Desperate to find signs of economic recovery, pundits have proposed looking at all kinds of “leading indicators.” These seem to range from the number of credit card offers mailed out each month to how many new vessels are being commissioned in Polish shipyards.
Well I have one to offer for the machine vision industry: delivery times on lenses.
Lenses, as you well know, are an integral part of any machine vision system and have a one-to-one correlation with number of cameras sold. Well I’ve been placing orders for quite a number of lenses recently, ranging from common-or-garden 8mm C-mount items to high-end F-mount telecentric lenses, and in every case I’ve been surprised by the delivery dates I’m being quoted. It seems that the manufacturers have no finished goods inventory and are struggling to meet demand.
Now as an engineer with projects to deliver, this frustrates me intensely, but looking at the big – business – picture, it has to be good news. If demand for lenses is up, so must be the demand for cameras, lights, brackets, enclosures and all the other paraphernalia of a complete vision system. And this in turn must mean that integrators are seeing more demand for their services.
Recovery is on the way folks, I just wish my new lenses were too!
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