Kennet Lahti Optical Glazing is located a few miles south-east of Leeds in the village of Oulton. Housed in a converted school building, the lab is run by a small team headed by owner Kennet Lahti.
Lahti grew up in Sweden and, after attending university in Stockholm, began working for Carl Zeiss.
‘I basically started from ground zero there – doing stock picking and the like – and became the lab manager before I left. I’ve worked my way through the whole system really. That’s where I learned the basics of glazing skills from the more experienced people in the lab. At that point they were still doing a lot by hand and about half the jobs were glass.’
That grounding served Lahti well and he moved to the UK in 1993, initially setting up labs and training staff for Vision Express. From there he went to an independent that wanted a lab building to serve a small group of practices.
‘That was in Harrogate. Ever since I came to England, I’ve been in Yorkshire,’ says Lahti. ‘We built up a glazing company there but it was part of a practice’s business and I wanted to start my own. So, in 2000, I started my own business and also qualified as a dispensing optician.’
The new lab was initially located in Cross Gates, a suburb of Leeds, before moving to its current premises 10 years ago.
‘It was a glazing lab from the start,’ says Lahti. ‘In Cross Gates we only did glazing. We had quite a few employees because we did a lot of work for chains. Over time these smaller chains got bought up by the large chains and the work went to their industrial sized labs. When the lease came up, I saw that these premises here in Oulton were well suited for a lab. I lived very close by, so it was great from a practical standpoint too.’
The outside of the lab in Oulton
The change in location was accompanied with a shift in the work undertaken by the business.
‘Today I do all the actual lab work myself and we are mainly used by small independent practices that have one or two shops. They might send a lot of jobs to the big manufacturers but send us things that are a bit trickier as they know we can do a better job. The work sent to us tends to be high quality frames that need glazing well but we will undertake anything – from glass to NHS work – and provide the same standard of work.’
Lahti says that getting a job correct first time and providing consistent quality is critical for his independent clients.
‘Obviously with me doing all the glazing myself, they know exactly what they’re going to get, because they’ve seen what I do and that’s how it comes every time.’
This attention to detail enabled the lab to be certified by Lindberg to do glazing work on its frames.
‘Years ago, when Lindberg first came out, I went to Denmark for some training on the company’s original titanium frames. Eventually Lindberg decided to reduce the number of labs they worked with and they started doing a certified system to maintain standards. They give you training and help with the equipment. But they come and do inspections every year to check that you’ve got all the right equipment, that you’re doing it the right way. They send work that you need to glaze to a certain standard and return for quality control. To be certified, you must be absolutely spot on. At the moment, we are one of only three labs certified in the UK. There are other places that have a lab account with Lindberg, but they have to buy everything themselves and the product won’t be fully warrantied.’
The Lindberg connection has been helpful to Kennet Lahti Optical Glazing over the years through recommendations for work, with general word of mouth crucial to its success.
‘That’s been our biggest advertising,’ says Lahti. ‘People use us and then they recommend our service to others and it goes on from there. I would say that an independent practice should consider using us for consistently good quality work and the ability to do rimless and tricky jobs that other places may not be able to.’
Lahti is supported by Kate Bues, a dispensing optician who serves as a well of knowledge for clients.
‘Kate has a huge amount of experience experience in practice as a dispenser so she knows the challenges. She is on the phone helping our clients in practice more or less all the time. When things get too busy for the two of us, my wife will come in and sort jobs to the point where I actually start putting them together. She’s been doing it almost as long as me so it’s a great backup to have.’
Lahti estimates that rimless and related frames makes up roughly half of the lab’s work with the rest full rims of some description.
‘But out of those full rims quite a lot of them are complex prescriptions and high-end lenses going into expensive frames,’ he adds. ‘An example of a complex prescription is something like a plus five with a minus seven in a bifocal that they want glazed into a complicated frame.’
Asked what skills are necessary to make a success out of such a job, Lahti demonstrates his attention to detail.
‘I think to do it well, first of all, you have to make sure you order the right lens, in the right way,’ he says. ‘So that the lens when it comes, is optimised to do what you want it to do. You have to consider whether the base curve is right for the frame or the prescription, and try to find a compromise between the two. Make sure that when you start glazing you have a chance of achieving a good result in the first place. Then it’s down to getting the lens fitting exactly right in the frame and making sure you give it a nice finish. Achieving that is largely down to your ability with your hands.’
Lahti uses a courier service for overnight delivery to clients spread throughout the UK, with the majority of jobs going out on the same day as arrival.
‘Most of the jobs that come into the lab, when the lens arrives and we have the frame and lenses together, ready to glaze, will go out on the same day. The ones that don’t will go out the following day. So the actual glazing work is done as soon as possible – we don’t stack jobs up for days and days on end.’
A significant change in recent years has been the addition of a practice alongside the lab, which Lahti sees as something of an insurance against changes in the lab market.
‘We remodelled the premises to allow for a shop to run alongside the lab facilities and we have an optometrist who does regular clinics. We will absolutely continue to do lab work for other practices as long as there is some demand. You have to be realistic about the way things are going and with the lab business becoming more centralised there are going to be fewer and fewer small labs around. That means that there’ll be less and less choice for opticians to get what they want done, because a lot of large labs won’t do certain things. A lot of big outfits aren’t set up to do certain things. So it might mean less choice in the end for the customers.’
Looking back over nearly two decades as his own boss, Lahti has no regrets. ‘Obviously I think everybody who has run their own business can say there are ups and downs, trials and tribulations. It’s certainly been fulfilling and a big learning curve on a lot of things, but so far, touch wood, we’ve managed to stay in business for 19 years. So we can’t have done too badly, can we?