J Rotherham in Yorkshire are one of the UK’s biggest granite worktop suppliers. But they also do a lot of other stonework, and with the help of the UK’s first Robostone they aim to do even more

J Rotherham are one of the largest granite and engineered quartz worktop suppliers in the country, with the worksurfaces for 120 kitchens leaving their factory in Holme-upon-Spalding-Moor, Yorkshire, every week.

It’s demanding work, with most of their customers expecting a five-day turnround from templating to installation, which means Rotherham keep the factory working 22 hours out of every 24 for five days a week. It also means they need a lot of stock. They have £750,000 worth in their yard at any one time, imported directly by them from China, India, Brazil and Europe.

But worktops are only one part of their operation. They also make fireplaces and memorials and have newly refurbished showrooms for both at their headquarters on a 17-acre former RAF base, where they have erected a memorial to commemorate the airmen and women who were based there during World War Two and afterwards.

Rotherham run seven other retail outlets for memorials and fireplaces and hope to develop a bespoke fireplace service offer through other retailers.

Having already attracted an up-market clientele with worktops – because while granite only has about 15% of the kitchen worktop market as a whole, it has about 40% of the top end – they are aiming to retain that clientele for memorials and fireplaces by offering a bespoke service including hand carving and lettering.

And, because they are selling to the public as well as the trade and specifiers, they are advertising themselves in regional glossy magazines that reach their target audience. They also hold open days with invited guests.

“We had an open day last week,” says Anna Buckley, daughter of owner Joe Rotherham who is in the business with him. “We had about 20 people – a mixture of kitchen studios, interior designers and architects.”

Rotherham did not get to be one of the largest stone companies in the UK without being able to see opportunities and take the risks required to benefit from them.

They were certainly one of the first, if not the first stone company in the UK to move into CNC machines when they bought a £100,000 (although Joe Rotherham says he got a discount) Brembana in 1988.

They now have a highly mechanised workshop with four CNC workcentres, although they still employ 120 people and like to train their masons in traditional skills as well as machine operation, which is why they can offer hand carving and lettering now. It gives them an edge.

They have now achieved another first by becoming the first UK masonry company to have a robotic arm in the form of the HTM Robostone being sold in the UK by Bishop Auckland machinery and consumables suppliers Harbro. At J Rotherham, it is being used in a totally enclosed cabinet with three tables, two fixed and one rotating.

Joe Rotherham and Operations Director Richard Huntington explain that they were persuaded by the Robostone’s versatility to take that route rather than adding another CNC workcentre.

Two years ago Joe and Anna decided to expand the fireplaces side of the business. The company had always made fireplaces, but they decided to focus more on that market.

When Joe and Richard saw the Robostone at the Stone+tec exhibition in Germany they liked the idea of having a machine that could not only produce worktops, but also fireplaces, memorials and other masonry that could take Rotherham into areas such as masonry restoration and renovation.

They do not believe the worktop market is coming to an end, but they do think it may have reached a peak. As Joe says: “We’re all trying to get a bit of cold comfort from the thought that people will spend on their existing houses if they don’t move, but the truth is we would be much more confident if the housing market was booming. I can’t see the housing market picking up for 12 months minimum, possibly two years.”

Anna adds: “One of the reasons we wanted to build the fireplaces showroom was to show what else we can do.”

They do not believe there is a lot of growth in the fireplaces market in general but they do believe there is a niche at the upper end of it for the sort of products they can make, especially if they can include carvings produced quickly and cost effectively on the Robostone.

Richard Huntington told NSS last year before the Robostone was installed that experience had taught him there would be teething problems because there always were with machines.

They had to wait a bit longer than they had anticipated to find out what those teething troubles would be because there was a delay in the delivery of the machine last year. That took Rotherham into their busiest period in the autumn, so they asked for delivery to be delayed until after Christmas.

When the Robostone arrived, there was a problem with its number one axis, where the robotic arm meets the base of the machine.

The Italian makers could not determine whether it was a mechanical or a software problem and decided to replace the whole lot. “With the three work tables and a 10ft high cabinet round it that wasn’t the easiest thing to do,” says Joe.

Once the replacement was in, they still had to make it work in the ways they wanted it to. And as we went to press they were still trying to. On the Continent, the masonry companies that have robotic arms generally use them for carving work and Anna Buckley says in that kind of work “it’s surpassing our expectations”. However, it is proving too slow when it comes to worktops.

Anna says: “The Italians have been putting a lot of effort into making sure it’s right for us. They still have high hopes for it.”

Rotherham’s enormous factory and comfortable showrooms are a long way from the business run by Joe’s father where Joe used to help out on the banker as his introduction to the stone industry.

Joe’s father was predominantly a monumental mason. When Joe left school he went to college and became a science teacher but after a while returned to his father’s business. They used to worry whether there would be enough work to support their two families through the winter.

As well as memorials they started making marble fireplaces and on the odd occasion would receive an order for a granite worktop. In 1983 Joe installed some granite in the kitchen of his own home. But it was not until 1997/98 that the demand for granite worktops started gathering pace.

From the time Joe returned to the business the workshop was gradually equipped with the machinery necessary to cope with what was becoming an increasing workload. Anna says: “Grandad was more interested in traditional carving. He saw machines as a necessary evil.”

Anna is now making her mark on the business, including introducing ‘StoneArt’.

StoneArt is illustrated stone plaques presented like a painting and usually including an inscription. It developed from a fireplace she put in her own home. It included a piece of StoneArt that was later used by the company on a stand at a fireplace exhibition. A journalist saw it and as a result it was featured in various publications. Now it is part of the range offered to architects and designers.

By the time Rotherham left their workshop in Pocklington for Holme-upon-Spalding-Moor in 1985 they already had a Gregori bridge saw and a Fickert (later to become Fickert & Winterling) polisher. After the move they added a second Gregori bridge saw, which Joe says is still used and does as good a job as many more modern bridge saws, and a Gregori edge polisher, later replaced by a Montresor. Joe says neither of them were as good as the Commandulis from Ebor they now use. They also have Zitoni and Emmedu saws and CMS Brembana and Breton CNC workcentres.

“The biggest problem we find with machinery is the service issue,” says Joe. Richard Huntington adds: “The care and attention you get when your a prospective buyer is fantastic. When you’re an owner it’s different.”

One of Rotherham’s latest machines saws the offcuts of worktops in half to reduce their thickness in order to make 12mm up-stands.

It took a long time to find the machine and having found it they are not inclined to share information about it with competitors. Suffice it to say it has produced a significant reduction in waste and means the granite up-stands match the work surfaces.

Another way they have found to cut their costs with so much water-consuming machinery in their factory is to sink their own borehole. It has cost them £20,000, but Joe has calculated it will have paid for itself in two years.

Until a few years ago Rotherham were involved in contracting, as well as manufacturing. As the growth of the worktop market gathered pace, Rotherham pulled out of contracting. “We got fed up hearing every reason not to pay us,” says Joe, although he misses the variety that contracting provided.

One of their last projects was for Celtic Manor golf club in Newport, where the Welsh Open is held and where the Ryder Cup competition will be staged in 2010. Rotherham put more than £1million of marble into the premises, including a dragon mosaic in the bottom of the swimming pool.

Pulling out of contracting left more time to develop the factory and diversify into new areas of stonework. Hence the Robostone.