By Isabel Spangemacher-Fürst

MAFO: How come that Fisa was founded

in1981?

Philippe Vaudeleau: It was founded by three

engineers who worked for the same company

that time. It was an Italian company which filed

for bankruptcy in the late seventies. This

company produced ultrasonic cleaning

machines. One of the three founders was Head

of R&D, one was Head of Engineering and one

was Head of Sales in France. When bankruptcy

was declared, and because they had worked

more or less eight years in the ultrasonic

cleaning industry, they decided to establish

their own company in the market: Fisa.

Today 100 people are working for Fisa all over

the world. Our R&D and manufacturing facility

is located in Italy, serving the different sales

and technical support subsidiaries. The

headquarters is in France, and we have six

subsidiaries in Germany, Spain, France, Italy,

USA and Hong Kong / Shenzhen. We want to

make sure that we do things globally and

locally; that’s why we work with local

management and local staff to bring better

technical support for our local customers than

could an SME or a multinational company.

MAFO: What has changed in the industry since

1981 – is cleaning still cleaning?

Philippe Vaudeleau: A lot has changed! If you

strictly consider the cleaning portion of our

“IN OPTICS YOU HAVE A WIDE VARIETY OF CLEANING APPLICATIONS”

In 1981, a company was founded in France to clean up contaminants of various materials

using ultrasonic cleaning. In the meantime, Fisa is active in various industries – including in

the optics industry: cleaning ophthalmic, sun, and safety lenses and precision optics.

Philippe Vaudeleau has been the president of the company for 14 years and he’s the person to

talk to when it comes to the topics of cleaning and dip-coating. MAFO wanted to find out more

about the topic of 'cleaning spectacle lenses’ and spoke to the Frenchman via Skype.

MAFO INTERVIEW WITH PHILIPPE VAUDELEAU

Interview FISA

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06_Fisa.indd 6 16.01.17 14:50

business in the late 70’s and early 80’s, there

were not so many concerns about the

environment or ozone depletion – ‘green

thinking’ was not yet part of our industry in

these days.

In the late 80’s, it started with the Rio protocol

to ban CFC solvents from the cleaning industry.

In the 70’s, most machines used solvents such

as Freon – all the nasty solvents that we don’t

hear about anymore today. CFCs were banned

in the 80’s but some companies decided to keep

using the new generation of solvents, like HCFC

and HFE. At Fisa we decided to go solvent-free

and focused on water-based cleaning processes,

still using ultrasonic as the core technology

for the mechanical action but the key code of

the process itself should be strictly water based.

After that decision, we created a company

named FIMM which specializes in cleaning

agents. This company now has three subsidiaries

in France, Germany and Switzerland.

Since ultrasonic cleaning is always a

combination of chemical and mechanical; the

mechanical part of the cleaning picked up

new technologies over the years. Unlike other

manufacturers, we make our own ultrasonic

equipment. We develop and manufacture

generators and transducers in-house. In the

mid 90’s, we developed new technologies

based on the piezoelectric effect that we call

multi-frequency type transducers and

generators. It allows us to use all the

frequencies between two given frequencies;

that offers us a wide range of frequencies in

the tank at the same time to achieve better

cleaning of lenses. This is particularly

important when it comes to precision cleaning.

MAFO: What kind of industries is Fisa active

in? Is it just the ophthalmic lens industry?

Philippe Vaudeleau: At Fisa we have a niche

market strategy. We are active in four different

markets. The first one is optics, including

ophthalmic, sun, and safety lenses and precision

optics. The second market is medical devices.

The third market is tooling, which means mold

cleaning for foundries, plastics and rubber. The

last one is precision cleaning which applies to

different industr ies l ike avionics and

watchmaking for instance.

Of course for each market we have dedicated

technologies, machines and robots. We try

to approach the markets using our technology,

with specific machines, chemistry and

cleaners to meet the demands of the different

markets.

MAFO: Thinking internationality: Where are

Fisa’s main markets?

Philippe Vaudeleau: It is not easy to answer

that question. We have all the different

subsidiaries and each subsidiary has defined

territories and markets. If I had to name one

region as the main market it is probably

Germany, followed by the USA and then France.

In terms of subsidiary size, number one is

France, followed by Germany and then the

USA.

MAFO: What about Asia?

Philippe Vaudeleau: In Asia, we set up a

company in Hong Kong last year. The revenues

that we have had so far have been generated

through Germany, France and the USA. Of

course we will assign the Asian Pacific Region

to Hong Kong in 2017 while we already have

offices, labs and facilities in Shenzhen.

MAFO: Are there specific machines and fluids

for different lens materials? For example, do you

have to treat CR39 lenses in a different way to

mineral ones?

Philippe Vaudeleau: Yes, absolutely! In optics

you have a wide variety of cleaning applications

and we cover the whole field; beginning with

cleaning glass or steel molds, which is a very

specific cleaning process.

When it comes to the lenses themselves, we

have machines for cleaning after surfacing and

polishing. That cleaning process is also very

different from cleaning the lenses prior to hard

coating or to AR coating, which is not really

a cleaning application but more like surface

activation, so there are different chemicals for

each machine. Sometime there are two cleaning

tanks, sometimes three; each process has its

own machine and chemical process.

MAFO: What about coating?

Philippe Vaudeleau: Our coaters are unique,

because of the environmental and modular

concept of the machines. This we can

accomplish due to the specific automation,

which we manufacture.

For instance, our machines are a kind of puzzle;

you assemble modules together to obtain the

ultimate machine. You choose cleaning, coating

and procurement modules and then you can

add another cleaning module and so on, if you

want to extend your line. You can add one

robot, for instance, to increase productivity,

but based on the same structure of your

machine.

A good example is CC20: this machine can

handle between 100 and 450 lenses per hour,

depending on the ultimate configuration of the

machine. You can keep it very small, with a

limited number of modules for say 100 lenses

per hour. Or you can add more modules to the

same machine to raise your productivity up to

450 lenses per hour.

Once configured, the machine can be extended

– retaining the initial investment and just

complementing it with an additional marginal

investment. This concept is unique and is true

for all the sizes of machines we have.

MAFO: What different types of machines do

you have?

Philippe Vaudeleau: MC stands for Mold

Cleaning, CS for Cleaning after Surfacing, CC

for Cleaning & Coating and CV stands for

Cleaning prior to Vacuum Coating. MC, CS,

CC, CV cover all the needs in the optics industry

for cleaning lenses.

MAFO: What about the MC and MR lines?

Philippe Vaudeleau: MC and MR are machines

for mass production, while CS, CC and CV are

mostly used in Rx-labs. This is true for

ophthalmic optics but, if you have to do with

sun or safety lenses, things are different. Here

we have mass production of lenses using very

large CC machines that can produce up to

10,000 lenses per hour.

MAFO: You offer machines for Rx-labs and

mass production, but what about the really small

ones?

Philippe Vaudeleau: Our latest product is

called ‘FisaLabs One’. It is the first machine

we have developed specifically for small and

Rx-labs. Until now, we had no machine with a

throughput under 50/60 lenses per hour – our

levels of technology were simply too high for

this size of lab. That´s why we decided to

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06_Fisa.indd 7 16.01.17 14:50

develop a machine based on a new concept. It

is a cleaning and coating machine but we didn t́

want to call the machine CC. We choose

‘FisaLabs One’ because of the new technologies

we put in it and since it is the first one of its

kind, we added ‘One’.

We integrated a new type of robot, new

ultrasonic generators, a new interface and

created a new environment, to make it unique

compared to other CC machines.

MAFO: When you come up with a new machine

concept, do you sell it worldwide? Or do the

demands in the various markets differ?

Philippe Vaudeleau: In every region we sell

the same machines. That means the same

product line and the same portfolio of machines

and chemistry is available from all our

companies.

MAFO: What have been the most important

developments in the ophthalmic industry over

the past 30 years?

Philippe Vaudeleau: The transition from

mineral to plastic – this was a big change!

When Fisa started, coating machines were

unknown, there were only cleaning machines.

We added the coating portion which then

became a big market. Now this market has

extended even beyond ophthalmics. We do the

same thing for other plastic materials, where

we clean and coat the material. So it opened

up a lot of opportunities.

MAFO: What was the most impor tant

technological development at Fisa over the past

30 years?

Philippe Vaudeleau: In the optical market it

is the multi-frequency ultrasonic technology!

We are still the only one in this market who is

using multi-frequency technology.

When you have just one fixed frequency in

your tank, you cannot ensure that it cleans the

whole surface of the lens. With multi-frequency

you have all the frequencies between 40,000

and 90,000 Hz available in one tank. All the

frequencies in this range with different

wavelengths are being produced at the same

time in the liquid.

The other major change is that five years ago

we introduced a new generation of controllers

for our robots compatible with Industry 4.0. /

AMP 2.0. They are equipped with touch screens

without the need for any programming or

typing, only checking boxes which makes them

very user friendly. All the machines can also

interface with external computers and

supervision systems.

We want to make sure that with the supervision

computer you can do data logging, change values

and set points, etc. – in short: you can see what

is going on in your machine from anywhere and

your machine can talk to its surroundings. That

is the Industry 4.0. / AMP 2.0 concept.

Nowadays we are more developing new software

rather than new hardware – it is the software

that has become important. Other examples: a

Fisa machine can send you text messages or

an email; you can view your machine on your

smartphone and see the uptime of the machine.

There are various plugins called FISA Analyzers

in the machine as well as the FISA Supervision

Ready which can establish a connection to third

parties software.

MAFO: In what way do you expect the industry

change over the next few years?

Philippe Vaudeleau: First of all I think the

big changes will be in lens manufacturer and

the machine manufacturers have to follow them.

Maybe there will be some new players in the

future.

In information technology, everything is

changing so fast these days that it is difficult

to say where we will be in five years’ time.

In optics we are relying more on capital

investment; this means that you need a certain

amount of time to amortize a new machine, so

things are not changing so fast.

One big change that we also see in the industry

in general is lean manufacturing. This, too,

started ten years ago and it has not yet been

established as standard in the optical industry

today. But we are going into that direction: less

and less labor involved, more and more

automation, more and more lean manufacturing.

Today you must be able to offer a machine that

can be connected, that can communicate,

receiving and sending information. You must

be able to switch production, be more reactive

and flexible. This will lead to great change over

the next few years. Today the customer wants

to mix up different machines and here you

must be able to deliver special software to

meet the customers’ demands.

MAFO: Brush cleaning is coming up more and

more. What do you think about it?

Philippe Vaudeleau: Brush cleaning only

covers one specific need: cleaning after

surfacing and polishing.

There are pros and cons like for everything.

This technology creates competition, and

competition is very important to improving

yourself and doing your best.

In terms of lean manufacturing, brush cleaning

is more appealing, but I think ultrasonic can

achieve more consistent results and more

reliable cleanliness than brush cleaning. We

have a lot more flexibility and can provide

more capacity with a lot less floor space than

with a brush cleaning machine. Brush cleaning

requires a lot of space and more energy than

ultrasonic cleaning. So with regard to these

points, ultrasonic cleaning is still better.

MAFO: What will you exhibit at Mido?

Philippe Vaudeleau: At Mido we will exhibit

the FisaLabs One. It will be its official launch

in the market. We have already sold FisaLabs

One machines to specially selected customers

in order to get some feedback.

The other main focus at Mido will be on

Industry 4.0. / AMP 2.0: controllers, software,

plug-ins and so on. We will make a specific

demo on our booth, because we are aware of

the increasing demands of our customer with

regard to Industry 4.0. / AMP 2.0. Today we

can already offer five to six standard plug-ins

and this is still an ongoing process, so we hope

to be able to offer more in the near future.

MAFO: Thank you very much for the interview.

Interview FISA

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