While OMC's current premium industrial-grade polished finish is perfectly suited to most industrial data communications applications, the new laboratory-grade polished finish can be used in even more demanding environments, for example, in research laboratories or large physics applications, where consistency between links is of paramount importance.
Industrial-grade fiber optic cables used in data links require high-precision, multi-stage polishing to achieve uniform insertion loss (attenuation) from link to link. This ensures reliability in long-term applications where imprecise performance tolerances can lead to premature failure, especially in installations with hundreds or thousands of optical links, such as power plants or railway systems. For over 40 years, OMC has developed and leveraged the expertise of highly skilled operators at its optoelectronic production facility to consistently achieve the premium industrial-grade polish finish necessary to guarantee reliable and long-lasting data link performance.
OMC recently introduced collaborative robots (cobots) to its optoelectronics production facility, designed to work safely alongside skilled human operators in a shared workspace. The company developed its own custom programming and tools for the cobots, as well as new production techniques that leverage the dexterity of the experienced human operator with the resilience and repeatability of the cobot to increase throughput and capacity and reduce operator fatigue, while crucially maintaining quality and ensuring consistency. This combination has also enabled the company to consistently deliver unprecedented finish quality: its new laboratory-grade polished finish.
“We knew from experience that robotics alone couldn’t replicate the consistency and performance achieved by experienced operators,” said William Heath, CEO of OMC. “However, adding the cobot was almost like equipping our skilled operators with a bionic arm: after numerous iterations, we’ve achieved an exceptionally high-quality finish, meaning we can now reliably supply top-performing, premium-quality industrial fiber links with a level of consistency that would otherwise be difficult for a human operator to maintain.”.
OMC 's optoelectronic technologies are used in a wide variety of applications where long-term performance and reliability are critical. From transportation, aerospace and defense, research and instrumentation, medical and power distribution, to industrial and consumer electronics, signage, commercial and residential buildings, and leisure, OMC products are used daily by millions of people around the world, making their everyday lives safer and easier without them even realizing it. With a strong focus on exports, OMC's broad global end-user base ranges from SMEs to global corporations, as well as leading universities, the public sector, and research institutions.
