Sam Levin designed virtually every part produced in the factory, the manufacturing processes employed, and the tooling required for the production of each such part. A major exception to this was the collet production line. Here the credit goes to Louis Levin. Collet production was an extremely tricky process and it took some time to figure out how one could reliably produce extremely accurate collets on a production basis. Special machinery was required, a good deal of which, the factory had to design and build itself. It was Louis who determined what was needed and it was up to Sam to design the special equipment and the necessary modifications to the machines available for the collet production operation. Louis was never satisfied with the quality of the collets produced by the company, even though they were as good or better than any produced by their competitors. It wasn't until 1954 that the factory achieved quality levels that satisfied Louis. Once that occurred, he directed that all collets produce prior to that time be removed from inventory, destroyed, and replaced with new product from current production. For years, thereafter, every time a collet was returned to the factory in the original package and was identified as having been produced prior to the cutoff date, it was destroyed and replaced with a new collet at the total expense of the factory - no questions asked.

In 1949, Robert Levin enrolled in UCLA to begin his formal education as a manufacturing engineer. After studying mechanical engineering at UCLA, UC Berkley, and USC, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1953 where he accepted an appointment to Officers Candidate School at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT. Upon receiving his Commission, he served on active duty until 1958, when he transferred to the Coast Guard Reserve. By this time, he and his wife, Renee, had two children, Nina, and Robyn. Robert joined Louis Levin & Son, Inc. as Vice President in 1958. During the preceding decade, Robert had been kept informed of developments within the company through correspondence with his father. After joining the firm, he was given the task of thoroughly familiarizing himself with operation, maintenance, and repair of all plant equipment, the details of the manufacturing process employed for the production and processing of every part in current and planned production, and the details of the systems employed for managing the production operations. Many changes had taken place since he had last worked in the factory.

In 1951, Louis Levin & Son, Inc. had moved to 782 E. Pico Blvd., and introduced a new headstock design which incorporated a preloaded angular contact ball bearing spindle assembly. They also introduced a new 18" long lathe bed. These changes were brought about by the demands of industries outside of the horological field. As the need for miniaturization grew, the types of materials employed changed also. Where the horological field generally used easily machined materials, the new industries were turning to materials that were much more difficult to machine. Moreover, the dimensional accuracy and finish quality of the products changed too. Dimensional tolerances were reduced, while, at the same time, surface finishes and geometry were improved. The old traditional Watchmaker's Lathe just could not do the job with many of these newer industrial materials. The longer bed design enabled the machinist to use some new, highly productive tools, such as the Lever Operated Collet Closer, the Double Tool Cross Slide, the 6-position self indexing Turret Attachment, and a Screw Cutting Attachment. These products along with a new Micro-Drill Press were introduced in 1952. But since most of the new materials being employed in the aerospace and electronic industries required the use of coolants while machining along with high torque and low spindle speeds, these new lathes were now being furnished with a Coolant System, Chip Tray, and a Variable Speed Drive, often being furnished all mounted and assembled on a machinist's bench.

In 1958, when Robert Levin joined the firm, it had again expanded and was now located in new facilities at 3610 S. Broadway in Los Angeles. A new application for a special instrument lathe had presented itself. The manufacture of plastic corneal contact lenses was just beginning and these companies were searching for equipment that would enable them to produce such lenses. But each manufacturer closely guarded all information relating to their production methods. At about the time this industry was just beginning, the Levin factory had introduced a new attachment for their watchmakers lathes, a Ball Turning Rest.

Few firms were trying to use watchmakers lathes for cutting, mounting, and polishing these small, delicate, lenses. The Levins saw what appeared to be a reasonable market potential for machinery of the type they produced or could produce. However, virtually every one such businesses protected all information related to manufacturing technology under a thick veil of secrecy. The Levins thought the field looked interesting enough to explore and assigned Robert the task of developing a practical manufacturing process for plastic contact lenses and the specifications for the equipment that would be required to produce these lenses. Within a year Louis Levin & Son, Inc. published and distributed an instruction manual describing how to manufacture plastic contact lenses using the lathes and tooling then being produced by the company. In 1959, they also published the mathematical tables required to produce lenses of all sizes and focal lengths used for this purpose. These tables, the most complete available at the time, provided dimensional measurements for over 80,000 different prescriptions, representing over 120,000 solutions to what, at the time, were believed to every useful contact lens prescription. An IBM 705 computer was used to make these calculations. Robert Levin was responsible for developing the instruction booklet as well as the Contact Lens Tables.