Profile
other manufacturer. The products have a distinctive Such heavy-duty work centres on the
‘All Metal’ tube technology, and are found in company’s Rugby facility in the Midlands of
cutting and engraving machines, laser marking England, although over the past couple of years
systems, and custom laser processing tools in GSI has opened a factory in China and has
virtually every industrial marketplace from cutting reduced the floor-space devoted to production
sheet metal, through marking electronic at Rugby. But as well as Synrad, which has already
components, to engraving wooden plaques. been mentioned, the acquisition of Excel
With 30 separate entities within the group, it Technology last year brought with it Quantronix.
will be a major task to create an integrated Based in New York, this produces solid-state and
operation, so it is perhaps no surprise that, at the ultrafast lasers for marking and micromachining.
present moment, GSI appears not to have Although a proportion of its customer base is at
developed a seamless procedure for making itself the more research and scientific end of the
a one-stop shop for its customers. spectrum, there are synergies with the rest of the
And it is customer focus that is important to Manufacturing of GSI’s air-cooled JK300 fibre group here too.
Brak. Being market-driven rather than technology- laser. At the other side of the continent, in Santa
driven is the important thing. He pushes the Clara, California, Continuum produces high
point home still further with the comment that, Panasonic, for example, are end users who do energy YAG lasers, OPOs (optical parametric
technologically, ‘we are extremely conservative’. their own integration work to embed the system oscillators), and dye and custom lasers for
He does not really see GSI Lasers, for example, in their industrial process. In other cases, the end scientific applications, so there is perhaps less
as a laser systems supplier. Rather he says: ‘What user might be a smaller company that turns to an overlap with the heavy duty industrial laser
we produce are tools – cutting, drilling, and integrator to tackle this aspect of the work. GSI business.
welding tools.’ Customers do not come to the is happy to advise on what integrators would be But Brak does not want to push integration too
company with a predetermined set of technical appropriate to carry out the work. far. He cites the case of GSI Systems, which has
specifications for some desired laser; rather they In most cases, using lasers compared to older, the semiconductor industry as its end users. Its
describe the job that they need to do: ‘Can you more conventional technologies will reduce complete systems are designed for memory repair,
drill this hole, weld this part?’ production costs and meet the customers’ other resistor and circuit trimming and wafer marking,
The customers don’t care what laser is used as criteria. But this is also where the technological and they could have, at their core, a laser made by
long as it serves the purpose. Brak still finds this conservatism comes in. ‘You can’t have products a competitor company, he said. ‘They should act
aspect of the job surprising. He has worked for out too early and then have them fail on independently. It keeps us competitive. There is
various companies in the laser business over production lines – that would destroy the no mandate to buy from internal sources.’ And, in
nearly a quarter of a century, but has been with business,’ he warned. When a laser system has to a reprise of his constant theme: ‘What is important
GSI only for the past couple of years. In his career be integrated into a factory’s production line, it is what is best for the customer.’
with other companies, he had to know all the has to be a mature system so as to avoid downtime
details of all the lasers that they produced. But due to failures of the laser.
Our expertise is dealing
this industry, he concedes, is different. Even now, GSI is developing new technology, but it sees
he does not know the company’s lasers in the itself as responding to the needs of the market,
with industrial customers –
same detail as in previous jobs. rather than innovating for the sake of it. The
we have done it for the past
GSI’s job is to develop the application, and ‘it’s market is clearly driving a need for high-power
the application development that leads to sales’, fibre lasers for cutting and other such applications
30 years
according to Brak. Industrial customers have to replace less efficient lasers. Fibre laser
three main criteria: they want to manufacture technology is increasingly accepted in the It works the other way, too, he remarks. The
quality parts; to do so as fast as possible; and to marketplace, Brak believes, but some early GSI Laser Division buys components from
have minimum downtime on the production adopters have had bad experiences and so are Cambridge Technology, also brought into the
line. now more sceptical. group by the Excel acquisition. Massachusetts-
Most of that work is done by GSI rather than Being first to market with fibre laser systems based Cambridge Technology produces scan
by integrators. Even if the company is working is not one of the company’s priorities. Enhancing heads and galvanometers for a vast range of
with an integrator to create the tools for the end the company’s reputation for quality and applications, including scan heads for laser
user, it usually falls to GSI to do the application reliability is – even if that dictates a slower pace. materials processing of interest to the Laser
development. ‘Our expertise lies here. We have ‘This is the reputation that we have; the workhorse Division. But, says Brak, ‘we will buy from their
access to a huge variety of lasers and a 30-year of industry. Our products will perform and are main competitor as well, although we would
database of developing applications.’ The reliable,’ he says. prefer to work with a sister company if
challenge, he feels, is not to persuade customers The main customers in the welding, drilling possible.’
to buy lasers, but to work with GSI. ‘Our expertise and cutting areas are automotive and micro- Despite the recession and despite the financial
is dealing with industrial customers – we have electronic, which together account for about 80 pressures, Brak remains optimistic. He cites
done it for the past 30 years.’ per cent of the business. The remainder includes estimates that place the marker for laser materials
GSI sells to end users as well as to integrators. medical applications. The aerospace industry is processing at around $1.3bn. ‘We are very well
Ultimately, the fate of the laser system forms part also important, particularly for drilling positioned. When the markets start to pick up,
of the production line and some large customers, applications. we’re ready.’
www.lasersystemseurope.com issue 5 • lASer SYSTeMS eUroPe 9
LSEwin09 pp08-09 profile.indd 9 2/12/09 15:41:36
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