Australian owned lens manufacturer, Opticare, has taken its business to an entirely new level, having invested significantly in state of the art manufacturing technology and established a new office to service customers in West Australia. Opticare now has offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth. The company’s head office and manufacturing plant continue to operate out of Sydney.
According to George Nasser who founded Opticare in 1984, the expansion has enabled the company to increase productivity and broaden its product range to meet more customers’ needs.
“We’ve invested in a stand alone multi-coating system, a robotic generator with a polishing system and an automated checking and blocking system,” said Mr. Nasser, adding that as a result, the company can now manufacture a pair of stock lenses and fit them to a frame in just ten minutes. “The only time the product is touched by human hands is when the process worker puts the lens into the work tray and if the frame is supplied, to fit the lens into the frame,” he said.
That’s not to say Opticare will be cutting back on staff. In fact George says the opposite will happen.
This is all about moving into the future – we had a choice – to stay as we were, where it was comfortable and safe, or to take our business to the next step
“Most of the multi-nationals manufacture lenses overseas but we want to keep jobs here in Australia. So, by producing the same quality lenses with a 24-48 hour turn around, and backing that up with local service, we feel confident we can maintain our local customer base and even increase it, despite the slightly higher price point that local manufacture necessitates.”
Michael Nasser, son of George and Opticare’s National Operations Manager, said the investment will enable Opticare to produce lenses that are comparable in quality to those manufactured by the “multi-billion dollar competition”.
“There are really only three big brands for lens manufacturing – Optotech, Schneider and Satisloh. We’ve invested in Optotech, which enables us to create a product that’s as good as any lenses produced by other companies in the world.”
George Nasser said despite its focus on manufacturing locally, the company won’t ignore customers looking for a lower cost alternative.
“In addition to Opti-premium, which is manufactured in Australia, we’ve launched Opti-saver, a range of lenses we’re having manufactured overseas. They’re still the same quality but because they have to be imported, the turnaround is approximately five days instead of two,” he said.
“To reflect our investment in plant upgrade, we’re repositioning ourselves with a new logo, a new corporate profile and a new look website,” said Michael Nasser.
“This is all about moving into the future – we had a choice – to stay as we were, where it was comfortable and safe, or to take our business to the next step. We decided on the latter and we’re looking forward to acquiring new customers while offering our existing loyal customer base a better product and more choices than ever before.”
Opticare’s new brand will be launched this month (June) at ODMA.