Originally Posted by
DanLiv
To the OP's opinion regarding just simple edging, (barring drilling, high-base, step-bevel, chemistrie, and faster service that all certainly change the equation), I still think an edger can be profitable if you use it right. If you are even contemplating an employee just to run the edger, than you need enough work to keep that person busy. Simple edging from a dedicated person, even on a slow edger, should be 10 minutes per pair. If you have enough work to give this person 6 jobs per hour, assuming the $7 edging fees you quoted, you've saved $42 per hour. If you hire a true monkey at $20/hr, plus 30% overhead to $26/hr, you're still saving $16/hr. If that edger is running full time, that's a $32,000/yr. You can get a simple edger for this price. Paid off in one year. If you don't have that much volume you can hire someone part time to edge for 20 hrs and do 1,000/yr. Paid off in 2 years.
If you factor in buying finished SV lenses, which can be bought for 30-50% less than having the same lens surfaced, the savings get a lot higher.
More realistically you don't have the volume to justify a dedicated employee. (I don't.) Unless your opticians are working at capacity they can incorporate some easy push-button edging into their daily routine. Instead of using your savings to hire a monkey, use it to give a raise to your existing opticians for the additional work. Or if your opticians are working at capacity and can't take on any additional work, I would hire another optician and train them all to use their new-found extra time to do the edging.
Edging, training, and maintenance are a bother. You have to be willing to take on that bother in exchange for some cost savings in the long run, and extra capabilities that practices without edging do not have. If you can't be bothered, then don't and let your lab work for you. Just make sure you're using your time from NOT edging, training, and maintaining to generate other revenue
That's not a to-edge-or-not-to-edge question, that's a question of edger setting and capability. Good advanced edgers can handle step or high curve bevels nicely, if you know what you're doing. You lab's edgers certainly can do it too. Their monkey was the problem, not their edger.
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