A significant contributor to the Midlands economy, Tamlite Lighting is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and forward-thinking businesses in the British lighting industry.

Founded in the Midlands in 1967, Tamlite Lighting, the second-largest privately-owned lighting company in the UK, is one of the country’s leading manufacturers and designers of lighting. It is a shining example of British industry in action, with its extensive R&D and manufacturing activities managed out of ten factories in the Midlands. Tamlite delivered over 5 million products last year and, as a business, it has invested more than £4m during the last three years, undertaking the development of a number of cutting-edge lighting solutions.

Lighting the way to carbon savings
With energy reduction at the top of the political and business agenda, much of the company’s recent investment and R&D activity has centred on energy efficient lighting and control technologies including LED. LED is proven to deliver economic and ecological advantage over traditional lamps, allowing users to make significant savings on their energy bills.

John Allden, the General Manager of Tamlite Lighting, says energy reduction is now a key business driver: “It is critical that we provide the technological answers to our customers’ problems and business challenges. They are faced with the ‘double whammy’ of increasingly demanding (EU and Government-led) CO2 reduction targets, as well as the need for improved operational efficiencies and cost-savings. We believe modern, efficient and correctly specified lighting provides much of the answer – and LED technology is very much part of this solution”.

It’s not only LED technology that is the focus of the company’s expertise, however. Each of the 500 product ranges and 16,000 product variations in Tamlite’s extensive portfolio are developed with the same commitment to top-level performance and reliability.

Investing in people
Tamlite’s investment in the future is not confined to products and facilities. The company has a strong commitment to employing and investing in the skills of local people – and 300 of the company’s 320 staff members live in the Midlands.

For example, Tamlite’s trainee programme is currently offering several young people the chance to gain hands-on experience in all areas of the business. “We have run trainee schemes at Tamlite for well over 20 years,” comments John Allden. “We currently have four factory managers and one technical manager who all started as trainees with the company. We need to do well by our current trainees as they are a critical component of the success of this business going-forward.”

New showroom facilities
One of Tamlite’s unique facets as a forward-thinking lighting business is its operation of ‘open house’ showrooms, known as ‘Application Centres’. These centres are open to installers, distributors and end-users, allowing full access to our production and supply processes.
“We love it when customers across the supply chain want to look around,” comments John Allden. “They can visit the warehouses, the workshops or whatever they want to see. We make sure there is someone there to show them around and answer questions on their lighting requirements and our portfolio.”

A bright future
The company’s highly experienced management team believe there is a good reason for Tamlite’s continued growth:

“Tamlite is a business that never stands still and never takes its place in the market for granted. We listen more than we talk – and in doing so, we look at where the market is moving and what customers want and need. Our customers are at the very centre of our business,” concludes John Allden.
This innovative UK-based company is now looking forward to further success in 2015, having already achieved growth of +13% on the run-up to the end of the financial year.