Optical Industry Grinds Out A Big Change
Custom casting could change the way the whole market, including you, does business.
By Arthur De Gennaro

In the past several years, the optical industry has gone through a spurt of technological advances. One in particular has the potential to impel monumental changes, including that lens manufacturers would no longer have to make lenses! The technology is called custom casting, and it has the power to reconfigure how manufacturers, labs, and ophthalmologists fit into the optical sales market. A look at how technology progressed to this point will illustrate why.

What's the big deal?

The technology used to manufacture the majority of eyeglass lenses in the United States is referred to as "surfacing" or "grinding." Simply stated, this is a process by which an object (in this case a lens blank) is rubbed, or ground, against another (called a lap). The lap has previously been cut with the exact curvatures necessary to make the desired prescription. Between the lens and the lap, a grinding compound is used. The compound, in conjunction with the rubbing action against the lap, is what wears away the material.

This process hasn't really changed markedly in several hundred years: It still relies on grinding material away from a lens blank using a lap and grit. What has changed throughout the years is the technology that drives the process. It allows us to make lenses faster and to control the process better. For example, with the introduction of computers, complex lens computations, that were once done by hand or "rule of thumb," are now done with ease by sophisticated surfacing programs. These same programs can also control much of the operation of the equipment.

Along came casting

Against that backdrop, a different approach to lens manufacturing emerged: casting. This process uses two molds, one that will produce a finished front surface in a particular base curve, and one that will produce an unfinished back curve. The molds are held together with a gasket, which also determines the lens thickness. A liquid lens material is then poured into the mold. The completed mold is then cured, using water baths, heat or ultraviolet radiation.

Manufacturers have been casting finished single-vision blanks for quite a few years. However, with traditional molding at the lens manufacturer level, cylinder powers aren't molded into multifocal lenses. This makes sense when you consider that in order to stock finished multifocal lenses, a practice would have to inventory every possible cylinder power, for every power, for every single add, of every single multifocal type. That's a lot of lenses: 184,320 combinations for FT-28s from ­4 to +4, -4 cylinder (left and right) to be exact.

And now, custom casting

With custom casting, that problem doesn't exist. Lenses are cast with the patient's exact prescription on them, including the cylinder power and axis. So, there's no need to surface the lenses.

Interestingly enough, custom casting is catching on fastest at the wholesale laboratory level. A few of the world's top lens manufacturers have perfected this technology, but some wholesale labs have licensed the process from them. The labs purchase the equipment and materials, and prescription orders from their customers are made using the proprietary technology. The labs' customers receive a custom-cast lens that's made to the lens manufacturer's exact design specifications.

Custom casting delivers quite a few benefits, including:

• The lens manufacturer and the laboratory don't need to maintain an inventory of lenses on hand awaiting orders. This releases an enormous amount of cash that can be used for other purposes.
• No inventory means the ability to work in less space and with fewer employees. This also saves money.
• Lens manufacturers don't have to actually make the lenses. Their major activity can now be research and development, which will most likely serve to accelerate the technology advance.

I can see no reason why custom casting on the lens manufacturer/wholesale level won't continue to grow in market share and be available from more and more laboratories in the future.

Custom casting benefits extend to in-office labs

But custom casting isn't only available to wholesale labs. Two companies have entered the market with casting units that will produce finished single-vision and, more importantly, multifocal lenses right in your in-house laboratory.

Why get into in-office casting? Here are a few good reasons:

• Sophisticated lenses, such as progressives, photochromics and aspherics can be made in-office in less than an hour.
• Custom casting takes less room. The space required for the casting unit and the molds is about the size of a student desk, so even practices with limited space will be able to accommodate the equipment.
• In most cases, casting a lens is cheaper than grinding one. This is most definitely true for progressive, high-index, aspheric and photochromic lenses. The cost savings can be dramatic at times.
• Being able to make lenses on demand represents a marketing advantage. Practices that once had to promise lenses in 3 to 5 working days can compete with 1-hour superstores. This, as you may be painfully aware, has traditionally been a competitive disadvantage that hobbled most solo practitioners.
• Custom casting is more environmentally friendly, in the respect that the liquid lens material isn't hazardous and doesn't require special handling for disposal.
• What's true for the lens manufacturers and the lens laboratories is also true for you: No inventories of lens blanks are necessary. This means that practices won't find themselves accumulating large inventories of lens blanks that don't turn and become obsolete.

Take a look around

Of course, other new technologies have been introduced recently; custom casting just happens to be my top pick. My recommendation to you is that you keep abreast of everything that's new. What you do and don't offer to your patients says a lot about you and your practice.

Arthur De Gennaro is president of Arthur De Gennaro & Associates, an ophthalmic practice management consulting firm in Lexington, S.C., that specializes in dispensary profitability. He can be reached at (803) 359-7887, or IsForU@aol.com.