June 5, 2006 - South Windsor, Conn.- At this year’s MIDO exhibition, Gerber Coburn unveiled the latest addition to the company’s Performance Series Line, a Soft Tool Polisher for cut-to-polish or free form lens polishing.

“Gerber Coburn’s strategy is to provide flexible, advanced technical solutions for the ophthalmic industry while delivering the lowest cost of ownership," said Randy Baldwin, director of surfacing and coating, Gerber Coburn. “And we’ve executed against that strategy with our DTL generator. Today, labs can choose to run the DTL in a high-speed mode for conventionally processed lenses or utilize advanced operating parameters for cut-to-polish lenses.”

Baldwin went on to say, “The next logical step for DTL enhancements is the ability to cut Free Form® lenses. However, our customers expect us to provide a complete free form lens processing solution, not just a generator with free form capabilities, which means polishing capabilities that support this new surfacing platform.”

“MIDO was the perfect venue to gather customer feedback about our latest technological innovation, the Soft Polisher. We held a private showing for our global customers and the response was overwhelming. During the four days of the show, we had virtually every time slot filled and had an equal number of people waiting to see the polisher,” stated Baldwin.

Baldwin went on to say, “The feedback we received on the polishing technology was extremely positive. Customers were impressed with the machine’s polishing performance, small footprint, and unique processing approach. And several customers were so impressed they offered their labs as test sites for the machine.”

“Our customers confirmed that a key strength of our system’s approach is its scalability. Labs can initially buy the Soft Polisher as a manual machine then upgrade it later. The upgrades include a lap loading feature and a fully automated version that links, via a conveyor, the DTL generator to the polisher. And for those high volume labs, two polishers can be connected in order to process a single job simultaneously,” said Baldwin.

“We are extremely excited about our customers’ reception to our new lens polishing method. It’s not only a great solution for free form polishing but traditional cut-to-polish lens surfaces as well. Because it uses a ‘soft tool’ labs will be able to eliminate hard laps and its associated labor, thus increasing productivity while reducing operating and inventory costs. With our soft tool polisher, labs can expect to use a range of 12 soft tools, which is a far cry from the thousands they normally use,” Baldwin concluded.

Gerber Coburn is the world’s leading provider of computer integrated optical lens processing systems. The company designs, produces, markets, and supports equipment, software and supplies used in surfacing prescriptions in lens blanks, coating lenses, and machining lenses to fit patient frames. Based in South Windsor, Conn., Gerber Coburn is a business unit of Gerber Scientific, Inc.

Gerber Scientific is the world's leading supplier of sophisticated automated manufacturing systems for sign making and specialty graphics, apparel and flexible materials, and ophthalmic lens processing. Headquartered in South Windsor, Connecticut, the company operates through four businesses: Gerber Scientific Products, Spandex Ltd., Gerber Technology, and Gerber Coburn.

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