Spanoptic Ltd., MRF® & SSI drive success.
Spanoptic Attributes Growth to Investing in Innovative Technology
And Offering the Best Service at a Fair Price.
John Bryden, President of Spanoptic, LTD. in Glenrothes, Scotland in the UK, took some time to speak with us about surviving and thriving during a global economic downturn.
Spanoptic is an optics manufacturer dedicated to producing high precision optics faster, better and more cost effectively in order to stay competitive in a global market. John told us, “I’ve been in business for 34 years and have seen 6 recessions and each time we appear to get busier”. Spanoptic is busy during this current recession investing~$2M in new equipment this year, adding 20% to their workforce and working 2 shifts. John shared his strategy, “It’s best to attack the market. There’s lots of business out there.” Spanoptic is well positioned to do just that.
Since 1995, John has been investing in the most advanced CNC technology for manufacturing lenses. His mantra: Investing in technical equipment improves Spanoptic’s production capabilities and enables them to offer customers the best possible service at a reasonable and fair price. This strategy contributes significantly to a stable annual growth.
Today he owns a fleet of sophisticated equipment including a SSI-A metrology system, a Q22-X polishing system and most recently (2009), a Q22-Y from QED Technologies. Before purchasing the Q22-Y, there was so much pressure on the Q22-X producing aspheres that Spanoptic was faced with turning down new work. With the Q22-Y, they have added capacity as well as capability, and now they can polish squares, rectangles, prisms, and cylinders, as well as flats, spheres, and aspheres. The timing of the Q22-Y purchase was ideal as Spanoptic was able to immediately take on a job that was perfectly suited to the new machine. The job had difficult, critical specs and with the Q22-Y, they were able to finish to “remarkable” tolerances and on time.
Spanoptic first adopted MRF technology in 2004 and today, John can’t imagine running his business without MRF. When asked how MRF fits into the Spanoptic production environment, John said “When you really understand MRF and how to use the machine, you can start to think creatively about how to apply it within your production environment. You’ve always got to think about how MRF can help you. There are different parts of the (manufacturing) process where MRF can be involved”. As for the SSI-A, John stated that “it makes a huge difference” and also realizes that “the better you can measure a part, the better our customers want it”. John continued to say that it is hard to quantify the difference QED polishing and metrology systems have made to Spanoptic’s business other than it has been “enormous”. “They set Spanoptic apart.” He has been able to bring in a lot of extra business and would not be able to fulfill customer requests without them. Having MRF and SSI-A have also changed the way designers design lenses. Designers want tighter and tighter specifications so it is critical to be able to finish lenses to high precision and qualify them with a full aperture metrology system such as the SSI-A. John concluded by saying that “MRF is an integral part of any optical system.”
