Countertop Fabrication Robot: ABB Arms and Stone

A countertop fabrication robot cuts a heavy slab of granite or quartz into a kitchen top, saws out the sink hole and grinds the edges smooth. The work throws off wet slurry and fine dust, and in 2026 that dust is the reason regulators are paying attention. This post follows stone from the marble mills of a century ago to CNC bridge saws and the first robot saw and waterjet cells. Then it looks at California's planned ban on high silica engineered stone, at the shops where ABB robots already shape stone, and at what the next few years may bring for fabricators and for people choosing a new kitchen.

A polishing line for granite slabs at a stone works in Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh, 2025. Photo: Shagil Muzhappilangad / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How stone slabs were cut and polished before robots

Countertops used to start in a quarry and a mill. The Vermont Marble Company ran quarries and mills in Proctor and West Rutland, and in 1910 the photographer Lewis Hine recorded young boys working in its yards for the National Child Labor Committee. Granite went through cutting sheds like the ones in Barre, a town that still calls itself the Granite Center of the World. Quarrymen split the blocks, mills sawed them into slabs, and cutters shaped and polished the pieces largely by hand or with simple machines. Stone dust hung in the air, and every cut depended on the person holding the tool.

Workers in a yard of the Vermont Marble Co. at Proctor, Vermont, 1910. Photo: Lewis Hine, National Child Labor Committee, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Two developments in the second half of the twentieth century set up the modern shop. In Treviso, Italy, the company Breton developed a large-scale method in the 1960s for pressing crushed stone and resin into slabs, and most engineered stone is still made that way. In 1987 Caesarstone began making quartz surfaces at Kibbutz Sdot Yam in Israel, in a plant that had made terrazzo tiles, and started exporting in the 1990s. Engineered quartz is mostly ground silica held together by polyester resin. Like natural stone it is cut with diamond blades or a waterjet, and shops moved from hand-guided saws to CNC bridge saws that follow a digital layout.

The Georgia Marble Company quarry near Tate, Georgia, 1911. Photo: Internet Archive Book Images via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Robots arrived by way of the waterjet. In 2000 the journal Industrial Robot described ABB I-R, a business that combined ABB robots with high pressure pumps from Ingersoll-Rand. Its Cutting Box put an ABB IRB 2400 inside a cell and was billed as the world's first truly three-dimensional abrasive waterjet cutting system, though it cut foam, composites and car interior parts at the time. Stone shops came later. BACA Systems of Orion Township, Michigan, builds a Robo SawJet that mounts a saw and a waterjet on a KUKA six-axis arm to cut sinks, arcs and faucet holes, and the company says the waterjet raises slab yield by 10 to 20 percent.

Inside the Vermont Granite Museum in Barre, a former granite cutting shed. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Why the countertop fabrication robot matters in 2026

California has identified at least 562 confirmed cases of silicosis linked to engineered stone, with at least 31 deaths and 58 lung transplants. In May the state's Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted 3 to 0 to start rulemaking on a ban. In September Cal/OSHA released a discussion draft for an emergency standard that would prohibit fabricating and making artificial stone with more than 1 percent crystalline silica, and took public comments until 30 September. On 5 October The New York Times reported that California was preparing to ban quartz countertop production. Australia has banned engineered stone benchtops since 1 July 2024.

A wire saw cutting a granite block in Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh, 2025. Photo: Shagil Muzhappilangad / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Lung doctors back the rule because masks fall short. "Even with the best respiratory protection, workers cutting and fabricating engineered stone continue to be exposed to unsafe levels of respirable crystalline silica," Cleveland Clinic pulmonologist Maeve Macmurdo said in support of it. That is the best argument for automating the shop, since a saw, waterjet or robot cell that cuts wet behind guards keeps people away from the blade. People still finish many edges and fit seams by hand, though. Former OSHA head David Michaels expects manufacturers to move to silica-free materials whatever the shops do.

Granite countertops in a home kitchen, 2011. Photo: Chris Feser / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

At least one stone shop already runs ABB robots. In 2023 the trade magazine Stone Specialist described Planet Sculpture, started by Steve Murphy of Planet Granite near Coventry, which shapes stone with three ABB robots. Integrators also build abrasive waterjet cells around ABB arms. Alliance Automation in the US pairs ABB six-axis robots with waterjets to cut three-dimensional parts, and ABB's IRB 2600 has IP67 protection as standard, which helps in a cell full of spray. Our posts on robotic stone carving and robotic waterjet cutting cover both in more detail.

An ABB IRB 6700 grinding a steel part in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell at Ancofer. Photo: ABB

Where countertop fabrication robots go next

In factories the next step is probably a cell that handles the whole slab. As a possibility, a large ABB arm such as the IRB 6700 could carry a spindle for edge profiling or polishing, as it already grinds steel parts in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell, and lift finished pieces off the saw table with a vacuum gripper. Wet stone cells wear robots out, so protection matters. ABB built its Foundry Prime robots for high pressure water jet cleaning, and the IRB 6790 Foundry Prime is rated IP69. Paths for cuts like these would be planned in RobotStudio from the same CAD file that drives the saw.

An ABB robot seen between the open halves of a die casting die. ABB builds protected Foundry versions of its robots for wet, dirty cells. Photo: ABB

Homeowners will notice the change in the showroom first. If California follows Australia, buyers there will pick from natural stone, porcelain and sintered stone, which Australia's ban leaves out because they contain only trace silica, plus whatever silica-free surfaces the makers bring out. Digital templating and automated cutting make one-off kitchens cheaper to produce, yet the final fit still happens in the house. A small cobot such as the GoFa CRB 15000 already sands curved wooden panels in ABB's OmniVance finishing cell, and it could possibly take on light edge sanding in a stone shop.

A GoFa cobot sands a curved wooden panel with a Mirka sander inside ABB's OmniVance finishing cell. Photo: ABB

Money and training set the limits. One industry guide puts a full automated stone line at 300,000 to 1.5 million dollars, which is a lot of money for a small shop. Someone has to program the saws and robots, change tooling and keep the water and slurry systems running, and the people who used to cut by hand need training to do it. Natural granite also contains silica, so dust control stays part of the job even after a ban on engineered stone.

A newly fitted kitchen with stone countertops, a waterfall island and a full height splashback, 2026. Photo: Donovan Nimmo / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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