Solaris Optics CEO on Company History, Presence and Future
Published: February 28, 2022
“Precision Optics Manufacturer Outlines its Post-Pandemic Future” – it’s a title of a longer interview made by Jose Pozo, the CTO of EPIC Photonics Association, with the CEO of Solaris Optics, Michal Muniak. Solaris Optics joined EPIC Photonics Association in early 2021. The interview was published at novuslight.com, in the second half of February 2022 and it covers the CEO personal and company takes on Solaris Optics.
The publication summarizes a bunch of interesting facts about Solaris Optics development, markets and plans, which we outline below.
Main development milestones in the company history:
- 1991 – founded, Philips as the first significant customer,
- 2000 – own manufacturing premises in Józefów n. Warsaw including 1620 sqm of production spaces,
- 2005 – ISO 9001 certification for optical components manufacture and assembly,
- 2012 – set up of own R&D group to provide high-level engineering services in optics,
- 2015 – significant investment in production and measurement equipment, including MRF polishing machine, first of this kind in CEE.
Company status and capabilities as of 2022:
- employment: 70
- product capabilities: lenses, filters, mirrors, polarizers, prisms, beamsplitters, diffusers, electro-optic modulators; optics tuned for imaging, infrared and laser applications
- optical materials processed: all types of optical glasses, quartz glasses, optical ceramics and crystal;
- services: manufacturing (cutting. milling, grinding, polishing and high-precision finishing), optical design, thin-film coatings and metrology.
Markets:
- Main application sectors of Solaris Optics products include: semiconductor industry, material processing, telecommunications, lithography, imaging, and scientific research, space and defence.
- Exports – about 95% of total production is exported, with main target markets such as Germany, Netherlands, Taiwan and Israel.
Michal Muniak on Solaris Optics future:
- Solaris Optics currently finalizes its’ 5-year strategy aiming improvements in several areas, i.e. effective commercialization, custom optics, free-form optics applications
- commercialization – the focus is to shift the company from scientific, oftentimes niche applications towards selected segments and more specialized production
- custom optics – the aim is to be able to quickly provide full range of custom optics services, from prototype development to full scale, volume production
- free-form optics applications – utilization and development of novel manufacturing techniques, such as MRF, as well as new measurement methods in order to satisfy a new market demand for free form optics.
Asked about advice for entrepreneurs Mr Muniak underlined the importance of people he works with and suggested to find ways to “go outside your bubble”!
For full interview please visit Precision Optics Manufacturer Outlines its Post-Pandemic Future.
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