROBOMATIC which are not only in line with industry demands, but are also within the financial reach of the diamantaires.