Tamlite Lighting is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers and designers of lighting. With 9 factories in the Midlands, 400 UK distribution outlets, and strong, British-based R&D capability, Tamlite is dedicated to innovative product design. This means constantly finding new ways to enable its customers to save energy, without compromising light quality.
Tamlite delivered over 4million products last year and, as a business, it has invested more than £4m over the last three years. With 500 product ranges and 1,200 products, Tamlite’s lighting solutions comprehensively cover a range of applications.
Tamlite has built upon the already highly-successful HILUX range with the recent launch of HILUX-LED. And, in an industry-leading initiative designed to make it easier for customers to differentiate high-performance LED products, it has launched the INFINITY mark of assurance.
Colin Lawson, Head of Sales, Marketing & Product Development, Tamlite Lighting spoke to Warehouse & Logistics News.
WLN – First of all, what does your role involve day to day? Has it changed since last year?
I oversee sales and marketing activity. At such an extensive operation as Tamlite, this means there’s certainly never a dull moment. Even though I work on a very strategic level, I’m also very hands-on. The past year has been, in a word, busy! We’re currently expanding our offering, in order to deliver a wider range of products for the projects and specification market. So that’s thrown up a lot of challenges, but we’ve also achieved huge successes in this area.
WLN – 2013 – How was it for you?
All told, 2013 has been fantastic. We’ve launched some exciting products. And the whole team is proud of what we’ve accomplished with our new industry-leading mark of assured performance: the INFINITY mark for LED products.
WLN – How has the Warehouse Lighting category been performing this year? What do you see as the most significant recent developments?
Warehouse lighting has been a really important sector for us. We’ve carried out extensive R&D, responding to feedback about what warehouse managers want from their lighting. One of the key issues is to balance the quality of light with the provision of a safe and useful illumination level and also provide energy savings.
So we’ve put a huge amount of internal product design resource into finding solutions that can take advantage of some of the new LED technology. As a result, we’ve developed HILUX-LED, which makes it possible to take advantage of improvements in LED efficiacies.
WLN – Have you moved into any new business areas in the last 12 months?
Historically, we’re a business that has mainly sold into the wholesale market – that was our bread and butter. Now, however, we’re increasingly delivering to the projects and specification market as well. This has been a really positive diversification for us: providing the type of high-spec products needed for a wide range of applications.
WLN – What was your biggest investment to improve your business this year? What else have you done?
Our biggest investment has been in the area of product development. We’ve developed some seriously high-tech lighting products, and this is an R&D process that’s all managed out of British sites in the Midlands. We really feel like we’re at the forefront of British lighting innovation.
Ours is an industry that’s unfortunately renowned for slow lead times in terms of product development – but we’re changing all that. In the last year, we’ve achieved phenomenal turnaround times for new products: looking at what the market needs and creating an answer to it very rapidly.
WLN – How are your existing products and services doing? Have you developed or upgraded your existing products and services recently?
Our HILUX range of fluorescent luminaires for high-ceilinged spaces like warehouses have been a popular product for us: we’ve sold more than 200,000 over the last 5 years. We’re aiming to stay as a market leader for this sector and this year has seen the launch of our 3rd generation HILUX system.
The big change is that, in addition to offering T5 fluorescents, we can also offer an LED variant: HILUX-LED. This range incorporates Philips LED modules, which means the energy savings on offer are substantial and promise extremely long lamp life. Our in-house design team has developed a high-performance portfolio of reflectors and optics to ensure that the energy-saving benefits of are maximised – even in warehouses that use high racking.
WLN – Have you launched any new products or services, and how are they performing?
Another of our big product launches this year has been the EUROWP-LED. This is an IP65 LED weatherproof, polycarbonate luminaire. The EUROWP-LED comes with high-quality branded control gear and stainless steel, easy-fit ceiling fixings as standard. This product is fully weatherproof and suitable for general warehouse areas. So far, the response to the EUROWP-LED has been really positive. It’s great for parts of a site that are exposed to the great British winter!
WLN – What’s been your company’s single biggest achievement in business this year?
Definitely launching the INFINITY mark of assured performance for LED products. This is an initiative that grew out of a fast-evolving LED market that’s absolutely packed with products – all claiming to deliver the Earth. At Tamlite, we wanted to make it simple for our customers to immediately identify LED products that meet technical standards for excellent light quality.
The INFINITY mark now features on the products within Tamlite’s LED range that meet specific high performance standards for efficiency, life, colour rendering, colour temperature and testing. It has been developed to help customers to differentiate these ‘performance’ products from lower-specification LED products.
The INFINITY mark performs an important role, cutting through the confusion that surrounds LED products. When Tamlite customers see the INFINITY mark, they know, at a glance, that this LED product achieves natural colour rendering, comfortable colour temperature and appropriate glare control. We’re hoping that this will make choosing the right product infinitely simpler.
WLN – What was your favourite business moment in 2013?
It’s not been the case of a favourite moment – it’s been a whole year of building on one achievement after another. There’s been lots of marketing activity and lots of big contract wins. We’ve taken the company into new sectors, launched fantastic new products, and exhibited at a whole host of shows, too.
WLN – Do you operate in any other countries besides the UK? How are you getting on there? Have you gone into any new territories recently?
We operate with bases in the USA, Turkey and China. Our US arm has been performing very strongly recently. The last couple of years have seen significant expansion. A new Tamlite location has been opened on the West Coast of America, and, on the East Coast, the company has acquired a new 62,000 sq foot building complex, situated on 5 acres.
WLN – Can you tell us about your major projects this year, and what they involved?
One that immediately springs to mind is an installation at a Scottish newspaper’s distribution centre. In this case, maintenance was really the big concern, and we were able to make a big impact with a weatherproof lighting solution.
The Daily Record has a site in Glasgow where hundreds of lorries pass through to collect the newspapers and deliver them throughout Scotland. The trouble was, the existing light fittings in the warehouse were not enclosed, making them vulnerable to the harsh Scottish winters. The Daily Record chose to upgrade to HILUX units. These are shallow-profile, high-performance luminaire for energy-efficient fluorescent lamps. What was really important was that each HILUX light fitting was fully enclosed, making them robust enough to function in cold and weather-beaten industrial environments. The team at the Daily Record was thrilled with the new lighting.
WLN – Can you tell us about your plans for 2014? Where do you see your business going?
We’ll be continuing our major push into projects market. We’re keen to continue to build confidence in our brand. We’re already known for our cost-effectiveness and our quick delivery. What may surprise people is the depth and quality of our offerings.
WLN – Are you exhibiting at any major trade shows in 2014?
We don’t tend to make the final decision about trade shows until the New Year, but we’ll almost certainly pop up at a few shows. This past year, we’ve made major appearances at shows within facilities management, the lighting industry, green business and more.
WLN – What other headline news from Tamlite Lighting can our readers look forward to reading about in Warehouse & Logistics News next year?
Product development will remain high on the agenda for Tamlite. We want to prove that British innovation can really hold the key to producing energy-saving lighting solutions that deliver exactly what those in the logistics sector are looking for.
Phone: 01527 517777
Email: sales@tamlite.co.uk
Web: www.tamlite.co.uk
Twitter: @tamlite
LinkedIn: tamlite-lighting-3832977
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