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OFS Laboratories is where visionaries make voice, data and image
transmission faster, clearer, more reliable and cost-effective.
Through basic research in optical physics, materials processing
and photonics, OFS Laboratories seeks to advance the
applications of optical technologies in areas such as
geophysics, industrial processes, aviation, and transportation
technology.
Our mission is more than words-it's an ingrained culture for
nurturing scientific concepts and molding them into commercial
applications. With one of the brightest teams in the industry, OFS
Laboratories is a world-class reservoir of knowledge in the
physical sciences. Immersed in such disciplines as waveguide
physics, periodic structures, photonics, materials and nonlinear
fiber physics, our scientists create practical solutions for
emerging all-optical networks.
OFS Laboratories has a long track record of moving scientific
discoveries into commercially successful products. In fact, many
OFS products have come up through OFS Laboratories. That is a
tribute to the unique process we have developed for taking very
advanced research concepts and transforming them into commercial
products. A description of the process or "pipeline" an idea takes
at OFS Laboratories is below
OFS Laboratories' Research-to-Product Pipeline
The ultimate goal of research is to expand scientific knowledge
and apply resulting ideas in new products needed by real
customers. It's no accident that OFS Laboratories has been
extraordinarily successful in attaining that elusive goal. Here
are the steps we rigorously follow to transform scientific
research into commercial products.
Patent: OFS Laboratories aggressively patents newly
discovered techniques, methods and designs.
Publish: Once an idea has entered the patenting process,
publication becomes an important part of visibility for the
technology. Papers authored by our scientists bring new ideas to
the attention of companies that could benefit from commercial
applications. (Papers authored since 2001 are accessible on this
site at Knowledge Base).
Prototype: The ideas and breakthroughs of OFS Laboratories
are channeled into development through our Research Prototype
Development Group. This group takes fundamental research through
all the steps needed to show a working model to prospective
customers for basic evaluation. These steps can include
fundamental fiber fabrication, theoretical modeling, initial
evaluation, systems experiments, package fabrication and
electronics.
Gating: If customers are excited about a prototype, OFS
Laboratories takes the project through a "gate" process. We
evaluate business risks, opportunities, costs and other factors to
see if the research project has the business merits to become a
viable product.
Development: When OFS Laboratories transfers a project out
of research into development, there is an order of magnitude
increase in the scale of the project. Development teams refine the
packaging, test reliability, talk to prospective customers, build
pre-production samples, and transfer the new product to
manufacturing for production in volume.
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