Life of a lens with Adrian Tune

The life of a spectacle lens is far more in depth than you would have thought! And the Specsavers Manufacturing and distribution team are responsible for the process end to end.

It begins its journey as a  plastic puck picked in one of our manufacturing sites by highly futuristic-looking robots, the puck then travels to be cut by state of the art surfacing technology, cutting the customers unique prescription into the lenses. It is then polished, washed and checked for blemishes. Specsavers also offer a number of treatments to lenses; anti-glare, super clean and tinting these lenses are sent over to coating before finally be delivered to store ready for the customer.

To complete the finished spectacles our Guernsey based warehouse pick and dispatch the frames to all our UK and ROI stores. We have this process mirrored across our European and Australian / New Zealand markets to ensure customer orders can be fulfilled within the shortest possible lead times.

Within M&D, our current projects range from full site relocations (in Asia), through site capacity upgrades  and strategic volume transfers across our European estate, through to specific process improvement projects at individual manufacturing  site level. We also have Lensmail, our mail order contact lens distribution operation, based out of Kidderminster, as part of our M&D family.

Adrian had been a General Manager for a number of years before joining Specsavers. As the Director of M&D for Europe, he says that the specific leadership development training that he underwent was amongst the best he’d ever received. In turn enabling the site teams to achieve the very best service, quality and cost to our store partnerships. One of Adrian’s proudest moment is encouraging individuals to succeed in reaching roles within the organisation they didn’t believe they could –

“They just needed the support, encouragement and confidence.”

We asked him what it’s like working for a global business like Specsavers –

“It’s unlike any business that you’re likely to have worked for before, both culturally and professionally. Don’t be afraid to take your time to understand the business. Talk to people and ask the silly questions. People are happy to help, and you’ll be significantly more successful as a result. We look for a basic but solid foundation in manufacturing or distribution as a requirement, but above all else is an open, progressive mindset which enables questions to be asked and allows for creativity. Three words to describe working at Specsavers would be progressive, exciting, fun! ”

If you think a role with Supply Chain sounds like you then take a look at our latest roles here.