Investments in quality lead to business expansion

In order to meet the demands of modern-day applications, lens manufacturers  utilise the best production equipment available. Precision metrology plays a crucial role in this requirement. In addition to being essential for quality assurance, lens manufacturers incorporating this metrology as part of their process control benefit from drastically reduced operational costs and shorter production cycle times.

Spanoptic has built a successful business based heavily around this strategy and in spite of the current financial climate, is still expanding. Recognising the unique benefits of Taylor Hobson's range of 'PGI' aspheric measurement instruments, Spanoptic has optimised its manufacturing process flow to ensure lenses are machined to an exact standard prior to finishing.

Reducing manufacturing times and material waste to an absolute minimum enables users of these instruments to produce more products with greater quality and first-time-yield, improving competitiveness and maximising profits.

John Bryden, Managing Director of Spanoptic, comments:
"We have been extremely pleased with the versatility, reliability and overall performance of Taylor Hobson's instruments.  The ability to accurately measure any asphere or asphero-diffractive design has enabled us to respond quickly to our customers' needs, helping us win business.

Taylor Hobson's global brand reputation allows us to easily satisfy any customer question regarding product quality enabling us to provide lenses that are assured to meet specification. In addition to the two PGI instruments we have at our Glenrothes headquarters, we are looking forward to the delivery of a further PGI 1250 (steep-sided aspherics measurement instrument) that will be sent to our partner production company in Nanjing, China."

Spanoptic supports a wide range of industries, such as IR Defence, Surveillance, Photography / Cinematography and Medical, and is often contractually obligated to measure 100% of the lenses it produces.

Using both diamond turning and grinding / polishing equipment to machine a large variety of materials (fused silica, silicon, germanium, etc), Taylor Hobson's PGI instruments provide the essential intra-process metrology to ensure quality is maintained. Enabling faster measurement throughput for these production environments, both measurement and analysis routines are now able to be automated using a newly enhanced Aspherics Analysis Utility that can be combined with instrument control.

With focus on the production environment, Taylor Hobson maintains its commitment towards the optics industry, providing versatile, rapid-throughput, metrology with the highest precision.