Quarry spoke with Kayasand chief executive officer Bram Smith about the future of manufactured sand and how quarries can benefit.
How has the industry changed over the past year?
It’s becoming a much more sophisticated industry, with a greater focus on utilisation.
Quarries are looking to maximise their uptime and minimise unscheduled maintenance to get the best value out of the equipment that you’ve got.
We’re also seeing quarries looking to get better utilisation of their products – how can they sell everything that they make, eliminating byproducts and avoid selling material at a reduced cost? How do you maximise the utility of everything that’s being produced on the quarry?
That’s done against a backdrop of growing compliance requirements, operating costs have gone up rapidly, and labour availability is also a real challenge.
It’s a really changing environment for the quarries, which is why we’re seeing them taking a much more sophisticated approach.
It’s become a noticeably more sophisticated industry, with a much greater focus on operational efficiency, utilisation, and long-term resilience.
Across Australia and New Zealand, quarries are pushing harder to maximise uptime, minimise unscheduled maintenance, and extract more value from their equipment. That same mindset is now being applied to the aggregate products: how do you sell everything you make? How do you avoid discounting? And, critically, how do you deal with the large stockpiles of crusher dust that many sites are carrying?
All of this is happening while costs continue to rise. Compliance expectations are increasing, energy and labour are significant pressure points, and skill shortages remain challenging.
The environment is changing quickly, and the best performers are those thinking ahead: Modernising processes, improving utilisation, and positioning themselves to be more competitive in a tighter operating landscape.
How is Kayasand helping quarries take this sophisticated approach?
Kayasand is a relatively new company on the scene, with a new technology that was developed in Japan for manufacturing high quality engineered sand for concrete. It was developed out of a need for a manufactured sand alternative, because Japan was phasing out dredging of natural sands.
Although they needed to move to manufactured sand, the quality of that sand wasn’t high enough to completely replace natural sand. With our technology, we’re able to get a complete replacement of natural sand and concrete.
Traditionally, crusher dust is seen as a byproduct that you can’t help but make. We don’t see that as a byproduct – we see it as an opportunity. By using our plants, you can process crusher dust and turn it into a premium product that can completely replace other sands in concrete and create a more sustainable building material at the same time.
Kayasand brings a technology that was originally developed in Japan to address a very similar challenge. Around 2000, Japan was rapidly phasing out dredging of natural sands, and the concrete industry needed a consistent, high-quality alternative.
Traditional manufactured sands weren’t good enough to fully replace natural sand, so Kemco developed a way to engineer sand precisely. By controlling the shape, grading and fines they were able to create a reliable high-grade product and completely remove the need to use natural sand in concrete. Dredging went from about 40,000,000 m3/year to under 7,000,000 m3/year.
We’ve taken that technology and adapted it for Australian and New Zealand conditions. What many quarries see as a quarrying byproduct, we see as an under-utilised asset and an opportunity.
Using our plants, quarries can engineer their crusher dust into a premium, consistent and to-specification concrete sand. It’s a way to reduce waste, create a more sustainable building material, and unlock a new high-value revenue stream.
What are some of the challenges facing the quarry industry?
A lot of quarries, especially in Australia, it’s sort of feast or famine when it comes to water. They either have too much water or not enough, and for processes that are highly dependent on water that can become a real issue. Regulatory scrutiny is also a big factor and as urban encroachment continues, there will be more need to be cognisant of the public’s perception.
One of the biggest challenges is the amount of unsold or under-valued fine material sitting on quarry floors. At the same time, many quarries in Australia face the classic feast-or-famine relationship with water – either too much or not enough. For processes that rely heavily on washing, that variability can create production bottlenecks or increase operating costs.
Regulatory scrutiny is also intensifying. As urban areas expand, quarries are operating closer to communities, and expectations around dust, noise, environmental impact and traffic movements are all rising. This means operators need solutions that are cleaner, quieter and more efficient, while still maintaining profitability.
How is your team helping to overcome these challenges?
These challenges are guiding our approach. Part of our vision for the future is that quarries would not need to use any water for washing aggregates. A fundamental part of our technology is the fact it uses a dry processing method.
Our plant operates under a negative pressure, so they don’t emit any dust.
Our customers are quite strict on making sure that dust is controlled – it’s a big driver for them.
Labour availability affects how we design our plants. Our plants need to be fully automated so they can operate without supervision. Essentially, an operator can start it, and then it’ll stop itself, or continue running fully autonomously. It is also important to minimise maintenance to make servicing the plants as easy as possible.
These industry challenges have shaped our approach from the outset. A core part of our vision for the future is quarry processing that does not require water to wash aggregate. In fact, our technology uses a fully dry process. This eliminates the need for settlement ponds and removes a major operational and environmental constraint.
Dust control is another critical factor. Our plants operate under negative pressure, meaning they don’t emit dust. They are also quiet. Increasingly important for quarries located near populated areas.
We also design our plants with workforce constraints in mind. Automation is essential so our systems can start, run and shut down autonomously, with minimal intervention. Maintenance and servicing are kept as simple as possible to reduce downtime. At a time when labour availability is tight, this level of automation and ease can materially change operating efficiency.
What is the most important lesson you learned in 2025?
One of the key lessons for 2025 is the industry moves fastest when change is framed around performance and economics, not just sustainability.
There’s been a real push towards sustainability, but you need to maintain or increase the profitability of the quarry.
People are not just going to do stuff because it increases sustainability. It’s got to bring performance and economics benefits as well.
The industry responds most effectively when change is framed around performance and economics, not just sustainability.
Sustainability matters deeply. Its expectation is only going to increase but quarries must remain profitable. Technology adoption accelerates when it improves concrete performance, reduces operating costs, or increases quarry yield. When performance and economics align with environmental benefits, that’s when you see real momentum.
What emerging technology are you most excited about?
From our perspective, we’re really motivated by washing without water and unlocking 100 per cent utilisation, so that everything that’s made on the quarry can be sold at a premium price. Water processing areas, the settling ponds for example, take up a large footprint and they have a high maintenance.
We’re excited about technologies that fundamentally change what’s possible on a quarry. Washing without water is a game changer because it removes the dependency on water supply, the need for large settling ponds, and dramatically reduces the footprint and maintenance requirements of a site.
We’re also focused on unlocking 100 per cent utilisation: turning every tonne extracted into a saleable product. With the right processing, crusher dust no longer needs to sit in stockpiles or be sold cheaply. It can be turned into a premium product that improves concrete performance and reduces environmental impact.
Add to that automation with plants that require minimal onsite supervision and maintenance. You begin to see what the future quarry looks like: cleaner, quieter, more efficient and much more productive.
What plans do you have for 2026?
For us, we’re excited about getting the V7-120 plant operational at Bass Point, quarry in New South Wales.
We’re also getting new designs for other plants to be built in 2027.
We’re also excited about getting more of these plants out there showing what they can do.
A major milestone for us in 2026 is getting the V7-120 plant operational at Bass Point Quarry in New South Wales. It’s a significant opportunity to demonstrate sand engineering at scale in partnership with one of the region’s largest producers.
We’re also increasing our presence across Australia and progressing new plant designs for 2027 and beyond. The goal is to support more quarries in turning low-value byproducts into high-value engineered sand and to show, through real production results, what this technology can deliver.•
For more information, visit kayasand.com
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