With its cool, crisp aesthetic of blue-grey veining on a gentle white background, Carrara marble's elegance defies its inherent density and weight. Its presence in high-end hospitality and residential settings makes it synonymous with timeless style while also creating a sizeable price tag. As such, moving it around at scale is not a process to be sniffed at.

At the Luni facility of Italian stone processor ST Segagione e Trasporti, near Carrara, marble handling is taking a step towards greater automation with the introduction of a new electric automated guided vehicle (AGV).

Developed by OMG Industry, the 330 BE AGV is designed to transport marble slabs weighing up to 19 tonnes between the different stages of production. The project combines automated material handling with digital production management and safety systems.

ST Segagione operates from a 12,500 m² facility where processing runs from raw blocks through to finished slabs. The company works with Carrara marbles including Bianco, Statuario and Calacatta, alongside stone sourced from other parts of the world. Slabs are not only heavy and bulky but also valuable and potentially vulnerable to damage. Until now, movements around the facility were mainly carried out using overhead, gantry and mobile cranes.

As Jacopo Dei, Technical Engineer at ST Segagione explains, “Marble is a heavy and bulky material, but at the same time it is extremely delicate and valuable. Our primary objective was to find partners capable of supplying robust, reliable and customized vehicles able to ensure maximum control when transporting materials.”

The company had already worked with OMG, introducing two radio-controlled vehicles that allowed operators to manoeuvre loads from a greater distance. The new AGV takes that assisted approach a stage further by removing the operator from the movement itself. The vehicle receives instructions from the production management system, travels to the slab-carrying trestle, positions itself underneath the load, lifts it and follows its designated route before depositing the slab at its destination.

“Our main requirement was to automate handling operations within the facility, minimizing waiting times and the risks associated with moving slabs from one processing stage to another,” says Dei. “Automation also allows us to further develop our internal production system, managing customer orders comprehensively and obtaining more reliable delivery date forecasts.”

The 330 BE has been engineered specifically for the demands of the application. Its reinforced frame and hydraulic system are designed for loads of up to 19,000kg, with a 120mm hydraulic lift. It uses a 6kW electric motor and lithium-compatible power electronics, with its maximum speed limited to 0.5m/s and reduced to 0.3m/s where required by safety conditions.  The navigation system uses magnetic markers installed in the floor, providing positioning accuracy of up to ±50mm. Safety detection systems create protective areas that vary according to the vehicle’s speed.

For ST Segagione, the importance extends beyond the introduction of an automated vehicle. “The most significant aspect is having demonstrated that advanced AGV automation can also be successfully applied to a ‘heavy-duty’ sector characterized by unique loads such as natural marble.”

The system is currently undergoing testing, with plans for the technology to extend into other operating areas of the facility, indoors and outdoors.