Products & ideas for the laboratory professional.
Issue link: https://opticallabproducts.epubxp.com/i/442985
opticallabproducts.com january 2015 7 ONE-TO-ONE OPINIONS equipment. We decided to enter this business because we had a number of customers express a need for this type of product and we had the opportunity to work with a devel- opment partner that had some really unique technology. It is all about giving our customers broader solutions to their challenges. CAROL: DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELVES INDEPENDENT? DOUG: Very much so. There are a couple of lens manufacturers that are partners and they have banks that lend them money. We have private equity guys that lend us money. Financing comes from a different source. They are their own owners, but our management team owns a signifcant part of our business. CAROL: DO YOU LET LABS DO PRIVATE LABEL LENSES? DOUG: Absolutely. We have a number of branded products, probably our most well-known is our Coppertone ® Polarized lenses. We think we've got really excellent technology for protection against high energy visible (HEV) light, which is our Coppertone gray and brown product. It has the skin cancer seal on it and Mia Hamm is our spokesperson. It's personal for her to protect her eyes. She has said that having spent so much time outside as a kid and professional soccer player, she has eye problems and recognizes the value of protecting her eyes against the sun. She feels really strongly that a product like Coppertone is impor- tant and she's very comfortable being a strong spokesperson for it. We really appreciate how heartfelt her message is. It's a fairly new relationship and we couldn't be happier. We also have our own two photochromic products: ChangeRx ® is cast resin and LifeRx ® is our polycarbonate. Their photochromic properties really are better than the competitive products out there. We have people who private label LifeRx with their own brand name. CAROL: HOW MANY LENSES DO YOU PRODUCE A YEAR? DOUG: Over 30 million lenses. The lenses go worldwide from our three factories. CAROL: WHERE ARE THE LOCATIONS? DOUG: The bulk of our photochro- mic and polarized product is made in Ramsey, MN, just north of Minne- apolis. And then we have a very large polycarbonate and glass factory in Jakarta, Indonesia. Three years ago we bought a factory in Bangkok, Thailand, to do cast resin, 1.50, and 1.60. Our ChangeRx is made there as are our plastic progressives. CAROL: ARE THESE OVERSEAS FACILITIES MANUFACTURING TO YOUR STANDARDS? DOUG: Both of the international factories are really state-of-the-art. Unfortunately, our Jakarta factory burnt down in 2009. It was very diffcult at the time, but in the end it gave us an opportunity to build a state-of-the-art factory there in 2010. Then, we had owned the factory in Bangkok for four months before the big foods hit Thailand in 2011. That had very little impact on us because we had just bought the factory and we really didn't have a lot of customers to service out of it, but it let us rebuild it in the way we wanted to and we bought new equipment. So again, it's a state-of- the-art factory. And they are all run under the same quality system as our U.S. factory. CAROL: HOW DOES A COM- PANY LIKE YOURS REBOUND FROM BANKRUPTCY, FIRE, AND FLOODS? DOUG: With a very focused and resilient management team. The fre was a disaster. It wiped out more than half of our production over- night and yet I think the team did an outstanding job of communicat- ing with customers, protecting customers with the products they could not switch to other people. So, we weren't able to make some of the commodity polycarbonate single vision lenses. But, we were able to protect all of the photochro- mic, polarized, and progressive lenses by growing our Ramsey location. We got through it very quickly, and I continue to be complimented by customers on how it was handled both from a communication and a fairness point of view. They praise how we treated our customers and how quickly we came back up with good quality. I think very energized management describes the overall team. When there's an emergency like that, a disaster, it's easy to get focused when a business needs that same kind of focus every day. Now our focus is on our customers. CAROL: WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FACING VI- SION-EASE THESE DAYS? DOUG: Not so much challenges as opportunities—we see enormous opportunities for ourselves, especially with our new owners, and the capital that is available to us. We do have a nice international business in Latin America and Asia that has been one of our focuses in recent years. About 20% of our sales today is overseas. And our goal is to grow that dramatically over the next fve years. CAROL: WELL, THE WORLD IS GETTING SMALLER, ISN'T IT? DOUG: Yes and the products are increasingly the same. And that is one of the reasons we bought the casting facility in Thailand as it gives us the ability to have a broader range of products for our customers, and especially the cast products. Poly is still a dominant material in North America, but in the rest of the world you need a broader range of products with a higher index and CR-39 ® . When foods hit Thailand in 2011, Vision-Ease's factory in Bangkok fooded. This allowed the company to rebuild with all new equipment.