Frame companies taking control of lens manufacture is a growing trend and but something sunglass specialist Maui Jim is no stranger to.
The Hawaiian brand has manufactured its own polarising, colour enhancing sunglass lenses and married them to its ranges of frames in Peoria, Illinois, for many years. A recent move into optical frames, a growing global business and a close shave with a tornado has prompted it to replicate that US lab in Europe.
A €10m investment has seen its Braunschweig distribution centre also become its European manufacturing base producing lenses for Europe and other regions as far afield as India, the Middle East and South Africa. The 15,000sqm site houses 5,000sqm of buildings and the 2,000sqm lab. In deciding to create a second lab a number of factors came into play says Martijn van Eerde, international marketing manager.
While international trade agreements could be one reason, simply having an alternative lab is good practise. More dramatic are natural factors. ‘A couple of years ago we had a tornado come within about one mile. We have to plan for things because of the risk,’ he adds. There is also the demand, about 25% of Maui Jim’s output is now prescription work and with optical now added to its sunglass portfolio that is likely to grow rapidly.
‘There are great reasons to have a second lab,’ says Paul Ponder, senior director of Rx from Peoria. His job has been to export the aloha spirit and quality ethos along with the production expertise. ‘Most labs are measured for volume but here we will be measured for quality’, he says of a lab that will handle 15,000 jobs a week once it has been fully staffed for five day, three shift working and the equipment commissioned. Around 500 jobs have run through the lab mainly for staff so far. ‘The people and the equipment aren’t here yet but that’s what the volume will get to,’ says Ponder. He has been parachuted in to help set up production in the lab which is an exact replica of the process used in Maui Jim’s US lab in Peoria, Illinois. It is a clean, professional and conveyor-rich with the latest production equipment and high level of automation.
Ponder introduces the lab by describing how an order first arrives at Braunschweig and what happens to it from there on in. Orders are managed by the Visionstar system and arrive electronically, by email or even fax. The orders are checked and service staff are on hand to contact customer direct if jobs either do not make sense or are out of range.
The lab uses a series of colour coded job sheets which are married up with a tray and the lenses automatically picked from a conveyor system depending on the material required and any special finishes such a gradients. The colours allow the jobs to be batched once they get to the coating area. The lenses are auto-taped with a plastic film coating which helps adhesion during manufacture and helps dissipate heat from the alloy blocks applied in the following step.
After blocking the lenses are allowed to cool naturally, typically for 30 minutes, to avoid warping from too rapid a cooling. This simple step, says Ponder, is just one aspect of the constant emphasis on quality lavished on the lenses as they go through the system. The process is characterised by monitoring, constant inspection and remakes if any faults should be found.
Freeform generation using a Satisloh Orbit machine comes next with a 3.3 inch diamond wheel making the primary curve and a single point diamond cutter inscribing the progressive design. It is at this point that Ponder shows the attention to green issues. All waste is collected and transported through to a water recovery and recycling area at the back of the lab.
At the launch Walter Hester, Maui Jim’s founder and CEO, made a beeline for this area and was happy to stress the importance he personally places on recycling and reuse of water. Ponder says a quart of waste is generated for every lens surfaced, while the water can be recovered and reused he is still looking for a recycler for the swarf waste bricks that are produced after compaction. While these are readily recycled in the US, they are reused to make clock cases and the like, he is still searching for an outlet in Europe.
The production line
Maui Jim’s green credentials are also built into the fabric of the lab with combined heat and power, solar generation and a green roof to help meet water run off regulations. The site has also been landscaped, trees planted both to reduce the site’s environmental impact and make it a more pleasant place for the employees. Staff are encouraged to leave their workstations during breaks to rest and ensure they get proper time out.
Back in production, after generation, the lenses are polished, using a smart Multiflex polisher which tailors the polishing to the particular lens. There is then a change of manufacturer to Coburn as the lenses are then automatically de-blocked and washed. Here the process adopts a recent change from Peoria, auto de-taping ‘That was a manual process in Peoria until a year ago,’ says Ponder.
A manual process that still, and will, exist is checking every single lens for coating streaks or any generation marks. ‘We don’t try and resurface a lens we just start again,’ he adds. The checked lenses then move on to get a spin hard coat applied by a Coburn Velocity coater. A change of manufacturer to MEI is made to create the shape, notches, bevels, holes and facets using a Bisphera edger. ‘ It’s the best on the market,’ says Ponder.
Emphasising the quality aspect of what it produces Ponder says because Maui Jim manufactures the lenses and the frames it has total control over the edging process and uses its knowledge of the angles and bevels of the frames to programme the edging process to perfection. He says tracing of each frame is not necessary as the tolerances of the frames coming in are constantly monitored to make sure they are true to the expected geometries programmed into the edging process.
Once edged the lenses are chemically cleaned and marked with the Maui Jim logo before being baked for 30 minutes to cure the treatments and de-gas the lens. High vacuum coating takes place in Satisloh 1200 DLX-2 machines in a class 10,000 environment. The smart machines are able to apply all the coating in a single step even for bigradients where a ‘mask’ moves within the high vacuum to allow the deposition of the proprietary plume of chemicals that create the anti-reflective, hydro and oleophobic properties of the coating.
Once back in their trays the lenses move onto a fully manual assembly and glazing area where, again, quality is paramount, says Ponder. ‘Everybody has a computer at their station and every job they touch they are assigned for, so we know who handled that job last.’
Now the lab is ready to roll, Maui Jim is starting to tell the market so customers outside the US can start to enjoy shorter lead times. The first recipients will be India, the Middle East and South Africa then Italy and then the rest of the western European territories. The Maui Jim way of working is to use local labour where possible and the plan is to use Peoria lab veterans to coach the local recruits through the processes. While some may never have worked in a lab before there are optically skilled workers in the local area as Essilor also has a facility in the town.
Satisloh technology in the Braunschweig lab
Maui Jim is not setting any time lines on capacity just saying it wants to get the quality right and work by its aloha spirit which means treating people well to get the best results. ‘If you treat people with respect they will respond well, that’s not difficult to find in Germany,’ says van Eerde, . He adds that Maui Jim will not be taking the route of other labs by just cranking things up to get the highest volume. ‘We will take our time, we could probably do a lot more jobs but we want to concentrate on quality.’ At the moment the plant has five people and this will rise to 17 by the year end and to 100 within five years.
Hans Pensek, vice president Europe, says the lab will enable Maui Jim to support its European customers but also those beyond Europe. Hester says he is excited about the prospects for the lab and thanked everyone involved in getting it ready. ‘We definitely had a lot of choice [over location] but felt the team was so strong here. We can deliver our customers better service and better quality so we are happy to be here.’
