Back Issue | Technocracy in Austria – Visit to Adidas Eyewear
In this feature we travel to Adidas Eye wear’s head quarters in Linz to see things from their point of view, carry on reading or head over to Issue #017 to check out the original feature!
“This lawn was his pride and joy!” explains Ronald Mühlböck as we approach the headquarters of Adidas Eyewear in Linz – and it’s a fact that holds true today. Theman in question, Arnold Schmied, was the founder of Silhouette, the Linzbased company that has been developing and producing glasses for Adidas Eyewear since 1991.
It’s a damp and murky morning as we’re greeted by Ron, the business unit director of Adidas Eyewear, in front of the large, white building, surrounded by its extremely well manicured lawn. A keen mountain biker, Ron dislocated his right shoulder in a crash the day before our visit – but even sporting a sling, he’s still keen to guide us around the company and explain the individual steps that go into the production of a pair of Adidas Eyewear Evil Eye Evo glasses. Given that the glasses are essentially just a frame and two lenses, we never expected to encounter such a complex and highly technical production process.
Given the advanced state of globalization, society’s tendency to slash wages, and the dominant cheap and cheerful mentality, expensive products need to set themselves apart through proving their performance and quality – and this also applies to sports orientated glasses with an entry level price of 169 €. To guarantee that performance and quality, Adidas Eyewear not only designs and develops all their glasses in Linz, but they also still manufacture everything on site at the headquarters.
Recognising the needs
Regardless of the industry, there’s one decisive factor to consider when embarking on the development of a new product: who is it being made for, and what does it need to be able to do? The first question is easy to answer, but how – and where – do you find the solution to the second one? According to Adidas Eyewear, this is where the feedback of its athletes plays a major role, with riders like Joe Barnes, René Wildhaber, Steffie Marth, and Geoff Gulevich contributing towards the new Evil Eye Evo, and thereby shaping the look of these minimalistic glasses. The objective was to create sunglasses that boast the same protection as goggles while offering significantly better ventilation.
SPX: from grains of resin to hightech glasses frames, the evolution of production
If there’s one material that has drastically impacted the success story of Adidas Eyewear, then it’s the material SPX, which is also responsible for their new sunglasses. The S stands for Silhouette, P for Polyamide, and X for the secret behind the lightweight yet stable nature of the material.
Step by step to the end product
Our tour begins at the source of the frames, in a room where sacks full of granules of resin are housed before they’re prepared for a later step in the injection molding process. Using precision scales, this primary product, measured down to thousandths of a gram, is mixed with various colour defining powders to form the coloured frames. This is then placed in the XXL mixer along with the raw grains. After around thirty minutes in a spin cycle, the mix is then transported to a thermal oven for drying. “If any of the employees are cold in winter then they just need to enter this room – it’s always lovely and warm here,” explains Ron.
Just a few metres away stand several injection molding machines in a large, light flooded room kitted out with acoustic panels and living plants, a testament to the management’s desire to create a good working environment. This is where the individual parts of the glasses are produced at a constant rhythm from each of the hightech machines. One presses the liquidised material for the frame into a negative form, another spits out the frames into a collection basket, while another adds the rubber surface onto the just finished frames. Staff are involved everywhere, from supervising the process, to quality controlling and sorting products if necessary.
Now it gets noisy
If Ron hadn’t taken the time to explain the inner workings of this room prior to our entry, then we’d have had no idea what was going on. The noise generated by the abrasive polishing machines was quite remarkable. Without hearing protection, you wouldn’t last long. In the drums the previously injection molded parts of the glasses are polished to a high level in various steps. Large, tapered glass and ceramic pieces are used, incessantly shaken by these machines to polish the parts until they display a completely even surface. At the end of this step comes the now familiar quality control process. Any defective or not quite perfect part is picked out – although this doesn’t occur very often.
From the plunge pool to the paint shop
As we survey the next step in the process, it becomes clear how the company has developed over the years, undergoing constant extensions and renovations. In a small room full of female employees, we come across the frames once more. “Here they’re placed onto four different stations so that they obtain a full clean in four different plunge pools,” explains Ron. “Then they take the conveyer belt straight through to the paint shop.” This marked the end of our electronic companions (phones and cameras) on the tour, as safety guidelines stated: “Danger of explosion due to electronic currents.” Fortunately a peek through the windows gave us a glimpse of the next step.
The high-tech robots
Lenses are at the heart of any eyewear, and these critical pieces are prepared directly in Linz to be placed into the glasses. A robot – much like ones you’d see in films about the car industry – sucks the glass up with a vacuum, sets the optical midpoint of lens in the exact position before placing it to be milled, where it receives its final shaping. Depending on the model, various mill bits are used, working consecutively on the glass.
The union – where it all comes together
After more than 200 processes, there are now nine pieces which the final employees in the production process will assemble, creating the final product. The lenses are pressed into the frames, the frames clicked into place, and the nose pad fixed onto the bridge. At the end there’s a final quality control carried out in which all the pieces are inspected once more. Naturally, this is where the vital imprint on the inside arm of the frames is checked too: ‘Made in Austria’ stands here, and they’re as proud of this as the founder is of his lawn – and rightly so!
After many stages of production the Adidas Evil Eye Evo is assembled and ready for use on the trail.
For more information about Adidas Eyewear visit Adidas.com/eyewear
Words & Photos: Christoph Bayer
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