Products & ideas for the laboratory professional.
Issue link: https://opticallabproducts.epubxp.com/i/92532
OPINIONS ONE-TO-ONE SS Well, it was a lucky choice because when the market approached us, we were totally fresh-minded. We had a lot of experience in machining but none in edging. So, for me, it was quite normal to think about the milling tool, to cut a piece of plastic. You don't use sand- paper to cut salami! I was surprised myself when we came out with the first edger and saw the reaction of people in the optical world. They were totally astonished and for us it was completely normal. To cut glass, you have to use a stone grinding wheel. With plastic, the first choice of the manufacturer is to try to find a tool to cut the plastic instead of glass, and this is why they developed the cutter for polycarbonate and for CR-39® . Their perspective makes sense. For people who come from another field, it doesn't. This is one reason for our success. The second reason is that our competitors did not understand that we were there. CG SO YOU SORT OF CAME FROM BEHIND? SS They saw us as a company doing special machines for specialty products, so they let us keep going, without bothering to understand what we were doing. But, fortunately for us, our customers understood the advantage of this technology that they now use it for all kinds of edging, and in a sense the market understood the advantages before the manufacturers. Now, of course, they have reacted and we have competitors everywhere, but luckily we have a lot of machines installed. CG CAN YOU SAY HOW MANY MACHINES? SS We have about 80 MonoSphera worldwide. Then we have about 230 BiSphera, about 150 MEI641, and over 200 edgers for sunglass lenses, which is called Sphera2 and Sphera2 Plus which is for high-volume plano. CG WHERE ARE YOU BASED IN ITALY? SS Our city, Valbrembo is about 50km northeast of Milan. We are close to Bergamo. Five years ago, we set up MeiSystem Inc., a factory in Chicago. We don't produce anything there, it's just for sales and distribution. We have a warehouse, demonstration room for training and technical support mostly. We have a staff of eight now. Five are engineers and three others are the distribution manager, the accountant, and the storage manager. We are looking for more people, but I can tell you it's not easy to find them. The service on the field, especially if you care about your customers, is a stressful job. I see people burning out. CG ARE YOU IN OTHER COUN- TRIES, TOO? SS Hong Kong for the Asian market with MEI Asia Ltd. CG ARE YOU COMING OUT WITH A FIVE-AXIS EDGER? SS Not yet. We have a Sphera3 machine which is basically an evolu- tion of the Sphera2, making only lenses, because the Sphera2 also does shields and two pieces at the same time and it can do many things like two lenses, two shields, ski goggles, and ballistic goggles. We saw a kind of market spot available in the edging of only lenses, so we designed the Sphera3 which is two times faster than the Sphera2 and is fully automatic. Luxottica has one. CG ANY NEWS YOU WANT TO TELL US ABOUT? SS We have many things going on. We did this TBA—which stands for Throw the Block Away—application as an upgrade to the Bisphera-XDD automatic edger and it can be retrofit- ted. Then we have another similar device for the MEI641. We recently added the EZ Line which is a conveyor line that can be integrated in Bisphera- XDD or Doubler-XDD so it is possible to have up to eight machines in one line, keeping your lab conveyor or our stacker /de-stacker system at the end of the line. CG DO YOU COME TO THE U.S. MUCH TO VISIT CUSTOMERS? SS Yes, at the beginning I used to do maintenance myself. Now I cannot, even though I would like to because it allows me to understand customers' needs. There are some customers whose labs I have never seen and that is difficult for me. CG THOUGH YOU HAVE YOUR SALES AND SUPPORT HERE. SS Yes, they are doing a great job, for sure. I realize that we need more people here, to be as close as possible to the customer. You need a good technician who cares about the customer, who wants to do the job as well as possible for himself, for the customer, and the company, and this is pressure on him. Our company's mentality is that if a customer is down with a machine, we cannot leave. 10 november 2012 totallyoptical.com