Hi-tech wizardry usurps a black art

not a geologist. Not even one of these fingerless white coats,

sacrificing digits in a lifetime's painstaking hand polishing of rock

samples.

But Russ (Russell) Owens is managing director of a company which

designs and manufactures state-of-the-art machines which are,

increasingly, replacing ''hand prep'' in the production of geological

samples and, in the process, saving countless fingers from being rubbed

away in the lab.

The machines apply established engineering principles to what was once

a black art. The computerised annular saws and lapping and polishing

machines are not just useful to the geologist slicing up rock into thin

sections for microscopic analysis. They are also essential in the

preparation of the more exotic semiconductor materials like gallium

arsenide and cadmium telluride used in specialised, high performance

integrated circuits; in electro-optics, where precise geometric

tolerances are needed in substrate materials like lithium niobate; and

in optics itself, where devices like infra-red windows, laser rods and

fibre optics all require precision finishing.

The machines can also be used to produce thin bone and teeth samples.

To produce the final polish on magnetic recording heads. In many other

ways.

Some of the best machines of this type produced anywhere in the world

are made, literally, on the banks of the Clyde, in the shadow of the

Erskine bridge, by a company called Logitech. It exports more than 90%

of its production and can boast equipment operating in 59 countries.

Recently the Chinese, world leaders in the development of new ranges of

organic electro-optic materials, have been enthusiastic buyers of

Logitech kit.

To make its devices, Logitech brings together a diverse range of

skills from traditional precision metal machining -- to create

components like the polishing jigs -- to electronic control systems that

will finish your sample precisely to the nearest chosen micron then

switch the machine off.

Logitech sells more than machines. Its commitment to technology

transfer extends to providing familiarisation courses, on its own

premises, for technicians who will use them. Rarely a week goes by, says

Owens, without between two and five operators from clients around the

world, visiting Old Kilpatrick for an intensive training course.

The company is unusual in a number of ways. It is one of an

increasingly rare but valuable breed, a Scottish company that actually

makes a finished product for which there is a growing worldwide demand

-- not a component supplier. Not dependent on the vagaries of someone

else's order book for sales. In the jargon, an OEM (original equipment

manufacturer) of our very own.

Logitech is also an example of how Scottish academic expertise can be

put to commercial advantage. An early spin-off from an academic campus,

it was formed back in 1965 by staff from Glasgow University's electrical

and electronic engineering department. It is also, just to complicate

the story a little more, one of the few Scottish companies now owned by

Danish interests.

Logitech is also determinedly low profile. I came across it through

its participation in a Materials for Advantage programme mounted by

Dunbartonshire Enterprise. That pilot programme laudably tries to assist

compa

nies working with materials -- a portmanteau term for everything from

polymers and ceramics to the semiconductor exotics, materials that

will shape our technological future -- to expand their product range

and exploit fresh market opportunities.

But why, I asked Owens and his development manager Max Robertson, does

a company like Logitech, with sales in 59 markets, from Japan and the

United States to Papua New Guinea, feel the need to participate in such

programmes? Because we were asked, comes the initial reply. ''We are, by

definition, in a niche market,'' adds Max Robertson. ''That means it is

of restricted size. So we are always looking for assistance in

identifying new business opportunities in our sector.''

Owens, who has been with Logitech since 1975, having arrived from

Babcock, is enthusiastic about the exercise with his local LEC. It has,

he explains, given Logitech an analytical tool through which various

options for expanding the business into related sectors could be

properly assessed. From that process, two options have emerged as

genuine runners.

One, he believes, can be accommodated within Logitech's existing

resources, with some sympathetic support from its Danish parent. The

other, a more major project, would require some serious new money.

Whether that can be found is still an open question.

''Overall it's been a good exercise,'' says Owens. ''These projects

could significantly increase our market size,'' adds Robertson. Down the

years Logitech has made good use

of the various government schemes to assist company growth and

technical innovation.

Now, by an odd twist of its last change of ownership, a year ago,

which makes Logitech part of an international group with a total of 3000

employees, the company no longer qualifies for many of the UK Government

assistance schemes which have seen it grow from a four-person business

when Owens joined to the 40-strong business it is today.

Logitech's roots lie in research being carried out at Gilmorehill in

the 1960s into advanced semiconductor materials. One of the academics

involved, Bob Wilson, led the spin-off, which originally found a home in

Alexandria. It was still small when Owens joined a decade later, but had

diversified into serving the geological market as well.

In 1980, it moved to its present site, near the north terminal of the

old Erskine ferry. Within three or four years, the building doubled in

size. In June 1988, Bob Wilson, who had been winding down his interest

over a period, sold control of the company to the Danish Struers group.

Struers was active in a related technology, metallography -- the

production of polished thin sections of metal for microscopic

examination. ''A market 10 times the size of ours, but working at less

demanding tolerances,'' explains Robertson, who had arrived in 1987 from

a career in the motor industry and, latterly, with the laser and optics

division of Ferranti in Dundee.

The takeover may have cost Logitech its independence, but it gave it

access to a network of sister companies in the United States, Europe and

Asia which could handle the local sales and marketing effort and local

after-sales support. These days the group makes and sells around 200

systems a year. The market breaks down roughly 30% geological users, 70%

semiconductor and other sectors. Customers are predominately research

institutes, academic institutions, and the R&D centres of major

commercial companies. It is, by all accounts, a formidable customer

list.

Not long after Struers -- market listed, but still effectively family

controlled -- got into some difficulties of its own and was eventually,

a year ago, taken over by Radiometer, another Danish company,

specialising in the manufacture of medical analysers.

The relationship is, says Owens, very arm's length. He reports to

quarterly board meetings. Otherwise, his task is to get on with running

and developing Logitech. But the purchase of Struers by Radiometer has

pushed the worldwide employee headcount well over the 500 threshold

beyond which companies do not qualify for most forms of financial

assistance from the UK Government.

No matter how autonomous the Old Kilpatrick operation may be, the

rules are fixed. For a 40-strong satellite of a Danish parent,

pre-eminent in its own technical niches, but conscious that a presence

in a few more niches would add immeasurably to the comfort factor, that

poses some challenges.

The good thing is that, through its business development team and its

Materials for Advantage programme, Dunbartonshire Enterprise has been

able to map out a rational expansion programme with Logitech, helping it

identify the right new niche markets the company should go for. The

question is whether we should also have in place financial support

structures flexible enough to make the second stage of the process --

implementation -- readily achievable.