….a two minute read….
You might wonder how all of this happens, the movement of our product – that is – to low resource regions of the world.
In this space, we’ve talked a little bit about the #USee and how it has combined the ease of self-refraction with a lowered educational threshold to provide a vision acuity test and then deliver Rx eyeglasses within minutes. And although the story behind the invention has many layers that we’ll get into some other time, we thought it would be fun for you to see how we get our Vision Kits on the road to locations in need of basic vision care.
First. A shipment arrives at our warehouse – thousands upon thousands of lenses…..
Following their arrival, all of those lenses need to be sorted. Behind these happy volunteers you’ll notice bins of different colors…..
The #colorcoded system is pivotal. It correlates with the color bar on the #USee and is central to the #dialsnapwear approach.
So, these volunteers work in teams of three – on one color at a time, with 1 Rx, and one side of the eyeglasses frame (Right or Left). One team member unwraps the lens from the original shipping and confirms that it is either a Right or Left lens; the second person is re-packaging the lens in the appropriate colored bag; and the third team member is placing a sticker on the bag with a corresponding number.
For instance a team would be working on Red 3R or could be working on Blue 1L. In the picture below you can see the lens bar with the correlating colors and numbers – they are each an Rx.
This past summer about 200 volunteers have sorted, re-packed and labeled 24,000 lenses. 
You can see the stacks of the on the shelves in the back of this picture on the right.
Clearly color coding is key to the simplicity of our product.
Once the lenses are sorted and tagged we can then start building the Vision Kit boxes…..they look like this.
After a lot of this….
Runners use the small bins of the same color to collect the lenses for each color and power in accordance to the amount needed (your basic population curve). Again, in teams of three. A runner for left lenses, a runner for right lenses, and a team member putting them into the Vision Kit box in order.
As you see here.
Once the lenses are sorted, they are added to this collection:
The USee, frames, reading glasses, distance and near visual acuity charts and a measuring tape so the team distributing glasses measures out the appropriate distance from the vision chart. And voila. A Global Vision 2020 Vision Kit is assembled for delivery to places like this….
or this….
It’s a process. The unpacking, sorting, repacking, color coding, labeling, distributing, packing, assembling, and shipping. We toyed with the idea of making that our acronym: USRCLDPAS but decided on GV2020 and the hashtags #dialsnapwear and #colorcoded – which now you understand the importance of!
Happy Weekend!