Ever since people started making glass it has been cut by scoring and breaking. The only flaw is the irregular edge that remains. Scoring leaves microscopic fissures in the broken edge and they can easily cause the sheet to break down. This can happen during coating application or hardening in the annealing furnace, or when the glass bends under its own weight during transportation. For that reason alone it is usually necessary for the edges of freshly cut panes of glass to be beveled. "There isn't much to be said for developing a laser technique to cut glass", says Bernhard Röll, the project's technical manager, "but the question of edge quality is persuasive".

Aspirations to cut sheets of glass to accuracy of four tenths of a millimeter and leave edges that require no reworking initially gave rise to LiST - a German acronym equivalent to "laser-induced stress cutting". Here the laser focus spot scores the glass by introducing heat and, consequently, stresses. A cooling jet follows the laser. The stresses are thus relieved, creating a fine fissure free of any splinters. The most important limitation for this method is the inability to control heat transmission inside the glass, and that limits the working speed. That is why LiST was designed and destined for the small sector involving especially thick glass, since there the working speed is not so much an issue. As regards the high-volume market where throughput speeds are significantly greater, the process quickly reaches its limits. Thus two strategic decisions were made. First, the project team redefined the objectives for the laser process. It is to work glass plates from one to six millimeters thick and measuring up to 3.6 by 2.5 meters. Secondly, Grenzebach entered into a cooperative arrangement with the MDI Schott company, which had developed a process suitable for very thin sheets. This process was to be scaled up to work the desired glass thicknesses.