The fundamental business of Lee Laser is the manufacture and OEM sale of our industrial grade solid-state lasers to other companies that integrate our lasers into their products for ultimate resale to end users. Ninety-five percent of our laser business is in the area of OEM sales. In the U.S., Lee Laser is the largest OEM solid-state laser source for these types of lasers.

Internationally, we have established strong OEM business relationships in Europe and Asia among laser micro-machining systems manufacturers that have well established reputations for excellence in their respective markets.

Lee Laser considers an OEM Customer to be any customer that purchases a laser product for integration into another, larger system for ultimate resale to an end user. Internationally, we have established OEM customers in Europe and Asia, with strong OEM business in France, England, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and India.

The main reasons for Lee Laser's international success in the OEM market are several:

a.   Reliability:  For industrial users of laser equipment, performance reliability is the most important criteria. These lasers must operate on production lines without failure, oftentimes 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Failure of a laser can mean the stop of a complete production line. Our industrial-grade lasers meet this test, and we have established an excellent international reputation in this regard.

b.   Performance:  Lee Laser has established conservative performance specifications for all of our lasers. Most lasers are designed to meet stated specifications with the arc lamps or laser diodes operating well below their rated power levels. This means that:

1. all laser models comfortably meet their rated output power specifications

2. at rated laser output beam power level, the user can expect long arc lamp lifetime which can exceed 1000 hours, and laser-diode lifetimes in the range 10,000-20,000 hours, when the laser is operated continuously.

c.   Special OEM Engineering:  For customers that intend to purchase a large number of lasers, Lee Laser is willing to do special OEM engineering, to provide some additional features that will enhance the laser's form and function. This might be in the area of special interface circuitry, or auxiliary DC voltage sources. Where it will not compromise the performance of the laser, we can provide modified optical resonator configurations.

d.   Price: Through innovative engineering and careful production planning, Lee Laser has successfully maintained our laser prices at the same level since the company was formed in 1984. For example, the U.S. domestic price for the Model 812TQ is the same as for the Model 712TQ (forerunner of the 812TQ) when it was introduced in 1984.

In most international markets, we can compete successfully against the domestic products. Certainly, when Reliability, Performance and Price all are taken into account, the Lee Laser products offer the greatest value.

e.   Customer Service:  Effective after-sale customer service is the key to maintaining existing customers. Lee Laser prides itself on the efficiency and effectiveness of our customer service, and our customers frequently compliment us about this.

Customer service includes a variety of functions among which are:

1. sale of spare and replacement parts
2. repair of defective or damaged equipment
3. technical assistance to existing customers
4. special customer assistance on a variety of issues