Products & ideas for the laboratory professional.
Issue link: https://opticallabproducts.epubxp.com/i/233472
OPINIONS ONE-TO-ONE A conversation between OLP's Carol Gilhawley and Steve Zwerman, chief operating offcer of Dynamic Labs, an optical manufacturer and supplier. Q. How did you get to be a One-Stop Shop? A. Throughout the 16 years we've been in business, we've realized that our customers typically don't want to order from a host of different companies. We initially started with a few products and people would ask us, "Hey, do you have this product? Do you have that product?" We'd answer, "Sure we do," and then we would actually fnd the product, which is how we had organic growth. As people needed more products, we'd get them. We then moved into converting and manufacturing and about seven years ago we began making polish, blocking, and surfacing pads. In addition, we have a couple of unique foams that are exclusive to us for blocking pads as well as other products that a few other companies have access to. We have more shapes and confgurations in blocking pads than any other company and we'll actually come up with any size for any company. CAROL GILHAWLEY DOES BEING A MEDIUM-SIZED COMPANY HELP YOU? STEVE ZWERMAN Totally. That's the beauty of a company our size. We look at it as an advantage. We're large enough so we have the resources to make things happen, but we're small enough that we still care. We get specifc requests all the time for a particular pad or a confguration or "instead of oval, I wish it was more 6 january 2014 that's required to make a new confguration within two weeks. We've done this with blocking pads, polish pads, and anti-slip flm like our Dyna-Grip Xtreme™ when we added a confguration with a center hole. CG WHAT'S UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR EDGING PRODUCTS? STEVE ZWERMAN is COO of Dynamic Labs, based in Ronkonkoma, NY. After a year of medical school he decided that becoming a doctor was not what he wanted to do. He chose another career path and 16 years ago started Dynamic Labs with his childhood friend, David Beauchamp. The company's product offerings run the gamut of optical supplies from pads, dyes, and frame parts, to cleaners and tools. tapered in the middle and had a center hole." If we see there's some demand for it, we can make it. We're not like a typical larger company where an idea goes in a suggestion box, people look at it, then they have a meeting about it, two years later there's another meeting, and then maybe it happens or not. CG DO YOU OFFER CUSTOM PADS? SZ Yes, we're willing to make a tool SZ A great example is Dyna-Grip Xtreme. We've done peel adhesion tests independently. This product has a 98% success rate, even with anti-refective coatings on lenses which is unheard of. Our pads are good and they do a wide spectrum of lenses, but this flm is incredible for stopping slippage. The rate of customer satisfaction is really strong and it ends up selling itself. CG WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX? SZ Sometimes other companies turn a deaf ear to their customers and think that because they've been around for a lot of years their product line stands for itself. However, we see it as an opportunity. We say, "If you think it should be different, explain to us why." We digest it all and speak to our customers to get their input. Obviously we gain sales but more importantly, we gain a sale by making a customer happy. And if I can make a lab technician's job easier, that's a real plus. If we can save him a couple of minutes, or reduce breakage, it's a no-brainer. This is how we look at our business. CG DO YOU DO YOUR OWN R&D;? SZ Yes, in addition to manufacturing and distribution. We have about 38 employees. We also hire chemists and outside companies to work on products for us. I don't have a team of scientists under this roof, but we know who and what we need. We're defnitely project-oriented and we'll outsource a project to someone when we realize it's beyond our ability. We give them samples of lenses, show them what we need to achieve, and then we get it done. CG WHAT MAKES YOUR COMPANY DIFFERENT? SZ We're very hands-on. Once we got started, to my surprise, I saw how many companies were on autopilot. They sat around and let stuff come to them. And they really wouldn't feel it if they lost a customer or if they gained a customer. They were getting a lot of business, a lion's share for many years. Now, many of these companies are still doing well and many of them don't exist anymore. We work on giving better service, reaching out to our customers, and fnding out what they need. We'll either make new products, or take existing products and modify them to make them better. We focus on making sure our customers know we care enough to do that. Carol Gilhawley is Editor-in-Chief of Optical Lab Products. totallyoptical.com