The Complete Diamond Manufacturing Process: Essential Insights and Top Innovations

The journey of a diamond from rough stone to polished gem is a fascinating process that involves a series of meticulous stages. Each stage requires precision and expertise to ensure the final product is of the highest quality. As a leader in the diamond industry, Sarine has developed innovative solutions that significantly enhance each stage of the manufacturing process. Let's explore these stages and the technologies Sarine offers to optimize them.

1. Modeling / Scanning of the Rough

Inclusion mapping is the first step in the diamond manufacturing process. It involves identifying and mapping the internal and external flaws or inclusions within a rough diamond. 

Sarine Galaxy®: Diamonds can now be fully assessed without the need to polish “windows” to view the inclusions within. This advanced system uses state-of-the-art imaging and analysis to provide a comprehensive 3D map of a diamond's inclusions. Unlike alternative techniques, this groundbreaking system enables the automatic, comprehensive, and time-efficient scanning of a rough diamond to unprecedented levels of accuracy. It enables manufacturers to make informed decisions about how to cut the diamond to maximize its value and minimize the visibility of flaws.

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Sarine DiaExpert®: DiaExpert® stands as the world’s foremost rough diamond planning system, widely adopted by almost all major manufacturers. Integrated seamlessly with Sarine’s leading Advisor® planning software package, DiaExpert® is pivotal in crafting optimal manufacturing instructions for rough diamonds. This cutting-edge system accurately scans rough diamonds using an advanced laser scanner, meticulously mapping concave areas, including grooves, and generating a detailed 3D model of the stone. When coupled with one of Sarine’s DiaMark® systems, precise manufacturing instructions are physically engraved on the rough stone through the use of Sarine-proprietary lasers, presenting a comprehensive planning solution.

Furthermore, the DiaExpert® plays a crucial role in quality control, ensuring the flawless execution of the plan after each key initial manufacturing stage. This meticulous process guarantees a perfect workflow, making DiaExpert an indispensable tool in the diamond industry.

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2. Rough Planning

Rough planning involves analyzing a rough diamond to determine the optimal way to cut it, with the goal of maximizing the yield and value of the finished product. In the past, with limited technology, manufacturers could typically plan for only one or two polished stones from a rough diamond. Today, thanks to the data provided in earlier stages of the manufacturing process, they can plan for multiple polished diamonds—sometimes as many as 10 to 15. Clearly, calculating and comparing all the permutations of diamonds is impossible for human beings without a computer and a dedicated software.

Sarine Advisor®: Advisor® is the world’s leading rough diamond planning software, used by most diamond manufacturers worldwide. It integrates internal inclusion scanning and 3D geometrical analyses to provide optimal polishing plans based on the manufacturer’s preferences of Carat weight, Cut, symmetry, and Clarity. For nearly two decades, Advisor has been recognized for its advanced, accurate, and user-friendly features that maximize profitability. With a fresh array of planning choices, manufacturers can optimize polish, enhance light performance, and attain greater clarity control across all rough diamond sizes.
Advisor also supports the entire diamond manufacturing process, from laser sawing to shaping and faceting. It generates detailed manufacturing instructions and markings, ensuring high-quality control and maximizing returns.

Sarine continues to enhance Advisor®, introducing new features to improve the manufacturing process. The latest advancement that seamlessly integrates with Sarine's Advisor®, is the Most Valuable Planning (MVP), a real breakthrough in cloud-based software. MVP harnesses state-of-the-art algorithms to conduct in-depth automated analysis of rough diamonds and sets a new standard by maximizing the value extracted during cutting and polishing, ensuring every diamond achieves its full potential. By automating planning processes, MVP minimizes errors and manual configuration risks, potentially increasing the value of polished diamonds by up to 5%.

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Now, with new developments, Advisor® is also suitable for lab-grown diamonds. LGD Planning with Advisor® 8.2 offers significant added value, providing optimized processes tailored for lab-grown diamond planning, ensuring precise and efficient results.

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3. Sawing & Shaping

Sawing and shaping involve cutting the rough diamond into smaller pieces and shaping them into the desired form. This stage requires great precision to avoid damaging the diamond and to follow the optimal cutting plan determined in the rough planning stage.

Sarine Quazer®: The Quazer® is an advanced high quality, green laser diamond sawing and shaping system, offering the combined benefits of high productivity and profitability, low risk of breakage and flexibility in cutting profiles.
It offers the advantages of minimal weight loss (double-sided sawing), minimal risk of damage to your diamonds, high throughput, easy maintenance, high durability, and many optional add-ons, including pie-cut sawing, shaping, and offline job setup functionalities.  It is available for both round and fancy-shaped diamonds.

Turnstile™: The Turnstile™ is an optional add-on sawing cassette for the Quazer®, allowing the loading of numerous stones into the system for sawing as a single batch job. The Turnstile sawing cassette provides two primary benefits:
Maximizing productivity by processing up to 18 dops in a single batch.
Reducing overall weight loss with its double-sided sawing capability.

Strategist®: The Strategist® is a setup station that integrates Sarine’s Advisor® rough planning output data and the Quazer® laser sawing suite and can significantly streamline the execution of the laser-sawing process for diamond manufacturers. The Strategist allows you to perform the sawing job setup offline from the Quazer machine itself, freeing up valuable sawing time on the Quazer and increasing overall productivity, thus enhancing your investment in the Quazer sawing and shaping suite. With Strategist, optional pie-cut sawing has never been simpler, allowing even non-experienced users to confidently plan and pie-cut stones. This ensures accuracy, reduces human errors, and increases overall productivity.

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4. Polishing & Finishing

Polishing and finishing transform the shaped diamond into a sparkling gem. This stage involves multiple steps, including blocking, faceting, and final polishing, to achieve the diamond's desired brilliance and symmetry. A perfect diamond will be cut to a specific range of proportions and will have perfect symmetry between the different facet groups.

DiaMark™ HD: The DiaMark™ HD is a laser marking system designed specifically to inscribe corrective polishing instructions on semi-polished diamonds. The DiaMark™ HD is designed to mark on blocked stones with flat polished facets, in conjunction with Instructor™ software guidance. The DiaMark™ HD laser marking system uses specially designed low-power lasers with lower penetration compared to the standard DiaMark™ Z, enabling polishers to easily remove the markings following the corrective polishing. The laser markings can be removed without leaving any traces, thus the optimal planned polishing is confidently achieved with minimum errors and higher Cut grades.

DiaMension® HD: DiaMension® HD is the world's most sophisticated technology for cut and symmetry measurement. It provides accurate geometrical measurements of polished and semi-polished diamonds. The DiaMension® HD supports all diamond shapes and sizes, allowing diamond cutters to quickly and confidently evaluate the proportions and symmetry of the stone. The system uses a high-resolution digital camera for the 3D modeling of the stone, with specially designed interchangeable optical lenses for various stone sizes and a unique lighting module for highly precise scanning. The DiaMension® HD is, in fact, the only device that is approved by the GIA for symmetry grading.

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Instructor®: Instructor® also features virtual polishing tools that guide polishers through sequential steps with maximum confidence. This ensures adherence to the optimal polishing plan derived during the planning phase, resulting in an average 1% – 4% increase in the finished diamond’s carat weight. Its asymmetric recut option surpasses expectations, deriving the optimal Cut grade and Carat weight combination from thousands of possibilities, including asymmetric options, to maximize the diamond's value. 

Sarine's DiaMension® HD, together with the Instructor®, helps the user to track the manufacturing process and ensure that the diamond is processed to perfection.

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6. AI-Based Grading

Grading is the process of evaluating a diamond's quality based on criteria such as color, clarity, cut, and carat weight. Traditionally, grading was conducted in gemological laboratories to ensure accuracy and consistency. However, with the advent of advanced automated grading technologies, manufacturers can now perform in-house grading, making the supply chain more efficient and cost-effective.

In-House Grading / Internal Grading with Sarine: Sarine’s internal grading solution is the first of its kind, offering unprecedented accuracy and consistency. Powered by AI-based technologies and conducted in a secure cloud, it ensures completely reliable and independent third-party grading that cannot be manipulated.

Sarine Clarity™: Sarine Clarity™ is a groundbreaking technology that provides the world's first automated, objective Clarity measurement and grading. Building on this innovation, Sarine Clarity-II™ offers advanced features that elevate AI clarity grading to new levels of sophistication. This second-generation technology grades diamonds across the entire spectrum, from VVS to I3, expanding the range of inventory suitable for automated clarity grading. Additionally, Clarity-II™ introduces significantly enhanced sorting capabilities, covering parameters such as Black in Table (BIT), Black in Crown (BIC), fluorescence, tinge, and milkiness.

The Sarine Clarity™ system sorts diamonds into sub-categories based on predefined criteria, ensuring optimal valuation for each diamond's ideal sales market. Sarine Clarity not only revolutionizes clarity grading but also recalibrates the sorting and sourcing process for diamonds worldwide.

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Sarine Color™: Our advanced system delivers lab-grade accuracy by objectively assessing both diamond color and fluorescence. It employs automated optic analysis to accurately assess the color and fluorescence of a diamond, grading it with precision according to the globally recognized standard —completely eliminating human error.

Now, with the updated Sarine Color™ device that was released in 2022, automated, objective color grading becomes even more accurate, based on increasingly advanced algorithms that continue to learn and develop the color grading capability.

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Instructor®: Instructor® is Sarine’s premier software for polished diamond analysis and grading, trusted by top gemological institutes and laboratories worldwide to assess a diamond’s Cut grade, with optional add-ons for enhanced functionality.

DiaMension® HD: DiaMension® HD is the world's most sophisticated technology for cut and symmetry measurement. It provides accurate geometrical measurements for polished and semi-polished diamonds, supporting all shapes and sizes. This system allows for quick and confident evaluation of a diamond’s proportions and symmetry.

Equipped with a high-resolution digital camera for 3D modeling, DiaMension® HD features specially designed interchangeable optical lenses for various stone sizes and a unique lighting module for highly precise scanning.

Sarine Light™: The Sarine Light™ is a scientific light performance measuring method and grading standard. It is based on the actual measurement of a diamond’s light performance and is a uniquely accurate and consistent device. The Sarine Light directly measures the Brilliance (reflected light), Sparkle (bright flashes), Fire (colored bursts), and Light Symmetry and calculates the total light performance grade. It quickly (under a minute), accurately, and consistently evaluates the diamond’s true light performance.

As a cloud-based solution, Sarine Light™ enables effective management of information across different trade scenarios, creating a virtual inventory of your diamonds. This provides global reach, saving significant time and money, while allowing your customers worldwide to instantly view the information online. Sarine Light™ empowers you to confidently measure, grade, and present the light performance of your diamonds, showcasing their superior quality to your customers.

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Conclusion

The diamond manufacturing process is a complex and meticulous journey that transforms rough stones into stunning gems. It requires great craftsmanship, time, and effort. Sarine Technologies' innovative solutions play a pivotal role in enhancing each stage of this process. By leveraging Sarine's cutting-edge technology, diamond manufacturers can achieve greater precision, efficiency, and quality, ultimately delivering exquisite diamonds that captivate and delight consumers worldwide.

 

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