A global culture of quality

The satisfaction of wholesale clients and retail consumers is one of Luxottica’s primary and indispensable objectives. Achieving this objective means continually improving the quality of the production and distribution cycles. By increasing production capacity in both developed and emerging countries, the Company is pursuing a crucial goal: delivering the same ”Made in Luxottica” quality everywhere in the world.

Wherever design and production of frames and sun lenses take place, a single quality system applies to every phase of the process, from product development to procurement, distribution, operational analysis and uniform and measurable performance management in the plants.

Luxottica manufactures a product of the highest quality. Most of the equipment is specially designed and adapted for the Group’s manufacturing processes. This facilitates a rapid response to customer demand and the observance of strict quality control standards. The teams regularly inspect semi-finished products, verifying the feasibility of prototypes in the design phase, controlling standards in both the product development and production phases, subsequently checking for resistance to wear and tear and reviewing optical properties in relation to type of use. The manufacturing processes and materials used by primary suppliers are also controlled and certified. 

Luxottica designs products to meet or exceed relevant industry standards for safety, performance and durability. Throughout the development process, eyewear products undergo extensive testing against standards established specifically for eyewear by ANSI (Z.80.3), ASTM, Standards Australia Limited (AS 1067) and EU (EN ISO 12312 and EN ISO 12870). These standards relate to product safety and performance and provide quantitative measures of optical quality, UV protection, light transmission and impact resistance. 

To assure its quality standards worldwide and the right support for quality improvement, Luxottica has four main labs in Italy, China, Brazil and the United States. Each lab is responsible for establishing and maintaining the quality standards in the region where it is located and supports activities in engineering, production and market feedback management. All of these labs conduct the same tests using the same equipment and procedures which are developed and approved in the central Italian lab. 

In 2014 Luxottica’s Italian, Chinese and US manufacturing facilities were granted accreditation by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) for performing ISO 8624 and ISO 12870 tests on eyewear. The A2LA accreditation program provides formal recognition of the technical competence and quality management utilized in performing these specific tests.

Every year, Luxottica enhances the performance criteria used in its standard tests and introduces new requirements. As a result of the effectiveness of the quality control program, the return rate for defective merchandise manufactured by Luxottica has remained stable at approximately 1% in 2015.