When it comes to marrying up frames and lenses there are several strategies open to optical businesses, each with its own pros and cons relating to cost, convenience and the ability of a practice to gain a competitive edge.
It is interesting to compare the ebb and flow of spectacle manufacturing, surfacing and glazing over the years. Once upon a time Vision Express promised one-hour service and had a lab in every store; however the move towards vacuum coated lenses has led to the one-hour service no longer being a viable promise for premium customers. Today Vision Express seems only to have labs in its largest stores having recently opened a large glazing facility in Nottingham with state-of-the-art facilities.
With the exception of small satellite stores, it seems Specsavers has a lab in every store, as well as huge factories around the country. Boots on the other hand, having at one stage embraced instore moulding as an alternative to surfacing, as well as glazing, seems, except for a few franchise stores, to have divested itself of instore glazing altogether.
I spent 25 years working for North West regional group Conlons Opticians, whose glazing history neatly summarises the options available to opticians. For many years Conlons had its own factory in Liverpool, with a fleet of vans and motorcycles making deliveries each day.
The recession of the 1990s and the new competition, particularly from Vision Express, led to a desire to offer quicker service via instore labs with the largest practices holding stock, not just of CR39, but also high-index and multi-coated single vision lenses. A move towards more informed choices, along with a growing presbyopic population, inevitably meant most patients would be best off with something that was not held in stock. At that stage stocks were eliminated in favour of glazing lenses from suppliers who could guarantee fast delivery.
Eventually, as space was required for extra test rooms, workshops were closed. Initially practices used local branches for their work, and then in most cases moved to remote edging with assembly of spectacles by dispensing staff rather than having a dedicated technician. Following the acquisition of Conlons by Vision Express it appears glazing has come full circle, with most stores utilising the services of a central laboratory.
The fact that the industry goes round in circles with its approach to glazing, and has done for decades, means practices that are considering changing the way they fit lenses to frames should consider the pros and cons carefully.
Using a third party lab
Pros
- If one lab is used for almost all work it is likely to be cost effective
- Few issues with downtime due to
- technician absence or machine faults
- No impact on space within store
Cons
- Slowest route of supply unless using a local lab with collection and delivery
- Most expensive route if use several providers
- Potential price inflation if use one provider
- Postage costs can be significant
Remote Edging
Pros
- Potentially the fastest route for surfaced and coated work
- Probably the cheapest route for rimless work
Cons
- In the absence of an experienced technician may be detrimental to quality and increase remakes
- Fitting in around other practice work can cause delays as tricky jobs such as rimless get put off
In store lab
Pros
- Fastest service for stock work
- Provided surfaced lenses glazed same day, no slower than remote edging
- Ability to cut edge and fit existing / stock lenses in an emergency
- Can prepare lenses and advise patients when ready so patients with remakes / re-glazes are not without their glasses
- A good use of unused practice space and staff time as modern machines can be operated with the minimum of training by experienced dispensing staff
Cons
- Costs associated with space, stock and capital outlay need to factored in but are not usually significant unless space is required for increasing clinical capacity or sales
- At busy periods can lead to considerable ‘overtime’
Setting up an in-store lab – what is required?
The shopping list for lab equipment is commendably small as some of the necessary equipment will already be found in practice, however it may be worth investing in separate kit if the lab is a long way from the shop floor making sharing tools and a focimeter impractical.
- Focimeter (ideally with UV / LTF meter if offering tints)
- Edging machine and waste management system
- Former cutter or tracer (tracer may be built into edger)
- Blocker (not required on most edging machines)
- Supra groover, rimless drill, edge polisher, hand edger (few/none of which are required on most advanced machines)
- Tint bath and fume extraction / ventilation system
- Tools – in addition to standard adjustment and repair tools specialist pliers such as de-blocking, rim forming, and block closing pliers
- Consumables such as blocking pads, tints, thread seal, screws, formers, etc, where applicable
While there are many suppliers of tools, consumables and focimeters, there are only a small number of suppliers of glazing equipment operating in the UK:
- Birmingham Optical for Nidek www.birminghamoptical.co.uk/product-category/lens-...
- Essilor for their own equipment https://ecp.essilor.co.uk/instruments/lab
- Mainline Optical for Huvitz – www.ml-oc.com/huvitz/
- Norville for Weco and Briot www.norville.co.uk/acatalog/Weco.html
If considering setting up a lab a good starting point is to research online and then visit suppliers at the larger exhibitions such as Eyecare, 100% Optical and Optrafair where workshop equipment is well represented. Most exhibitors also have special show discounts on offer that will more than pay for the trip and it is easy to make a fair comparison of products without the pressure of a salesperson on your premises.
It is possible to kit out a lab to glaze full rim spectacles for under £6,000 by buying used equipment. However, unless you are replacing a pre-existing item in your lab, it has to be questioned why anyone would buy second hand.
At the time of writing it is possible to purchase a new combined tracer, blocker and edger (that can also be used for tracing frames for remote edging by external labs) for under £7,000. With modern touch screen technology any competent dispensing assistant can be trained quickly to glaze between 20 and 80 plastic, metal and supra frames each day.
It is beyond the scope of this article to give the detail of specific products, and each manufacturer offers a wide range at different price points depending on considerations such as space available, volume, and the desire to glaze ‘everything’ rather than just standard jobs.
At the top end of the scale a state of the art lab capable of glazing every frame including facetted rimless and high base sports lenses with stepped edge profiles could set practices back £35,000 to £45,000. What a machine cannot do is only usually discovered after the equipment is installed so it pays to ask searching questions and talk to experienced colleagues.
At the top of the range edgers have automatic blocking systems that prevent human error providing the four pieces of information – Rx, PD, heights and frame type – have been entered correctly. Even at data entry stage the best machines will prompt for confirmation when an error is imminent reducing remakes and waste considerably.
Control freaks may be pleased to hear that big brother can be switched off and that machines now have semi-automatic modes to facilitate for example, maximum de-centration from a standard blank, which historically may have been rejected by a machine as not possible.
The manager of a lab above one of the UK’s largest practices said: ‘We glaze hundreds of jobs each day, however, we started small and my advice is to invest in equipment that is scalable, where the machines can “talk to each other”, and it is easy to upgrade one item without having to replace everything else.’
He added: ‘At our level of business we find it difficult to find experienced technicians so it is also important to have equipment that is intuitive, easy to use with the minimum of training at least for routine single vision work while people build their skill level.’
Asked why he chose instore glazing he replied, ‘remote edging might save space, and is probably cost effective for rimless, but with modern equipment it is the tracing, assembly and checking that takes the time’ he went on, ‘blocking and edging are automatic, so I don’t see the benefit, especially if it ties you to the lens company that has provided the tracer free of charge’. He concluded: ‘Providing you have affordable space for a lab it is still likely the most profitable way of glazing and gives you a lot of flexibility from a customer service point of view when things go wrong.’
Clive Marchant, MD of Colin Lee Opticians, largely agrees: ‘We started doing our own glazing to achieve consistent glazing quality having been unhappy with some external suppliers. When deciding what to buy you need to ask yourself what you want to glaze. Do you want to just glaze full rims and supras or also rimless? The same goes for lens materials as different wheels are required so you might want to send glass lenses and some plastics out.’
Marchant also adds that he uses remote edging for difficult materials allowing the manufacturer to bear the risk of breakage. ‘It is a fine line financially which model is best, depending on space and capacity and capability of staff, compared to the prices you can negotiate for remote edging or sending work away.’
Finally he added: ‘Practice owners also need to be aware that if they assemble spectacles they need to be registered with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority for the manufacture of Medical Devices, which is not hard but does place an additional burden of record keeping and audit’.
As the latest machines offer unparalleled ease of use and accuracy, and benefits in terms of customer service, cost, and the flexibility to utilise remote edging when necessary, then is it time to give instore glazing another look?