Whether installing new equipment, diagnosing a fault, or advising on consulting room layout, equipment technicians are often the unsung heroes of the ophthalmic world. Insight discovers how BOC Instruments equipment technicians keep the industry ticking over.
A skilled ophthalmic equipment technician knows what questions to ask – and how to ask them – to draw out relevant information to diagnose a fault. It’s a skill set that technical consultant Mr Joseph Justo, who joined Australian ophthalmic equipment distributor BOC Instruments in 1997, has honed over 26 years working in the field.
As one of eight technicians scattered across Australia servicing BOC customers, his primary role is installing new equipment, and providing after sales service, including repairs, in parts of New South Wales and Queensland.
He says it’s a role that involves different engineering-based skill sets – including electrical, electronic, and mechanical – merged with optics as well as communication skills. Alongside this is the continual advances in manufacturing technology, where equipment can be quickly superseded.
“As a technician, you get to know products well; you know what tends to break down or what same issues tend to arise.”
“I’ve noticed over the years that sales of a particular product will slow and then suddenly stop altogether when a newer equivalent product reaches a tipping point among eyecare practitioners. Word gets around – it can happen so quickly,” Joseph says.
Competing equipment manufacturers are continually introducing more features which adds a level of complexity to his role as technician. BOC’s approach to managing customer reports of defective equipment – sometimes caused by simple human error – is to try to resolve as much as possible over the phone. It becomes even more important due to the geographic spread of practices in Australia.
“An experienced technician can provide remote support and it benefits the customer if we can resolve it on the spot. They have their problem resolved quickly, efficiently, and that improves customer satisfaction,” Joseph explains, highlighting the value of being able to recall product codes and software protocol from memory.
“When speaking with customers over the phone, we’re working off memory of the product, and unique to this industry is the large variety of equipment and instruments that can be found in the consulting room. There can be up to 30 different pieces of equipment in any one practice.”
Sometimes his role involves providing advice over the phone to a practice or clinic staff member, such as a locum, who is unfamiliar with a piece of equipment and needs quick instruction on how to use it. Other times, Joseph is skilfully extracting the information he needs from customers to diagnose a problem.
“Customers often have preconceived ideas or a misperception as to what the problem is. When a piece of equipment is not working, you don’t want to ask leading questions. You need to structure questions in such a way that you get as many objective answers as possible,” he says.
“As a technician, you get to know products well; you know what tends to break down or what same issues tend to arise. If a customer is reporting a defect that you’ve never heard of and it is uncharacteristic, you can start having doubts as to the veracity of what they’re telling you, or perhaps it’s a problem you haven’t encountered before.”
When assistance over the phone doesn’t resolve the problem, Joseph then needs to visit the practice in-person.
“Safety is paramount, so when we’ve got to the point where we need to remove protective covers to open machinery, that’s when we tell the customer we’ve gone as far as we can over the phone, we need to come and have a look at it,” he says.
“Then we need to judge the urgency of the problem and take into consideration how much it is going to impact their business. For example, some practices may have multiples of the same equipment which they can use while we repair a fault; other times it’s a critical instrument and their whole testing room is down because of it.”
Visiting a practice requires careful consideration. Joseph’s role is made more challenging by the large distances he needs to travel, and the rural location of some customers.
“We courier spare equipment to customers in rural areas who have a business to run – similar to a courtesy car service at a panel beater – because we can’t service their equipment at the drop of a hat. Loaning equipment puts a lot of risk on us because sometimes it gets damaged in transport but it’s a risk that we factor in and undertake as part of the business,” he says.
“Sometimes, when we have a complex repair and need to order an obscure part – because it’s not sustainable to stock every component for the 200-300 pieces of equipment we’ve got out in the field – we loan equipment to keep the customer going if they need it, while we wait for a part that can take two or three weeks to arrive from overseas.”
When he goes out to a practice, Joseph is equipped with specialised tools, spare parts, trolleys and dollies to safely lift and move heavy equipment – and a computer.
“In the past, you never needed to touch a computer to do diagnostics on an instrument. Now, you need to be computer literate, and know how to set up networks because customers want to be paperless and want their equipment to ‘talk’ to each other and be linked and networked,” he says.
Keeping up with manufacturers
Like Joseph, national sales and service engineer Mr Carl Dutoit has accumulated a catalogue of technical knowledge gained over 28 years of selling, installing and servicing ophthalmic equipment with BOC.
“After I got past 25 years, I lost count,” says Carl, who initially began his engineering career with a pharmaceutical company before joining BOC.
“I knew nothing about optics when I came to this game. When I started [in 1995], everyone had an edger in their practice. It has slowly phased into more highly technical products, but my technical skills have evolved as new products came along.”
During his career at BOC, Carl has learned how equipment can improve efficiencies for optometrists and ophthalmologists, and like Jospeh, has learned that when a piece of equipment breaks down, it’s wise not to jump to conclusions.
“More than 80% of problems are minor. I get calls from WA at 10 o’clock at night, because they’re three hours behind, to tell me a device has stopped working,” he says.
“Mentally, you’ve got to work through all the pieces of the puzzle from scratch. Has it been turned off? Has it been bumped? Rather than thinking it’s a major part failure, we have to walk through all these mental steps to ensure it’s not the blindingly obvious. Then we go through a record of issues or problems associated with that particular piece of equipment that we’ve learned over the years, such as fatigue points, and it’s a process of elimination.”
When Carl visits a practice to repair equipment, he keeps an accurate record of what parts have been replaced in case the same equipment breaks down again.
“If there’s another fault or a problem later on, we can check the record and see what we replaced, and when, so we know either there is an inherent issue here, or it won’t be ‘that’ problem because we only recently replaced ‘that’ part. It’s going to be the next piece of that puzzle,” he explains.
When he started in the industry, most equipment was mechanical; now, most is PC-integrated and has a shorter life span.
“Electronics were very basic – I could see if an integrated circuit (IC) had failed. I could literally take a faulty part off and solder a new one on. Now, everything has laminated boards – you cannot see components which have failed; you can only assume a part has failed, but you’re replacing entire boards,” he says.
“Everything is connected to a computer; you’re dealing with customers’ networks and PCs. I get phone calls from customers on a Monday morning after Microsoft has done an update on a Sunday saying their machinery has stopped working.”
Carl says manufacturers are now reducing their life expectancy on machinery because components are no longer available for older products. Some pieces aren’t even reaching their five- or seven-year moratorium on parts anymore.
He continues: “Now, with so many buyouts from different companies, they don’t want to deal with old products, and COVID basically wiped out many small part manufacturers around the world. Manufacturers are drawing a line in the sand and saying we will only keep parts from ‘this time’ onwards.”
Designing space for equipment
Joseph and Carl also provide a design service that helps eyecare practitioners visualise their consulting room to ensure equipment fits, is safely positioned, accessible, and functional, down to the placement of power outlets and data points.
Carl says architects who design optometry practices or ophthalmology clinics don’t necessarily know what’s required in a consulting room.
“They don’t know how many data points or how much power consumption that particular room needs,” he explains. “If you include a chair and stand with two or three instruments and four or five other devices, all of a sudden that room is dragging more power than your living room.”
He recalls an unusual problem in a Westfield shopping centre that BOC was able to diagnose and resolve.
“Two optometry practices – on separate floors – had exactly the same product, bought virtually around the same timeframe, but one was constantly malfunctioning. We worked out the cause was the power supply in Westfield; every time the main air conditioning systems on the roof would fire up, it would cause a voltage spike on level two of the shopping centre, and that was interfering with the equipment,” Carl says.
“We had to put big line filters in to protect the power supply to the practice on level two. Some products manufactured in Europe are designed for 220 volts, not 240 volts. Even though they function fine in 240-volt environments, a voltage spike of 260 or 270 will cause disruptions and malfunctions, as it did in this case.”
A poorly planned consulting room can mean equipment is ill-positioned or wiring and cords are exposed, leading to trip hazards, or worse.
That’s why BOC’s technicians work with customers to design a consulting room that meets their business needs today as well as where they want to be over the next five years, effectively futureproofing so they can add additional equipment later.
“We understand customers use this equipment every day – and humans do the strangest things. It never ceases to amaze me how an autorefractor can end up on the floor. That’s a 26kg item that someone’s knocked off a table,” Carl says.
“That happens. I once received a call from a customer saying: ‘my fundus camera got knocked off the table. I don’t know how it happened’. When I got to the practice, I put the fundus camera back, repaired it, and then swung the customer’s ergonomic chair around – and the handle on the back of the chair hit the chinrest on the camera. Ever so slightly it hit the chinrest and each time it slowly moved the fundus camera towards the edge of the table. This repeated action for six or seven months knocked it off the table.”
When it comes to installing and repairing ophthalmic equipment, Joseph and Carl, two of BOC’s longest-serving employees, have seen (and heard) it all. One would be hard-pressed to find two technicians who know more about the hundreds of products in their field, inside and out.
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