The more things change, the more they stay the same
Today fabricators are being asked to fabricate a large variety of materials. These projects range from kitchen countertops, fireplaces and other residential use, to commercial flooring and wall cladding. These materials have a wide range of characteristics, challenging fabricators in production and material handling. Our shop used to anguish over handling 10-ton blocks. Now it is handling 6mm porcelain slabs.
New tooling is constantly being tested and brought to the market at an unprecedented rate. These days, it seems that saws blades and tooling are being updated faster than cell phones. All this information is quite a lot to manage in a small shop. Back in the day, we processed marble and granite. And while we may have grumbled about tooling or processes, they were simple and straight forward compared to fabrication parameters of today. Nowadays, digital rules the shop. Instead of machine repair, we are slaves to Teamviewer and software updates.