How long does it take to edge a job?

[ilanh]

I've posed this question before but I was unconvinced. I have two opticians who are edging on a Santinelli 7070. It takes them 35 minutes per job (from the very beginning to the very end). This includes getting the stock lenses, blocking, edging, fine finishes, remounting, checking the end result and putting it back in the tray. We have measured this multiple ways and with multiple types of jobs. The average is 35 minutes. Colleagues of mine have mentioned that the average time should be 15 minutes and the person who sold me the edger assured me that it takes "about 10 minutes". I think that this may be overly optimistic. I would be quite interested in an apples to apples and honest estimate of what it takes. My employees are so bogged down by this edging that we wind up sending many of the jobs to other labs to be edged. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense to pay a $25/hr employee to edge a $10 job if it's going to take her 35 minutes to do it. Any advice appreciated.

[For-Life]

Hmmm... I would like to see the process. I used to use an Essilor Delta or was it a Gamma? Anyway, I am assuming the Santinelli is of similar age, so it should take similar time.

I can cut a lens in 5 minutes. That includes tracing, edging and mounting. But to dot the lenses up, clean them up, and verify them, it only should take about another 5 minutes longer.

So now I am thinking here. This could be part of the problem. When you edge, do you just grab a job that comes in, take it to the back, set it up, edge it, and then bring it back OR do you have all of the jobs come in, dot them all up, edge them, check them all through all at once?

[cocoisland58]

You know I have never actually timed it. I lay out all the jobs, then cut them. If I had to pull lenses, lay them out, cut (assuming a one cut wonder), mount, check, align, clean and case, I'd say 20 minutes would be about right. Is there a race?

[Happylady]

While one lens is in the edger what are they doing? Are they just standing there? They should be getting the next job ready to edge or checking the job they just finished.

Are they starting the lenses too big and have to cut them down a few times?

[harry888]

I agree with happylady.

My former optician would watch the lens be edged down by the machine instead of dotting up the other eye or loosening the screws on the frame.

Took her 30 minutes per job. Takes me about 12-15 minutes.

That extremely inefficient behavior was in everything she did in the office. She is gone now.

I would look at the overall efficiency of these 30 minute per job employees in other areas and seriously consider if future employment is justified.

Harry

[MIOPE]

Each lab is different and every job is too. You mentioned stock lenses so i assume most of them are single vision. If they do not do drill mount frames i would say that 35minutes is too much time specially for someone that is doing it all day and knows how the equipment is set.
Do you have one edger for each employee? or they have to wait.
The best way to solve a problem is to cut it in pieces. Measure the time it takes for them to do each step. Are they working all the time or they take too much time talking. ¿Is the equipment available when they need it or they have to wait for until the other employee finish?.
What i usually do is that i go to the lab on a weekend or at night and try to do it myself. I know how to do it but i don't do it every day so i should do it slower than what a regular worker.
Employees=headache. But we need them so have to be as step ahead always. I spend from 30 to 50% of the time in the lab working with them and organizing evething. I hire them to work not to talk. It takes time but they learn to behave. If you go to a library, you are not alowed distract others neither on the lab. They must be concentrated in what they are doing.
Also have surveillance cameras on the building so i can record and see thru internet what is happening if i can not be there. Discipline.

[For-Life]

While one lens is in the edger what are they doing? Are they just standing there? They should be getting the next job ready to edge or checking the job they just finished.

Are they starting the lenses too big and have to cut them down a few times?

exactly, that is why I was wondering if all of the jobs were cut at once, or just randomly. When I used to edge, I would have one job in the edger, the frame open with locktite in it, a frame in the tracer, and one lens being tinted, while I was cleaning up another job.

[Johns]

I've posed this question before but I was unconvinced.

So if we responded last time, should we not now? I still say that if it took 35 minutes (on average) to cut a stock lens, we'd be out of business.

Maybe 9-12 min on the long side, and that's even answering a phone call, or making an adjustment in between.

[braheem24]

Someone make a video edging 2 pairs of glasses and post it on youtube.

Poor Ilanh is going to botch a surgery if he grows any more optical gray hairs.


Youtube has a 10min video limit, good luck I'm not the camera type or I would do it. :cheers:

[MIOPE]

Each lab is different and every job is too. You mentioned stock lenses so i assume most of them are single vision. If they do not do drill mount frames i would say that 35minutes is too much time specially for someone that is doing it all day and knows how the equipment is set.
Do you have one edger for each employee? or they have to wait.
The best way to solve a problem is to cut it in pieces. Measure the time it takes for them to do each step. Are they working all the time or they take too much time talking. ¿Is the equipment available when they need it or they have to wait for until the other employee finish?.
What i usually do is that i go to the lab on a weekend or at night and try to do it myself. I know how to do it but i don't do it every day so i should do it slower than what a regular worker.

[Johns]

Someone make a video edging 2 pairs of glasses and post it on youtube.

Poor Ilanh is going to botch a surgery if he grows any more optical gray hairs.


Youtube has a 10min video limit, good luck I'm not the camera type or I would do it. :cheers:

I was thinking the same think when I posted. I'm headed out of town, but I'll see if I can have my lab guy do it when I get back.

[Fezz]

Someone make a video edging 2 pairs of glasses and post it on youtube.

Poor Ilanh is going to botch a surgery if he grows any more optical gray hairs.


Youtube has a 10min video limit, good luck I'm not the camera type or I would do it. :cheers:

PLEASE....OH PLEASE!!!

Please don't any of you *Optical Over Achievers* tell him that it took him three times as long to think his thread out, post it, re-read it, scan it, over analyze it, re-analyze it, double check, micro-manage, spell check, revise, rewrite, peck through, proof read, reiterate, rethink, rewrite, re-double check, re-analyze, reanalyze again, recheck, revise, and actually post this question than it takes to actually edge a lens!!

Cripes sake...............................I have seen complete finished, edged, jobs from the far east that have been delivered to me that have taken less time!!


;):cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::D

[pezfaerie]

Takes me about 8-12 minutes from verifying the uncuts,blocking, edging and then verifying the end product, if it is a standard job, meaning no 8 base or difficult frames (which take about 4-5 minutes longer). I work on a Santinelli 9000sx express and use a trusty old manual blocker, and saftey on a hand stone as I don't think the edger does a good enough safety( even after changing the settings). The fastest job I have processed took about 2-3 minutes and that was having full trust in my machine's sizing. I think knowing your machines and maintaining them are very important in being time efficent and cost effective.:bbg:

[ilanh]

I agree with happylady.

My former optician would watch the lens be edged down by the machine instead of dotting up the other eye or loosening the screws on the frame.

Took her 30 minutes per job. Takes me about 12-15 minutes.

That extremely inefficient behavior was in everything she did in the office. She is gone now.

I would look at the overall efficiency of these 30 minute per job employees in other areas and seriously consider if future employment is justified.

Harry

Actually, now that you mention it I am beginning to realize that they do each job individually. They would probably save time by picking all the inventory stock lenses at the same time, spotting and blocking all at the same time etc. Then, while they edge one lens they can be mounting the ones that they just edged. This would probably shave off some of the time. However, at the present time I am paying them more in salaried time to edge than it would cost me to send the job to the lab.

[CME4SPECS]

ilanh,
I have many years of experience in the lab, and I feel quite confident that your opticians can increase their productivity if you will follow the following advice. They should be able to immediatley be able to get you 4 jobs an hour,within a short time even more.
First of all I have a few questions:
Where are they spending all of this time??
Pulling stock?
I have found that it is best to organize lens stock, first by material and then by cylinder power:
Place all spheres in a row from weakest to strongest, minus in one row, plus in another. Keeping each material seperate.
Place all .25 cyls in a row, with sph. power from weakest to strongest. Continue with each cyl. power.
Perhaps you already to do this, I don't know.

Is your machine calibrated so that the lenses fit coming off the edger?
If not, are they cutting the lenses down 3-4 times to get them to fit properly? That can sure suck up a lot of time!

Now the fun part: Let's assume you have a stack of 10-12 jobs to run.
All placed in trays and nothing has been done with them.

Job #1
Go pull lenses, if stock is organized well, this should just take a few moments, not minutes.
Then put the frame in the tracer.
While the frame is tracing, set the axis drum on the lensometer to axis of right eye, set the sphere drum to sph power on right eye. Put right lens in lensometer and line up the sph mires and then the cyl mires, bam...spot the lens.
Right about now that tracing should be done, or very close...measure the frame pd (unless they are inexperienced and rely on the edger to tell them the pd) if that's the case you may have a problem here.

Notice I haven't mentioned anything about that left lens yet.
Block the right lens and put it in the edger.
While it is cutting, repeat the spotting of the left eye, then block it.
If the frame is a metal, now is the time to remove the eyewire screw of the right eye.
Right about now that right lens should be about done. Check the fit then load the left lens. Set the tray next to the hand edger for safety beveling, but don't deblock or bevel just yet.

Go pull the stock for job #2, put frame in tracer, repeat procedure for spotting the lenses. If the edger stops before the left lens is spotted, load the left lens of job #1 ln the edger...keep that edger running.
Once that edger is running, keep it running.
Repeat this until all lenses are pulled and blocked
Do not safety bevel or mount any lenses until all of the stock has been pulled and blocked.
Once all stock has been pulled, and blocked, then it is just a matter of keeping the edger running.
Once all lenses are prepared for edging ...then they can start with the saftey bevels. Bevel until the machine stops, then load the next job.
When the beveling is all done (and it should be way before all the edging is done), now is the time to start mounting.
Get them mounted one lens at a time.
Mount a lens or two, until that machine stops...then reload it.
Keep this up until you have all them mounted.
Then clean them and get them ready for delivery, one job at a time.

You should be making phone calls to your patients to come pick up their glasses, before that edger stops on the last job.

If not, I will gladly give you a full refund!

[Pogu]

I don't make near $25/hr, if it took me 35min to cut a stock lens I'd clock out or 10 so I didn't feel like a thief.

[cocoisland58]

Actually, now that you mention it I am beginning to realize that they do each job individually.

There's the problem. I don't know any lab opticians that do that on a regular basis. There should be a stack of trays moving around the lab to each station. We even scan the frame before the lenses (we don't stock them) come in from the surface lab so that all is ready to go. I even put like with like to make it a real no-brainer. Single vision cr39, then poly, then D segs, then progressives. The cut is only as fast as your machine of course (and ours is slow) but being organized can cut down on time, lessen mistakes and should make life easier for the lab people.

[k12311997]

way back when at LC on a horizon II with patterns, stock lenses. Dot, block, cut,inspect.


crazy competition for best time 5 min. It took me 7 but I still say my PD's were perfect, his were just in tolerance.

being lazy no hurry only job in the lab and the patient isn't coming back for an hour any way 15 min.

[CNG]

Are these "opticians" also supppose to be selling, dispensing and also edging?
Trying to do too many things all at the same time leads leads to errors.

CNG

[DragonLensmanWV]

What they said. You gotta treat it more like an assembly line, your stations must be in order,your edger must be calibrated. This way you can go through a stack of say, 8 - 10 jobs in that 35 minutes.

Fastest I've ever done a pair is maybe 5 minutes, three of which was in the edger.

[Judy Canty]

I've posed this question before but I was unconvinced. I have two opticians who are edging on a Santinelli 7070. It takes them 35 minutes per job (from the very beginning to the very end). This includes getting the stock lenses, blocking, edging, fine finishes, remounting, checking the end result and putting it back in the tray. We have measured this multiple ways and with multiple types of jobs. The average is 35 minutes. Colleagues of mine have mentioned that the average time should be 15 minutes and the person who sold me the edger assured me that it takes "about 10 minutes". I think that this may be overly optimistic. I would be quite interested in an apples to apples and honest estimate of what it takes. My employees are so bogged down by this edging that we wind up sending many of the jobs to other labs to be edged. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense to pay a $25/hr employee to edge a $10 job if it's going to take her 35 minutes to do it. Any advice appreciated.

I sense a bit of rebellion for being micro-managed. Just my 2 cents.

[Jacqui]

I did 49 yesterday, included a few tints, some grooves and a drill job. Most also included mounting. this is with old equipment.

[KStraker]

I have the same machine. It takes about 10-15 minutes to block,cut, and mount a lens with no ar coating. For AR coats I take longer because I use my hand to let the lens come down slowly. This helps prevent lens twisting, but adds 10-12 minutes to the process. Solution, fire both of them and hire me.

[Bill West]

Sell the edger, let one of the "opticians" go and sell one or two more pairs of glasses a day. Let a lab do the work and make more and relax.
I've said it for years if you have time to edge you are not doing something right. Your people should be taking better care of your customers and selling, selling, selling.
Edge a pair and save $10 less the expense of doing it, net savings?
Sell an extra pair and make$$$$ and net $$$.
Good luck.

[Bill West]

I did 49 yesterday, included a few tints, some grooves and a drill job. Most also included mounting. this is with old equipment.

That is six an hour. If you were retail, you did not have time to sell. So you must be wholesale. I sold eight,care to guess my net?