GERMANY: Latvian manufacturer brings automated length positioning to smaller workshops

Meticulous length stop on a miter saw in a workshop for the production of plastic windows.

Pedante's compact retrofit solution enables small workshops to perform automated cutting operations with existing saws – without a complete production plant.

Smaller manufacturers often lack the space and resources for large industrial plants. Pedante brings the benefits of automation to existing workshops.”

— Agnis Apermanis

BERLIN, GERMANY, August 10, 2026 / EINPresswire.com / -- Latvian manufacturer Pedante is bringing automated material positioning to small and medium-sized workshops. The compact system is designed to be used with existing machinery.

Pedante was founded in 2024 by Agnis

Apermanis – a carpenter with more than 15 years of experience in building greenhouses, pavilions, garden houses, sheds and other wooden structures. The idea arose from a problem he repeatedly encountered in his own workshop.

“When cutting series of pieces to different lengths, I was constantly measuring,” Agnis explains when asked how the idea came about. “If you do that over and over again, it gets tiring eventually, and sooner or later a mistake happens. So I started looking for an automatic length stop for miter saws , but the systems I found were too big and too expensive for a workshop like mine. Besides, they were manufactured outside the EU, which would have made obtaining spare parts unnecessarily complicated. Then I thought: Why not try building one myself?”

The first Pedante system was developed for personal use. A second version was later created for a friend who manufactures plastic windows in his own small workshop. This demonstrated that the same principle could also be used effectively outside of traditional woodworking. This ultimately led to the idea of ​​offering Pedante commercially.

“Smaller manufacturers are often overlooked when it comes to automation,” explains Agnis. “Large companies can invest in complete industrial production systems, but a smaller workshop might already have a perfectly suitable saw. It’s not necessarily the machine that’s lacking – rather, there’s often neither the space nor the financial resources, nor even a reason, to replace all the existing equipment just to automate part of the workflow.”

For this reason, Pedante was developed as a retrofit solution. The system can be mounted on an existing sawing station and installed and calibrated by the customer themselves within approximately 10 to 20 minutes.

Instead of manually measuring each workpiece or repeatedly readjusting a mechanical stop, the operator enters the desired dimension via the touchscreen. The stop then automatically moves to the corresponding position. Simultaneously, the system continuously monitors its position and automatically corrects deviations that might occur, for example, from material striking the workpiece.

“After installation, you can basically just work with a list of dimensions and quantities,” says Apermanis. “You enter the length, the stop moves into position, and you cut. Our goal was to eliminate as much repeated measuring and readjusting as possible from the workflow.”

The development and testing of the system took more than a year. Pedante develops both the hardware and the software in-house. The device housing, the stop block, and the profile fixings are manufactured in Latvia. Final assembly and testing take place at the company headquarters in Salaspils.

Today, Pedante systems are used by customers in Latvia, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, the USA, and other markets. These customers include manufacturers of furniture, dormers, terraces, saunas, PVC windows, aluminum profiles, and LED systems.