Originally Posted by
lensmanmd
Today's world is heavily reliant on computers and technology. Every industry is facing the same dilemma. Craftsmanship is a dying art. We can all wax poetic about the loss of (and rising costs of) hand made products. That said, the most costly portion of running a business is payroll. Technology has lowered the cost of payroll at the expense of real knowledge.
Gone are the days when we had to lay every lens out by hand. Calculate curves, prism, thickness. Many of today's 'opticians' don't know what to do with, nor use, a sagitta gauge. Calculate prism? Calculate minimum blank size? What about knowing the effect of decentration on thickness? Nice try. Let's not even discuss vertex distance and slab off calculations. On the bench end, how many of today's techs understand the box system, or manual layout? Sad.
With the advent of Freeform, there really is no way to bring manual calculations back, but come on, not knowing Prentice's Rule is heresy! Not being able to calculate decentration without LMS, well, you decide. These are minimum standards of knowledge! Technology has made us lazy. Higher productivity has taken time away from training the art of opticianry. Instead, corporations are training stylists and machine operators. Nothing more.
Do I want to sit down and manually calculate every pair of glasses again? Do I want to operate a hand pan ever again? Do I want to hand cut patterns, or even pull patterns from the board? Hell no. But the point is, I can.
Yes, it's time to make a change. Question is how, in this digital age where payroll eats profits? I am truly interested in what you guys come up with.
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