Queen's Award for Gooch and Housego

Gooch and Housego, the Somerset-based manufacturer of acousto-optic devices and precision optical components has received the Queen's Award for Enterprise.

Gooch and Housego, the Somerset-based manufacturer of acousto-optic devices and precision optical components has received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade.

The purpose of this particular award is "to recognise and encourage outstanding achievements in overseas earnings".

Cutting-edge technology Gooch and Housego products are used in photonics based systems for industrial, scientific, medical and research applications, eg laser materials processing, confocal microscopy, laser surgery and laser display.

Fundamental to the company's success is the Q-Switch, an acousto-optic device with an estimated world market share in excess of 90%.

In 1994, Gooch and Housego received the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for its successful work in acousto-optics.

Gooch and Housego is winning the Award for International Trade for the first time for selling over 70% of its products overseas and increasing its annual overseas sales by GBP 2.5 million to over GBP 6.7 million in a period of three years.

"We are very proud of having achieved a 60% increase in export production over a period of three years".

"We now look ahead to our expansion plans that will enable the UK facility to build on this performance, maximise efficiencies at a group level and develop further cross-selling opportunities", explains Financial Director Ian Bayer.

Whereas domestically Gooch and Housego sells directly to the customer, the international success is based on/has been achieved in collaboration between the company providing individual technical support at engineering level and sales contacts headed up by a small number of key distributors in China, France, Italy and Japan.

Gooch and Housego is best known for the Q-Switch, an acousto-optic device that transforms solid-state lasers into industrial and medical tools by changing their output from a continuous low power beam into a stream of pulses a thousand times more powerful.

These high power pulses can drill, cut, weld or machine materials ranging from steel and plastics to diamonds.

In medicine they can cauterise or cut tissue in applications such as ophthalmic surgery or urology.

The company's optical manufacturing skills, and in particular its ability to work with crystalline materials, are fundamental to the acousto-optic business and the basis of an important business in their own right.

Innovations in large aperture crystal optics and in thin-film coatings that can withstand exceptionally high laser fluence have enabled Gooch and Housego to become the default supplier for these components worldwide.

"There is growing international demand for high level precision optics produced by Gooch and Housego".

"Progressive customers rely on flawless quality and responsiveness".

"We find many are turning to us to meet these needs", comments Chief Executive Officer Gareth Jones.

Gooch and Housego started trading in Ilminster in 1948 as a family enterprise, founded by Archie Gooch and Lesley Housego.

Traditionally a craft-based optical engineering company rich in practical optical manufacturing skills, it has undergone a transformation over the last 20 years into a high-technology optoelectronics business through investment in research and development.

Much of the research and development was carried out as part of collaborative projects with key academic and industrial partners with the benefit of DTI support.

"The foundation of our business supports a superior work ethic for processing optics and crystals positioning us at the heart of today's photonics revolution".

"We are proud that The Queens Award recognises our success to date and look forward to building on current group technologies to create an even more exciting future", says Marketing Director Andrew Virgin.

Current R and D projects are generating valuable intellectual property in the field of acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs) for spectral imaging applications and will give Gooch and Housego a lead in this technology.

This innovative work will form the foundation of a new generation of products that will open up the new biomedical and pharmaceutical markets.

"As world leaders of a number of niche optical technologies we are working to develop and combine core skills and create new products that will take the company to a new era".

"We have identified and are working on a number of exciting market opportunities that will underpin growth over the next few years", states Gareth Jones.

From a privately owned, family enterprise business serving a predominantly UK customer base, Gooch and Housego has become an AIM listed group of companies serving a worldwide market.

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