Eye On Equipment
Bringing lens casting in-house
By Susan P. Tarrant

When we think "in-office lab," many of us may immediately--and only--think of edging equipment. A lot has been written about the cost-effective and easy-to-use equipment that allows eyecare practitioners to take a semi-finished lens and edge it themselves to save on lab costs.

The NexGen Vision Lens Casting System

There is other equipment, however, that allows ECPs to take control of the pre-edging process as well, and either take a lens blank and grind it to prescription, or use a monomer casting system to create a fully-Rx'd lens. As these technologies evolve, they are providing still more ways for independents to eliminate lab bills and increase customer service by taking control of the quality and turnaround time.

Brian Cullather, vice president of marketing for Louisville, Ky.-based Optical Dynamics Corporation, says his company's lens casting system has been gaining the interest of practitioners who are looking to reduce their costs even beyond bringing the edging in-house.

"The private independents are finding themselves in the middle. Their revenues are capped, due to managed care, and their retail line is just holding steady," he says. "Their cost of goods is starting to rise, and they're asking, 'How can I reduce my costs?'"

Some of them are saying goodbye to some of their lab bills entirely and are turning to in-office lens casting. Using a monomer and a mold, lenses are cast to a patient's exact prescription, then are edged as usual to fit the frame. It can deliver increased yields and lower costs, plus it can allow the independent to compete with same-day turnaround.

"You're moving the manufacturing down the line closer to the end-user. Any time you do that, you realize savings," says Drew Eichelberger, vice president of marketing for Alpharetta, Ga.-based NexGen Vision, Inc. The company recently launched its NexGen Vision Lens Casting System.

Through casting, Eichelberger says, practitioners can see "significant savings" in costs because there are no lab bills and no lenses to stock--just the consumables needed to cast the lenses. "You're casting a finished lens," he says, "with better optics and better quality."

With a lens casting system, Cullather says, "the lenses are custom-molded, not surfaced. Surfaced lenses have small defects in the lens surface after being scraped, polished, and sanded." The advantages of a system, he says, are a "pristine" lens surface and freedom from having to buy lens blanks.

	Optical Dynamics Corporation's Q2100R lens casting system

Now, casting systems can produce mid-index lenses in single vision, flat-top 28s, PALs, and photochromic lenses in a variety of lens designs. "This technology is being talked about more than any other technology in the industry today," Eichelberger says, adding, "In the future, more materials and designs will become available."

Practitioners who still want to use the plethora of brand-name lenses available, but don't want to be weighed down with lab bills, may look toward the FastGrind system, which brings a complete surfacing lab in-house. The system uses pre-blocked, brand-name blanks from lens manufacturers and surfaces them to a patient's Rx.

Designed to be used as an in-office system, it needs only a five-square-foot footprint. The system is a great way to offer multifocals with same-day turnaround service, says John Corsini, senior vice president for Cincinnati-based SuperSystems Optical Technologies, makers of the FastGrind 2200.

The difference between using FastGrind and a casting system, Orsini says, is that "because you are grinding a lens, you can make it as thin as you want. You're not limited to the molds you have."

These systems are at the cutting edge of expanding the practitioner's in-office processing capability. Detailed information on each system follows.

OPTICAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION

The company produces the Q2100R In-Office Lens Casting System, which produces custom-finished lenses in minutes. It also produces casting systems designed for high-volume wholesale labs and mid-volume chains. The entire family of premium progressive, bifocal, and single vision lenses from Optical Dynamics is custom-molded to a patient's exact prescription. The company's proprietary liquid monomer comes in clear (ClearLight™) and photochromic (Comfortones™) with an index of refraction of 1.56, ABBE value of 40, and impact resistance that is 2.5 times greater than FDA impact standards, ODC reports.

Optical Dynamics is offering a ready to edge program designed to let practitioners sample the technology's lens quality before committing to installing it. Under the program, Optical Dynamics will cast lenses to a patient's prescription, then send them out to the practitioner for edging. For more information, call 800-797-2743, or visit www.optical dynamics.com.

FastGrind 2200 lens surfacing system from Super Systems Optical

SUPER SYSTEMS OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES

Super Systems Optical Technologies is the maker of the FastGrind 2200, an in-office surfacing machine for retail outlets. Needing only a five-square-foot footprint, the system uses tap water and boasts a "no fuss, no clean-up" operation. The company has updated and added software to the system to accommodate the new lens products on the market, and has modified the FastGrind 2200 to provide faster operation. It also now offers the capability of surfacing polarized lenses.

The company just introduced its Eye-D progressive lens identifier that identifies laser engravings on PALs. Practitioners need only place a lens between the light source and the magnifier and any laser engravings will appear. It is easy to use for quickly marking PALs for edging, and for identifying the brand a patient is currently wearing. For more information, call 800-543-7376, or visit www.superoptical.com.

NEXGEN VISION, INC.

The company has just launched its NexGen Vision Lens Casting System, designed for labs, retail chains, or high-volume practices (those producing about 40 pair per day). The system can create single vision, FT 28, and PAL designs in an impact-resistant clear mid-index material or in Corning® SunSensors® plastic photochromic material. The system can produce an Rx range of -6.00 to +2.50 and .25 to 2 cylinder in quarter diopter steps, and can provide a +1 to +3 add in quarter diopter steps.

Some of the offerings of the NexGen system are computerized job tracking to ensure quality control, precision glass molds for finished and semi-finished lenses, a patented print coat technology, automated mold assembly, auto fill/shut-off technology that maintains consistent lens material chemistry and eliminate manual operations and pumps, modular lens cure stations, and easy mold separating and cleaning capabilities. For more information, call 800-443-8846, or visit www.nexgenvision.com.