Can someone explain the heirachy of Lens Crafters ?

[Refractingoptician.com]

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[Refractingoptician.com]

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[Joann Raytar]

Re: LC management

Quote deleted at the request of the original author

They still affect you. Most vendors, lens vendors at least, only allow 2% returns which gets eaten up by defective lenses in the lab. So, the cost of lenses replaced on warranty are essentially eaten by the store and count against your bottom line. A store running over 20% lens remakes gave away 20% of its lenses. Add that on top of breakages and discounts and the stores are definitely affected. Also, advertising might be developed at CSC but the cost of co-ops and employment ads, etc comes out of each store's budget just like they were independent businesses. Keeping a store in the black isn't always easy.

Gary said:

Some optical stores I've seen , are actually over-computerized to the point that their systems management has the opposite affect to what it was designed for ... in other words it has become a negative productivity tool ... it stifles employees and is now counterproductive. Is there merit to my observation on this ?

Employee scheduling is computer based. Yes, sales volume, traffic and conversion play a part in how the stores are staffed. Coupled with strict hours to sales guidelines this can be counterproductive.

The rest of the operations are handled by people.

[Steve Machol]

For some strange reason this topic reminds me of the famous Zen Buddhist koan:

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Or maybe I just need more caffeine! ;)

[Refractingoptician.com]

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[Steve Machol]

Re: one hand clapping

Gary said:
An excellent , thought provoking quote, Steve .... but what does it mean ?

Gary

If you have to ask, you can't possibly know. :D

[Mikef]

Gary,

Steve's quote is very similar to this one!

If a tree falls in the middle of the woods and know one is there to hear it does the tree really fall!

[edKENdance]

Actually the quote is "if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it does it make a sound?"

The answer, as with all philisophical questions has to do with your understanding of language. If you think that a sound is not a sound unless someone hears it then the answer is no. If you think that sound is caused by the rarification of air molecules which of course a falling tree would make then the answer is yes.

I also heard the sound of one hand clapping on the Simpsons, I believe Bart did it. It is a sound probably quite similar to this post.

[Joann Raytar]

Re: Re: Re: LC management

Quote deleted at the request of the original author.

I remember those days too. Then, once the manual generators were replaced with new equipment, that didn't cut it anymore. We were able to get down to 1.5% to 2.0% for awhile but it was close to impossible to hold it there consistently. The one hour, no special order setting makes it tough.

Quote deleted at the request of the original author.

This is true. The fact that most folks are better informed about various lens materials today and come in asking for thinner lenses or AR coating helps out a bit as well.

[shanbaum]

LC management

Quote deleted at the request of the original author.

Unfortunately, we can only calculate the thickness of finished lenses if the vendors provide us with some minimal thickness data (like, edge or center), and most of them haven't done that (for finished lenses, most have provided nothing more than OPC's). It's too bad, because we have built in the ability to ascertain whether a stock lens will be too thick or thin.

As far as the Varilux PRP location is concerned, we'll take a look - which lens exactly (Varilux makes a few)? I'm frequently amazed at the length of time we can have bad data in our database without anyone saying anything.

And regarding the special orders, I think that's done on the EyeNet side, but if you'll describe the problem you're having more completely (and to the right people at Lenscrafters), perhaps something can be done about it.

[Joann Raytar]

Re: LC management

shanbaum said:
And regarding the special orders, I think that's done on the EyeNet side, but if you'll describe the problem you're having more completely (and to the right people at Lenscrafters), perhaps something can be done about it.

Matt Brown was a lab manager in Milford and Waterford for awhile. I think even he gave up on making things work together well and I know he spoke to folks both at LC homeoffice and Gerber.

[shanbaum]

Re: Re: LC management

Jo said:
Matt Brown was a lab manager in Milford and Waterford for awhile. I think even he gave up on making things work together well and I know he spoke to folks both at LC homeoffice and Gerber.

He certainly never spoke to me (and I would be the "right people" at Gerber), though as I said, if the special orders are handled by the EyeNet software, I wouldn't expect to hear about it.

Jo, do you work at Lenscrafters? Do you use (or did you ever use) the EyeNet software?

[shanbaum]

Comfort

Please fax examples of these worktickets to 860-648-6681. I'm quite sure the info in the database for the Comfort is correct. It can be a little complicated to see exactly where certain parameters come from in your system, because some come from the retail system, others from the lab. For instance, the Rx that shows up on your worksheet is the one that's entered on the retail side; internally, Innovations always transposes to, and calculates in minus cylinder. What you're seeing on the saddleback job is probably Innovations twisting one lens 90 degrees in surfacing, so as to keep the flatter of the two curves along the horizontal, "base" meridian, because your cylinder machines work better that way. That obviously has to be done on the two lenses independently.

[Joann Raytar]

Re: Re: Re: LC management

shanbaum said:
He certainly never spoke to me (and I would be the "right people" at Gerber), though as I said, if the special orders are handled by the EyeNet software, I wouldn't expect to hear about it.

Jo, do you work at Lenscrafters? Do you use (or did you ever use) the EyeNet software?

I had been a lab manager and then a retail supervisor, among a handful of other titles, at LensCrafters up until two years ago. Milford had been a test store for the Coburn IQ and switched to a Gerber system back in 1997 or 1998. Now that you mention it, we were using RxCalc at the time.

I think something may have been wrong with our setup in general. The store's main processor was so slow that it would hang if too much information was passing through at one time. For example, if you had a retail associate or two sending a work order in, someone cashing out a sale and someone bringing up a job on the edger, that was it; everything would come to a stop. We would then have to reset the computer or call home office to have them free up the system. This was happening once or twice a day almost every Saturday.

My almost significant other, just went back to LC after a five year hiatus and is now working with EyeNet. They have other issues, mostly related to waving Ormex and lenses coming unblocked in the generator. These problems may be more due to training opportunities and job turnaround outpacing the materials they are trying to run than anything else. It doesn't sound like the problems lie with the settings or parameters.

[shanbaum]

Re: Re: Re: Re: LC management

Jo said:

I think something may have been wrong with our setup in general. The store's main processor was so slow that it would hang if too much information was passing through at one time. For example, if you had a retail associate or two sending a work order in, someone cashing out a sale and someone bringing up a job on the edger, that was it; everything would come to a stop. We would then have to reset the computer or call home office to have them free up the system. This was happening once or twice a day almost every Saturday.

The old v2k/RxCalc system most definitely performed pooly on the late-80's vintage RS-6000 computer (note the singular) with which each store was equipped. Neither of the main components (v2k, and RxCalc) was really designed to run on multi-user computers like the RS-6000 in the first place; each additional terminal session required the same additional resources as the first. At the time, I was surprised that it performed as well as it did. Lest it sound as though I'm completely trashing that system, one should recall that Lenscrafters used it to sell and fabricate millions of pairs of spectacles during the 90's...

I'm sure that poor performance was one reason Lenscrafters just spent a significant heap of cash to develop their new, thoroughly modern system. I don't think anyone will complain about its performance.