SHOREWOOD, ILL.--Talk to optical laboratories today and you will hear discussions of automation, throughput, AR, robotics and eliminating steps and people. While Expert Optics has also turned to automation and robotics, they are investing time and money in their employees as well.

Take a tour of this optical laboratory and you will find an actual classroom complete with chalkboard, teacher and students. Here Bob Hughbanks, manager of training and development meets with his students to teach the ins and outs of optics to selected Expert Optics employees.

"We want our best employees to do the training, so we take them off the production line for classes. It's like cultivating a farm team system," said Greg Ruden, president of Expert Optics and recognized as one of Vision Monday's 40 Under 40 mover and shakers. "We prefer to promote from within and our training program makes this possible."

	Top left: Greg Ruden explains how Expert Optics' on-site dispensary is used for training ECP staff. Above: Joe Daniels, recent graduate of Expert Optics' internal training courses working the lensometer. Bottom right: Bob Hughbanks, manager of training and development gives a class on optics to Expert Optics employee Blanca Lopez.

Joe Daniels, a recent graduate of the internal training program, was with the company two years before he was given the opportunity to participate. Now Daniels works on the lensometer as part of the final inspection team. The six-month course includes the principles and theories of basic optics as well as hands-on experience. Students receive a manual, classroom training, homework assignments and are given a quiz at the end of each section. Employees attend class one day a week for five to six hours a day during a six-month period. During class time they are still paid their regular wages.

"This program puts them in a position to advance. We view our graduates as future leaders of the company and they could become the go-to-guy when opportunities open up," explained Ruden.

Education isn't only for the employees. Another unusual feature at Expert Optics is their dispensary. Inside the lab building is a separate room with a full-size dispensary. When doctors have a new employee or maybe someone who wants to work in the dispensary, they will send them for training in a real dispensary setting. Students come once a week for eight weeks for free.

The dispensary is a working model where employee can come to try on frames and order lenses. Since Expert Optics has their own frame inventory of Zyloware, Nouveau and Eyewear Design lines, the selection is outstanding.

Each year, in addition to the on-site training opportunity, Expert Optics hosts an education day for ECPs. This daylong event known as Optical Preview offers four hours of continuing education, an exhibit hall and dinner. This year's event will take place at on Wednesday, March 16 at the Hilton hotel, Lisle/Naperville, Ill.

The other half of the equation at Expert Optics is automation. Starting with the task of lens selection, the new Lektriever automated lens inventory system makes pulling lenses and filing blanks a simple task.

In March of 2004 the job of taping was fully automated with the LOH Auto Taper. The manual method of taping lenses, which is still used for specialty lens jobs, required one full-time employee. With the automation of the taping process this person is now free to work in another part of the lab when not needed for manual taping of specialty jobs.

Moving from three semi-automatic generators to two fully robotic machines from LOH Optical Machinery has made a huge difference in production.

"The ES runs 14 to 16 hours a day, doesn't take breaks or receive overtime pay," said Ruden. "Our employees have embraced the new technology and have even named the machine 'The Tin Man.' We've gone from three generators to two and are not running at full capacity and still have room for growth."

To insure quality by preventing polish build up on lap tools, Expert Optics invested in LOH's Automatic Lap Cleaner, a 'carwash' for lap tools. Lap tools come out clean and dry ready for re-use and no one is stuck with the job of cleaning lap tools.

What does all this technology and employee expertise mean to the ECP? Quality.

"Our clients say they want to give their patients the best but sometimes it's hard to get them away from looking only at the price," explained Mark Behringer, director of sales. "I tell our clients I'm not sure I can save them money but I know Expert Optics can make them money."

Expert Optics employs five sales reps that are industry veterans. When they visit a doctor's office they talk about how Expert Optics is a business partner with the practitioner. A sign posted in the lab's dispensary sums up the philosophy at Expert Optics, "Too much technology goes into making a pair of glasses to sacrifice the quality of making them in an hour."

Expert Optics has been ranked 15th two years in a row by Vision Monday's Top 25 Independent Labs survey in 2003 and 2004, has close to 100 employees and produces approximately 775 jobs per day using staggered shifts.