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The world economy has been turbulent lately, and Metrolab has not escaped unscathed. In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, we experienced a major slowdown, forcing us to briefly institute manufacturing work-time reductions. Fortunately, orders picked up again in early 2010, but last year we encountered our next challenge, as the exchange rate of the Swiss Franc against every other major world currency skyrocketed. We are doing our level best to limit the impact on our international customers, as for example with the new pricing for our Fast Digital Integrator. But ultimately, we feel our best defense is to continue building outstanding magnetometers, and to that end we continue to invest everything we can in R&D: in 2010, it was 22% of our turnover and 42% of our labor hours. We hope our customers approve.
Philip Keller, Marketing & Product Management |
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