www.SpecialtyPhotonics.com >>

Subscribe to The FiberWire FREE Newsletter >>

The Eyes Have It

Here at the headquarters of the OFS, Specialty Photonics Division, we’ve given ourselves a facelift, and it’s not only done wonders for our self-esteem, so to speak, it’s made us easier on the eyes for our customers as well.

We took a look at the inside first, combining Japanese-inspired principles of Kanban, 5S, cleanliness, order, and discipline to create a truly Visual Factory. The goal in a Visual Factory is to create “status at a glance,” where important aspects of factory performance are available in one look. Current work in process, next steps, availability of raw materials, timeliness, and any deviations from the normal scheme of things are all obvious from the visual tools put in place.

For example, in a vertically integrated facility such as we have in our Avon, Connecticut, location, we rely on the completion of earlier steps in the process before we can move along to the next step.

To illustrate, here is a simplified example of our internal supply chain and one application of the Kanban system we use for its Visual Management:

• Preform rods must be in stock before we can draw fiber.
• Fiber must be drawn onto spools before we can cable it.
• Cable must be in stock on larger spools before we can cut and
  assemble it with connectors.

In order for our cable line to run efficiently, we must make sure we never run out of fiber to supply it. See the illustration of the Kanban cards we use—green to let us know there’s plenty in stock; yellow indicates we’re running low; red indicates to immediately draw more fiber if we have not yet started to do so. Tim McMahon, our Lean Manufacturing Leader, put it this way to illustrate the importance of being able to see at a glance where everything is in process: “In the game of baseball why do fans repeatedly look at the scoreboard when the action is clearly on the field? The scoreboard answers important questions about the status of the game. It tells us how our team is doing in relation to the goal, to win the game!”

Necessarily, this particular system also relies on discipline to keep things neat, in order, and in place. A spool of fiber that is not stored in the correct location, for example, might lead us to think we need to draw more fiber before we really need to.

Several customers, during their factory tours, have commented how much we’ve improved in this area over the past year or so. Some have even asked us to share our expertise in helping make this happen in their own factories! We’re happy to host these tours and to help our customers improve their processes. These valuable exchanges have led us to make other changes to our facility as well. A simple thing: since the expansion of our facility to include new warehousing and shipping facilities, rooms for medical assemblies, and more, the external signage at our facility was not sufficient to identify OFS from its neighbors in the industrial park where we are located or to direct visitor flow efficiently. We employed the principles used in our factory to improve some things as basic as helping our customers know which driveway to turn into, which door to enter, and where to don personal safety equipment before entering a controlled room. Here is our new look!

Dr. Timothy Murray
Named CEO of OFS
(Business Wire - June 17, 2008) NORCROSS, Ga. - OFS today announced that its Board of Directors has elected Timothy Murray, 56, as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, effective June 20, 2008. Dr. Murray currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of the company.
Dr. Timothy Murray, CEO >>

New Journal Article to be Published
What is the upper use temperature for specialty optical fibers? Can they function indefinitely at 100°C? What about 200°C or 300°C? Demand is increasing for fibers that can be used in high-temperature applications, such as high-power delivery for medical surgery, fiber lasers for metal cutting, and downhole temperature sensing in oil wells. Optical fiber performance under these conditions has not been sufficiently understood. Silica, itself, can survive exceptionally high temperatures. It is, instead, the various coatings we apply to the glass to protect it from other elements and conditions than heat that limit its functionality under extreme temperatures. A white paper, by Andrei Stolov, Debra Simoff, and Jie Li, all scientists from the Specialty Photonics Division in Avon, Connecticut, and entitled “Thermal Stability of Specialty Optical Fibers,” has been accepted for publication in the August, 2008 issue of the Journal of Lightwave Technology. In their work, they clarify the concept of thermal stability, and based on the results, estimate the long-term use temperatures for various specialty optical fibers.