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Hungry for Your Thoughts |
| Have you seen that little box on the Thorlabs Homepage that says, “Hungry for Your Thoughts?” Almost a year ago we posted a link on our homepage with those words and a picture of our Lab Snacks box. I wanted an easy way for our customers to send me feedback directly, and I made a commitment to personally answer these e-mails. I’d like to thank those of you who have taken me up on this invitation. It has proven to be a rewarding experience and has started many valuable discussions, ranging from product ideas and academic research to individual life stories.
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| I heard from several famished grad students who depended on the Lab Snacks for an occasional meal (we happily sent them extras), but many discussions which began with our Lab Snacks quickly morphed into interesting discussions concerning the science and business of photonics. The “Hungry for Your Thoughts” initiative has reinforced my high appreciation and respect for the source of our success, our customers. Now more than ever I view photonics not just as our core industry but as my community.
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| I have also been intrigued over the past year or so by the concept explored in James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds (Doubleday, 2004). Surowiecki postulates that large groups of people are collectively smarter than a few individuals, no matter how brilliant those elite few may be. I wanted to find a way to access this source of knowledge and to tap the group wisdom, both internally at Thorlabs and within the larger community; our “Hungry for Your Thoughts” campaign was just one concept that we implemented with this idea in mind.
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| Internally, we have taken this a step further by creating an intranet interface, an internal on-line forum called “Brainwave.” Brainwave is a tool to manage raw ideas, product development, and product vetting. More importantly, it was designed to tap the “wisdom of the crowds” by creating an open forum discussion available to all levels of our organization. Specifically designed to encourage participation and to break down traditional hierarchical corporate barriers, Brainwave includes a “skin in the game” betting pool to provide the mechanism for aggregating the available information. I hope to soon deploy a version of Brainwave that is open to our customers; I envision this last step as a significant way to broaden communication within the photonics community.
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| Please allow me to take a few minutes to talk about another facet of community. Recently I have had the fortunate opportunity to step back and watch the ever growing community of Thorlabs employees, which is now almost 500 individuals worldwide. I am continually amazed at the level of ownership and dedication this group displays on a daily basis. I see Thorlabs employees living the mantra of the importance of community by caring for our customers in a very personal way. For example, just yesterday, one of our Newton Call Center representatives hand-delivered a package to a customer at Newark Liberty Airport, which is over an hour away.
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| I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of our team. I have tremendous respect for the employees in all of our facilities. The Thorlabs organization has shown me that it has a true heart and a true soul. I am proud that this is a diverse community comprised of people of varying ethnic, educational, cultural, and economic backgrounds, truly working side by side.
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| I am committed to building a company that achieves its competitive advantage from its connection to community. I view Thorlabs as an integral part of the photonics community, and as such, I hope that Thorlabs will continue to foster the forward movement of the photonic sciences in cooperation with the amazing community of scientists we are privileged to serve.
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Sincerely,
Alex Cable
Founder & President
Thorlabs
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Thorlabs, Ltd. UK |
| Our new design and manufacturing facility in the United Kingdom significantly elevates the service provided to our customers in the UK, as well as expands the range of products available from Thorlabs worldwide. This acquisition adds an extensive line of nano-positioning products and a complete line of optical tables and specialized vibration isolation products.
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| Large scale optical tables, both stock and custom sizes, are now available through the Thorlabs catalog. We hold stock in our warehouses in both Europe and the USA to ensure quick delivery. Our new Science Desk line of individual workstations, designed in application specific configurations, are quickly being deployed through out the photonics industry.
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| The other side of the equation in Cambridge is the manufacture of state of the art nano-positioning systems. These nano-positioning products for high precision alignment applications along with vibration isolation systems serve to more fully round out our catalog offering.
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Thorlabs, GmbH Manufacturing Facility |
| Thorlabs is recognized throughout the photonics community for providing novel polarization measurement and control solutions. Our team of polarization experts in Germany have tackled many challenging measurement and control problems in this specialized field.
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| Our German operation, the former Profile GmbH, has developed, manufactured, and marketed advanced photonics instrumentation since 1988. This group has earned a reputation for providing innovative automated solutions in each of its core markets: from polarization measurement and control, to high stability, low noise laser diode controllers to DWDM fiber optic test and measurement systems. The products include a polarization measurement and analysis system considered by many to be the "Gold Standard" for high precision state-of-polarization, polarization-mode-dispersion and polarization-dependent-loss measurements. Our new TXP platform provides intelligent, web-based access and control of your test and measurement systems.
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Thorlabs Japan Inc. Operations Facility |
| The Thorlabs Japan office is centrally located in Tokyo. Mr. Tetsuya Nakai, former director of KDD FiberLabs, heads the operation. His extensive experience in the area of optical fiber devices combined with his considerable market knowledge provides our Asian customers with an exceptional product resource. The office is a crucial part of our commitment to the growing Asian market.
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| The Japanese office handles sales and customer service for all of Asia, including China and Korea. The ability of this office to handle technical support questions during the Asian business day greatly benefits the Thorlabs customer in this region.
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ThorLabs, AB Sweden |
| Thorlabs Sweden AB has extensive experience designing and manufacturing optical systems such as Objectives, Scan Lenses, Beam Expanders, Collimators, Spectrometers, and Fabry-Perot Interferometers. The team frequently collaborates with researchers and OEM customers alike to produce custom designs and subsystems tailored to the individual’s needs. An ISO 9001:2008 certified facility, Sweden AB is ready to assist customers with the design, development, and production of optical systems.
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