Quantity or Quality?

It is important to know why quality optical coating services are vital to many industries today. I recently had a conversation with William Barbarow at Meadowlark Optics, Inc. in Frederick, Colorado. I had contacted him out of interest to know their driving reason for working with ZC&R. Meadowlark being an excellent optics company would lend toward them having similar needs and values as other optics companies. During the last ten years, many things have changed about how and why people do business. The question of Quantity or Quality has loomed for a long time.

There have been many companies who focused on one or the other and occasionally offer both high quality products as well as mass production services. As conditions change rapidly due to ever increasing technology and “on demand” production becomes the norm, many companies have shifted to small quantity production of high quality product for the lowest cost possible. Obviously there are pipe dream scenarios for any company, and so there is the balancing act we all go through.

At the outset of our conversation, we discussed Meadowlark’s needs and how those related to ZC&R. It was immediately apparent that the nature of the relationship between our companies did indeed focus on Meadowlark’s need for high quality optical coating services, but it wasn’t just that. William made it very apparent to me that quality wasn’t the only concern, even if it was the most significant. He indicated to me that reliability and responsiveness were also very important to him. On rare occasions when things don’t go perfectly according to plan, he has found that ZC&R is very prompt to resolve those rare dilemmas and get project timelines back on track quickly.

William also indicated to me that occasional diversity was also a need Meadowlark has. While they primarily focus on anti-reflection coatings, they have also needed a few custom coatings in the past and ZC&R was eager to help. So it seems that quality of product is good, but is not the sole consideration when looking for a provider. Quality of customer service is also an important aspect of any business relationship. William indicated that at one time his team had run into a snag with a particular project and came to us looking for help. We were able to recommend an inorganic coating and helped develop it, which enabled Meadowlark to get their project moving forward again.

At the outset of this conversation it had been my goal to determine if quality of product was more important to our valued client, or if quantity was. William helped illuminate the reality that the question should have been so much broader. Product quality and quantity considerations are important, but quality optical coating services must also be about customer service, timeliness, reliability and adaptability.

To learn more about our teams optical coating services, please email us or call 800-426-2864.

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This entry was posted by ZC&R, on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response below.