Looking at labs: Investing in the future

Nigel Castle is a man who intimately understands optical labs and the practices they serve. Having worked for Lenstec for more than 30 years, doing his time on the factory, he is now the managing director.

His long years of service to the company have not blunted his enthusiasm, and he recently enacted a round of investment into the site at Caerphilly that has modernised the Welsh lab.

Lenstec is actually an independent group of labs, having acquired sites in Leeds and London to expand its reach and consolidate its supply chain. The company’s largest operation is in Caerphilly where it has four sites, including one company office, one warehouse and two labs which both run for nearly 24 hours a day. It originally only had the one lab, but purchased the office, newer factory and warehouse as it grew. ‘We’re moving towards more automation at the moment, but we still have two different sides of our production. The older factory isn’t lacking in technology at all, but our newer, more automated site is now marketing leading,’ explained Castle. A £600,000 investment in the newer facility has paid for two MEI Bisphera-Xdd lens cutting machines, an extensive network of conveyor belts and lifts, and a new IT system which automates large parts of the glazing process.