Robotically cut diamonds

[Lal]

I recently read an article about robotically cut diamonds. The cut quality is predetermined as the robot can be programmed a specific cut quality. The result can be a better cut than human-cut diamonds.

I was wondering if anyone else had heard of this technology, how widely available it is and how this is going to change the future of commercially available diamonds.

 

[Rhino]

Just curious ... where'd you read the article?

 

[computerguy]

I read about it here: http://www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=874ba16f-5309-4b9d-86df-9158a236f432 I don't know if it was the same article that Lal read. It appeared in the Vancouver Sun on Feb 10/04.


RWW








Cutting edge of diamond production
Precious stones are cut and polished by computer




Yvonne Zacharias


Vancouver Sun


Tuesday, February 10, 2004


ADVERTISEMENT





Up on the 21st floor of an office building in downtown Vancouver, a series of small robots resembling black metal insects swing back and forth on a table top, as though afflicted by an incurable twitch.


From time to time, they pause in their seemingly incessant fretting to spit out tiny stones that glitter in the hands of about a dozen immigrant workers.


Look closer and you will see that the stones are diamonds. Clean, crisp diamonds as clear and cold as arctic ice.


That's what they are making in this small factory tucked away in the back room of an office building. You would never know it from looking at the building's bland exterior. There is nothing here to indicate the exotic nature of the business inside.


On the street in front, security trucks come and go, ferrying the precious cargo from the airport to the factory to boiling plants and then back again.


Here operates the only robotic diamond factory in Canada and by far the largest in North America.


It is cloak-and-dagger operation, so secretive that I can't disclose the company address and we couldn't photograph the principals of the family-owned and operated business, Uri and Sara Ariel and their son Itay. The family, which has been in the diamond business for 60-odd years, moved here from Israel in 1982 because Sara chose to accept an invitation from the University of British Columbia to do post-doctoral work in crystallography.


Yet their company, HRA Investments Ltd., is on the cutting edge of one of Canada's burgeoning industries: Diamond production. In little more than a decade, Canada has become the third largest producer of diamonds in the world, behind only Botswana and Russia. That is thanks to the discovery of diamonds in the Northwest Territories in 1991 and the opening of two mines there with others poised to come on stream.


Three years ago, by coming up with an automated, computerized way of cutting and polishing diamonds, the Ariels figured out a way to circumvent one of the most controversial aspects of the industry in Canada. The vast majority of the Canadian-mined diamonds are flown to countries like India, China, Vietnam and Armenia for cutting and polishing because the labour costs are so much lower there than in Canada. The Ariels also have two factories in Antwerp and one in Vietnam, but 15 per cent of their diamonds are manufactured right here.


While the equipment at HRA costs well over $1 million, it takes two hours to cut and polish a diamond in the HRA factory while a worker in India or China has to spend at least a day to complete the task. At the same time, the diamonds produced here are as good or better than the hand-produced ones. "Computers don't make an error," said Itay.


The diamonds produced by HRA Investments follow this route:


1. They are extracted from the Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories. (HRA is one of 10 companies buying directly from this mine.)


2. They are flown to Antwerp, Belgium, where Rio Tinto, the primary owner and operator of the mine, evaluates and sorts the merchandise, then distributes it to the 10 companies.


3. They are flown back to Vancouver airport and shipped by security trucks to the HRA factory in downtown Vancouver.


4. Each stone is placed in a computer where the operator chooses the quality of cut.


5. It is placed in an automated "brutting" machine which makes the stone round.


7. The stone is placed in one of more than 20 robots that polishes it in about 22 minutes. The robots work 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, producing roughly 50 diamonds a day.


8. The stone is shipped to an acid boiling factory either in Vancouver's Chinatown or in Toronto.


9. It goes to one of the following four institutes for inspection: The Gemnological Institute of America in New York or California, the American Gem Society in Las Vegas, the International Gemnological Institute which operates facilities around the world, including one in Toronto, or European Gemnological Laboratories which has offices around the world including one in Vancouver. Most of HRA's Vancouver-produced diamonds go to IGI's Toronto facility.


10. It is returned to HRA in Vancouver.


11. It is entered into the company's tracking systems which ensure the diamond's authenticity as a Canadian diamond. It goes to one of four distributors in Canada and the U.S. or directly to retailers like Ben Moss, Lugaro and Charm in Canada or Ben Bridge in the U.S.


It is sold under various trade names like Ikuma, an Inuit word which means to light on fire, in the U.S. and in Canada under names like Glacier Fire or simply the Canadian Diamond Certificate. In each case, we are talking about exactly the same diamond, although the cutting parameters might be slightly different. The marketing names are meant "to create a story and a mystique behind them," explained Itay.


They are sold to the consumer in the store for prices ranging from $500 all the way to $20,000.


There are tremendous, glitzy advertising campaigns featuring women in the cold North sporting icy diamonds. Ads in wedding directories trumpet that Cupid has moved to Canada. Another ad uses the caption "The idea of North expressed in 58 facets." They are all designed to give the Canadian diamond cachet.


If you can believe Marilyn Monroe, diamonds are a girl's best friend. Companies like HRA would have you believe that a Canadian diamond is an even better friend.


© The Vancouver Sun 2004

 

[Lal]

Yes-this is the very article!

 

[hoorray]

I wonder what grade of cut and stones they are choosing since a. most of their stones go to IGI for certification, and b.their top of the price range is $20,000, which either means not too large of stones, or lower quality stones.

Interesting...