EMERALD COAST USES
ROBOTICS FOR STONE FABRICATION & MARKETING
and innovations in the stone fabrication industry at every turn. Emerald Coast Fabrication, a premier provider of granite, marble, and quartz countertops in the Florida Panhandle, isn’t a novice in the use of sawjets. But when it came time to replace its existing Northwood sawjet, Emerald Coast followed its tradition of innovation with an eye towards the future and decided a state-of-the-art Robo SawJet from BACA Systems would save time, increase yield, and improve accuracy. Moving Ahead with the Future in Mind Starting 24 years ago as a small Corian countertop shop, owners Jim and Wendy Tatanish have made a name for their business in the Florida Panhandle and continued to adopt new technology
Because Tatanish believes in staying ahead of the curve, he could see that automation was the key to outperforming other similar operations. Still, there was more innovating in store for the business. “Even though we started out small, I always wanted to have the best equipment,” he said. “We started automating in 2003 and by 2006 we were fully automated.” Robotics Changed the Trajectory of Emerald Coast When Emerald Coast moved away from Corian, it was a purposeful move, following the trends within the industry and the vision Tatanish had for the business. As the company expanded and added employees and equipment, it
found itself spending more and more time and money on simply maintaining its fabrication equipment. When Emerald Coast opened a new, modern 25,000 square foot facility, Tatanish saw the need for new, more modern equipment, too. “Our existing Northwood gantry sawjet had done a great job over the 12 years we had it, but the operating costs and downtime involved made me think about a change.” Because robotics technology was the future of stone fabrication, Tatanish decided to look into a BACA Robo SawJet. But it wasn’t a slam dunk. “We were long-time Northwood customers,” he said. “However, the recommendations from other fabricators is what sold us on the BACA robotics. I talked to one customer that had a Northwood and a BACA and told me without a doubt, buy