Keeler was a 105-year-old medical device manufacturer based in Windsor, Berkshire. The business produced ophthalmic medical devices - instruments used by ophthalmologists, opticians and optometrists worldwide. Products included slit lamps, indirect ophthalmoscopes, retinoscopes and diagnostic sets, spanning 12 product SKUs with price points ranging from £1,200 to £12,000, averaging around £4,000 to £7,000.
The business had been family-owned and operated until 1996, when it was acquired by Halma PLC - a FTSE 100 group with a model of acquiring, supporting, modernising and growing businesses through technology, innovation, certification and talent. Halma was restructuring Keeler when I joined, including removing a part-owner and Managing Director who was strongly opposed to modernisation. Halma had historically operated at arm's length from its subsidiary companies - present but not interfering. Their involvement with Keeler was growing, however. As the second-largest company in the Halma group, Keeler's perceived lack of innovation under the outgoing MD was becoming a concern at group level. His position was that Keeler had been growing revenue by around £500,000 a year for a decade and therefore did not need to change.
Total annual revenue was approximately £50m, comprising around £31m from own product sales, £12m from OEM manufacturing for other brands, £5m from licensing, and £2m from service and repairs. The business employed skilled lens technicians, manufacturing staff in production pods, a service and repairs team, R&D engineers and commercial teams across the UK and US.
A regulated manufacturing environment
Although the majority of Keeler's devices were non-contact diagnostic instruments, the business operated in a tightly regulated medical device environment. Most products were classified as Class I or Class II devices - low to medium risk - requiring documented quality management, traceability and post-market surveillance. However, Keeler's portfolio also included Class III devices. The Keeler Cryomatic, for example, used a probe applied behind the eye to cryogenically re-attach detached retinas - a high-risk, invasive clinical procedure. That single product meant Keeler could not treat traceability, quality records or post-market data as optional. The regulatory obligation to know exactly what was in each device, when it was made, how it had performed and where it had gone was not a bureaucratic requirement. It was a patient safety requirement. The MES strategy was therefore not just commercially compelling - it was the right way to operate in a regulated manufacturing business.
Keeler made trusted products. They were reliable and respected. However, several structural challenges were beginning to create risk that the business had not yet fully recognised.
Competitive pressure
Chinese competitors were producing comparable products at around half the price. Internally, the phrase was that their products were "half the price but half as good." That may have been true at the time. But competitors improve. A price gap that large is a strategic risk, even if a quality gap still exists. Historic growth did not prove future resilience.
Market access
Keeler's price point was blocking entry into large growth markets. Africa was the clearest example - the products were too expensive for many buyers. Students were another issue. Ophthalmology students were expected to buy their own specialist sets on qualifying, similar to chefs buying their own knives. A student set cost around £1,500. Many relied on family support to afford it.
Industry consolidation
Independent ophthalmologists and opticians were retiring. Many were unable to sell their practices to other independents. Groups including Boots, Specsavers and Dollond & Aitchison were acquiring practices. One blocker for independent operators was the high asset value of ophthalmic equipment - making traditional sale models less attractive as the buyer profile changed.
Operational gaps
Manufacturing and quality control were paper-based, including carbon-copy records. The business built to stock with no reliable demand forecasting. Finished stock often sat in the warehouse for extended periods. Service and repair revenue fluctuated because the model was reactive. Annual parts write-offs reached £150,000 - a direct consequence of poor parts traceability and reallocation capability.
The first step was not to buy a system. It was to understand the business. I did not arrive with an answer. I arrived with questions.
I spoke to the Operations Director, Finance Director, Sales Director, Service and Repairs Manager, ERP Manager and R&D Director. I also spent time directly with lens technicians and staff in production pods - the people closest to the actual product.
I went further than internal listening. I visited my own independent optician and a Specsavers branch, making notes on the equipment, workflow and buying assumptions I observed. I attended a university open day and spoke to students. I attended an ophthalmic fair in London, listening to talks and watching product demonstrations from other manufacturers. That gave me a view on how competitors were positioning themselves and where the market was moving.
What the listening revealed
- Manufacturing was paper-based and build-to-stock with no reliable demand signal
- Service notes were vague, poorly categorised and not feeding useful data back into the business
- Parts write-offs were tracked manually and imprecisely - £150,000 per year
- There was no way to trace a product through its full lifecycle from components to complaints
- Repair revenue was £3,500-£7,000 per week but fluctuated because it was entirely reactive
- Keeler had a general feel for product reliability but no structured evidence to support it
- Warranty offers were cautious because the business lacked the failure data to price risk confidently
- The business knew component costs but not total product lifecycle cost
A direct contradiction in messaging
One of the clearest signals from the Listen phase came from a direct conflict between what the business believed and what customers were actually saying. Keeler had an old website with no online ordering capability. Customers - both during conversations with me and at the ophthalmic fair - had called this out directly. They wanted to be able to browse and order online.
When I raised this with the MD and the sales team, the response was unambiguous: "Our customers don't want to order online. They want to call us and speak to us." That is a reasonable position for some customers. But it is not the same as saying all customers feel that way - and it is not what customers were telling me directly. The gap between what the business assumed its customers wanted and what customers actually said they wanted was one of the clearest examples of the listening work paying off. It also reinforced the broader pattern: the business had strong instincts but weak evidence.
The strategic idea was to stop treating each product as a one-off sale and start treating it as a traceable asset with multiple commercial lives.
Layer One: Manufacturing Execution System
The MES was not the end goal. It was the foundation. It would replace carbon-copy paperwork with a digital record of every product's life - component, supplier, batch, production pod, build time, QC result, calibration result, order, delivery, service, repair, warranty claim, complaint, recall, refurbishment and resale.
This would allow Keeler to build to order rather than to stock, track parts through the warehouse and production pods, record write-offs digitally, compare supplier quality and auto-replenish components based on real demand.
Layer Two: Commercial Model Change
Once Keeler had a complete digital picture of the product lifecycle, the business could get far more strategic. Service data would feed R&D. Reliability data would enable stronger warranties. Usage data from connected products would enable pay-per-use and usage-based charging models. Returned assets would create refurbished stock for secondary markets.
Chronological age is not the same as usage age. A device three years old but used fifty times is very different from one three months old but used five thousand times in a busy Specsavers branch. Understanding actual usage - not calendar age - changes how you price service, warranties and second-life resale.
The strategic logic chain
MES creates data. Data creates insight. Insight improves manufacturing. Better manufacturing improves reliability. Service data informs R&D. Reliability data enables stronger warranties. Connected products enable usage intelligence. Usage intelligence enables pay-per-use. Planned servicing protects the asset. Returned assets create refurbished stock. Refurbished stock opens markets previously blocked by pricing.
Strategy is not just what you decide to do. It is also what you decide not to do, and when. These were the pivotal decisions that shaped the programme.
The ophthalmic fair in London gave me a direct view of how the market was moving. Competitors were beginning to talk about connectivity and data. The language around innovation was changing. At the same time, other industries had already demonstrated that product-as-a-service models were viable and commercially superior to pure product sales.
- Rolls-Royce Power by the Hour - charging airlines for engine thrust used, not for the engine itself. The manufacturer retains the asset, manages maintenance proactively and generates predictable recurring revenue.
- Forklift leasing - equipment valued by actual usage, not calendar age. Service schedules tied to real operational demand.
- Medical equipment leasing - NHS and private healthcare trusts routinely lease diagnostic equipment rather than purchase it, spreading cost, enabling upgrades and keeping maintenance responsibilities with the manufacturer.
None of these models were new. But applying them to ophthalmic equipment was not yet standard. Keeler had the product quality and brand credibility to lead that shift - if it had the data to underpin it.
Each phase had to complete before the next could begin. This was not a wish list. It was a sequenced dependency chain.
The MES strategy was not taken straight to full factory implementation. I proposed a structured proof of concept first, with a clear investment profile and decision gate before the wider rollout.
The POC ran across selected manufacturing pods. Product SKUs were loaded into the system. The MES software was updated ahead of the wider rollout. The result was positively received across the factory. Staff in production pods engaged with the system and the principle of digital records over carbon copies was accepted quickly.
Not all manufacturing pods had MES at the point I left the business in February 2021. But the foundation was laid, the approach was validated and the wider rollout was underway.
ERP: UK and US on different platforms
The US expansion - think slow first
The plan was always to repeat this strategy in Philadelphia once the UK programme had proven the model. But the temptation to simply copy and paste would need to be resisted. The Listen, Shape, Deliver methodology would need to run again from scratch - with fresh listening that accounted for geographical, cultural, operational and regulatory differences between the UK and US manufacturing environments. What worked in Windsor would not automatically transfer to Philadelphia. Thinking slow at the start of the US programme was not a delay. It was the discipline that would make the delivery credible.
Competitive landscape
Investment
The total MES investment was £200,000 across two stages: £25,000 for the six-month POC and £175,000 for the phased factory rollout over months six to eighteen. This covered software, implementation, configuration and integration with the existing ERP system.
Hard savings
- £150,000 annual parts write-off - directly addressed through digital tracking, pod-level parts visibility and parts reallocation before unnecessary reordering
- Reduction in overstock holding costs from build-to-order capability
- Reduction in rework and calibration failures through better QC data
Soft savings
- Time previously spent on the phone with clients updating repair status
- Time writing update emails and chasing supplier orders manually
- Administrative overhead of paper-based quality records and filing
Revenue upside
Current service and repair revenue was £3,500 to £7,000 per week. The planned service model was projected to increase this by at least five times as reactive repairs were replaced with planned annual servicing and preventative maintenance contracts.
At £100 per device per year for a service contract, and approximately 5,500 units sold annually, full adoption across the installed base would generate around £550,000 in additional annual service revenue.
Had we completed the first full year of MES data across the factory, we would have been able to answer questions the business had never been able to answer before:
- Which of the 12 production pods had the highest first-time pass rate - and which consistently required rework
- Which component suppliers were responsible for the majority of the £150,000 annual parts write-off
- Which product SKUs generated the most calibration failures, and whether those failures clustered around specific batch runs or specific pods
- What the true labour cost per unit was by product and by pod - not estimated, but measured
- Which products were generating the most downstream service calls within the first 24 months of sale
- Whether the pattern of service demand correlated with production pod, supplier batch or product age
That data would have transformed the warranty conversation, the supplier negotiation, the R&D prioritisation and the financial case for the next phase. The POC proved the system worked. Twelve months of live data would have proved the strategy was right.
Once the financial case was stress-tested with the Finance Director, I presented the full strategy to Halma leadership in a boardroom session at Keeler. Halma's original brief had been straightforward: digitise the firm and produce a digital IT strategy. What I presented went further. Halma's response was unambiguous - they described the strategy as having the potential to be transformational and instructed us to proceed with the proof of concept.
The POC was funded from Keeler's own reserves - not from Halma's group investment fund. Keeler held around £10m in cash reserves at any given time and the Director team were keen to self-fund the initial phase. Halma operates a £500m investment budget across its group companies for growth initiatives. The full commercial transformation - connected products, usage-based models, secondary-market expansion - would have been a natural candidate for that fund once the POC had proven the principle.
- Cultural resistance to modernisation from previous leadership
- Historic revenue growth creating complacency
- Strong gross margins masking operational inefficiency
- Paper-based manufacturing with no digital foundation
- Build-to-stock mindset and excess finished stock
- Weak demand forecasting and service categorisation
- Reactive repair revenue with no planned model
- No product lifecycle data or warranty confidence
- Traditional leasing barriers: cash flow, finance regulation, margin loss to partners
- IoT and connected products required R&D investment and customer acceptance
- Risk of damaging the premium brand while entering lower-price markets
- Trusted brand with over a century of heritage
- Reliable products respected by customers worldwide
- Strong gross margins providing investment headroom
- Service and repairs already generating revenue
- Deep product knowledge in factory and service teams
- Halma ownership providing strategic backing and appetite for modernisation
- Strong installed base across UK, US and export markets
- Long product lifespan making leasing and refurbishment viable
- UK manufacturing heritage with genuine quality differentiation
- Reliability could become a measurable, data-backed selling point
- Students and independents still viewed Keeler as the credible choice
- Recurring service revenue - £100 per device per year across ~5,500 annual units sold = ~£550,000 additional annual revenue at full adoption, against the current repair fluctuation of £3,500-£7,000 per week
- 5x repair revenue potential - planned servicing could increase repair revenue from £3,500-£7,000 to £17,500-£35,000 per week
- Africa and price-sensitive markets - refurbished, certified Keeler equipment at lower price points, without discounting new products or damaging the premium brand
- Student market - lower entry cost through leasing removes the "bank of Mum and Dad" barrier, extending reach into qualifying students
- Practice consolidation opportunity - as independent practices were acquired by groups, usage-based models suited the new buyer profile better than high-value capital purchases
- Brand differentiation - evidence-based warranties and planned servicing as a measurable quality claim, not just a reputation claim
- R&D efficiency - field data informing product design decisions, reducing speculation and improving development investment returns
- Halma group value - a business with recurring revenue, a larger installed base and a data-driven operating model commands significantly higher valuation multiples than a pure product business
I left Keeler in February 2021 after two years and four months. By that point, the MES proof of concept had been delivered and positively received. The MES software had been updated ahead of the wider factory rollout. All product SKUs were loaded into the system. Manufacturing staff in the pilot pods had engaged well with digital records in place of carbon-copy paperwork.
The wider factory rollout was underway but not complete. The connected products strategy, usage-based commercial model and secondary-market expansion were longer-term phases - by design. They depended on the data that Phase 1 was only beginning to generate.
I would have pushed harder for a dedicated data analyst resource earlier. Much of the insight work fell to me and the Finance Director. Having someone in the business whose job was to turn MES data into commercial intelligence would have accelerated the shift from "interesting numbers" to "actionable decisions." That gap between data collection and data use is where many MES implementations stall.
This strategy did not start with technology. It started with the business model, manufacturing reality, service data, customer need and market pressure.
By thinking slow in the Listen phase, I surfaced the lessons that made the strategy credible. I challenged assumptions - including the assumption that historic growth meant the model was sound - without dismissing the business's genuine strengths. I identified the link between manufacturing data, service intelligence, commercial model design and market expansion. I shaped a phased roadmap where each stage informed the next. I connected an operational system to a revenue transformation.
- I listened across the business and market before forming a view
- I challenged complacency without dismissing what was genuinely good
- I connected technology decisions to commercial outcomes
- I built the financial case jointly with the Finance Director, not in isolation
- I understood that the MES was a foundation, not the destination
- I sequenced the delivery so that each phase created the conditions for the next
- I kept the strategy honest - the POC proved the principle before the business committed to full rollout
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The Keeler strategy was not about ophthalmic devices. It was about understanding a business deeply before proposing technology, sequencing a programme so that each phase built the conditions for the next, and connecting operational change to commercial outcomes.
Those principles transfer directly.
Clarke Willmott has ELITE 3E, iManage, a fragmented data landscape and a managed service arrangement that needs clear accountability. The questions I would be asking are familiar ones: what does the data actually tell us, where is the manual effort hiding, what would the firm look like if its IT truly enabled it rather than just supported it?
At Keeler, I did not start with the MES. I started with the business model. At Clarke Willmott, I would not start with iManage or ELITE. I would start with the people who rely on IT every day - the fee earners, the support teams, the leadership - and I would listen before I shaped anything. That is what the Listen, Shape, Deliver methodology means in practice. It is not a framework. It is a discipline.
The Keeler experience also taught me that the most valuable strategic contribution is not the system you implement. It is the commercial logic you surface, the sequence you impose on the change and the credibility you build by proving the principle before committing the investment. That is what I would bring to this role.