With the electronic revolution here to stay, everyone knows there is big money to be made through small things — some so small as to be invisible Back at the turn of the millennium it was not so clear cut, but three engineers working at AEA Technology recognised the potential.

Now, 11 years on, their company has just won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for its achievements in international trade, and is expanding fast in the United States and China.

Dr Mike Osborne, managing director of Abingdon-based company OpTek Systems, said: “In those days we used to say laser technology was a solution looking for a problem. Now it forms the backbone of the infrastructure you never see, for instance when you are transferring pictures from your camera to your computer.”

The company, a leading player in the field of precision laser processing and micromachining, started up in a bedroom in Mr Osborne’s house before progressing to “something that looked like a garage” but still managed to turn over £1m in the first 15 months.

This year turnover will top the £10m mark, with 80 per cent of that earned from exports — and it is still growing. It employs 25 people at the Abingdon Business Park, eight in the US and one in China, where the company is at present taking on another four.

Last month the Duke of Kent visited the offices to present Dr Osborne with the Queen’s Award.

It all seems a long way away from when he and AEA colleagues Laurie Forrest and Mike O’Key realised the potential of optic fibres — and gave up their day jobs in order to follow a hunch and start a business of their own.

Producing parts for circuit boards and sending them off to the Far East may seem perverse since many of us imagine such products travelling in the other direction.

But Mr Osborne explained that much of the work in Abingdon involves manufacturing high-tech tools that allow others to make these things.

He said: “The Chinese market is amazing. One of our customers, who makes circuit boards in mobile telephones, employs two million people. The new employees we are taking on there will be in sales and support.”

But why, I asked, does he not employ people in China rather than in Abingdon and the US?

Dr Osborne said: “About two thirds of us here are engaged in leading-edge technology, developing new products.

“The other third are employed in manufacturing very fine scale machining using lasers, but it wouldn’t make sense to separate them.”

In 2008 and 2009 Optek saw its revenue grow greatly thanks to increasing demand for machine tools used in manufacturing and testing photovoltaic (PV) cells in both the US and Asia — and the company suceeded in capiitalising on this in 2010 with its LaserCleave range.

This patented range of products, designed for processing optical fibres for both FTTH (fibre to the home) and AOC (active optical cable, converting ordinary copper wire electrical inputs to optical) has found great take-up from customers in Asia, the US and Europe.

Laser machining, according to my Chambers dictionary, is “the use of a focused beam of high-intensity radiation from a laser”.

With hindsight its potential must have looked great to those three AEA scientists back in 2000, but their challenge then was to translate their expertise into new laser processes for use on mainstream production lines, making robust and cost-effective parts — some so small as to be effectively invisible — for use in electronic gizmos we now take for granted.

Typical processes that OpTek has pioneered include precision cutting, drilling and welding as applied in almost every area of the burgeoning electronics industry, such as telecoms, medical devices, biotechnology and micro-engineering.

Dr Osborne said: “I am very proud that since its formation OpTek has now reported ten consecutive years of profitable operation and has expanded its facilities from the UK to include manufacturing sites in USA and Asia.”

He added: “It is a great honour for our efforts to be recognised with this prestigious award, which has been achieved thanks to the hard work and dedication of all our staff and partners.”

Well he might be proud too. Seemingly all that can slow the future expansion of the business could be a world recession that stops us all buying more and more electronic consumer goods, always wanting the latest model.

In this context I asked Dr Osborne whether OpTek’s products were built to last. He said that some of the fibre optics came with a 25-year guarantee — but all the same he recognised that most consumers buying products that incorporate OpTek technology “quickly get bored of waiting, say, for files to transfer” and tend to re-enter the market when a more efficient product is introduced.