Simon Rowley, editor at Electrical Contracting News (ECN), visited the Tamlite lighting factories at the Redditch site, to see first hand the wide range of manufacturing capabilities and luminaires that are created for a number of sectors.

“Lighting for every need”

For over 50 years, Tamlite Lighting has designed, manufactured and supplied some of the most innovative lighting solutions for a range of sectors. Simon Rowley visited its factory in Redditch to find out more.

Tamlite Lighting is one of the UK’s largest, privately-owned lighting manufacturers, and its site in Worcestershire, with its factories and showrooms, is a hub of creativity and innovation.

The tour we embarked on comprises three distinct sides of Tamlite’s business – specifically, the industrial, commercial and emergency and hazardous lighting operations – and I had the chance to see, first-hand, exactly how these sections operate and interact within the overall scheme of the company’s business.

In addition, the showroom upstairs features a large, glass window accompanied by luxurious, cinema-style seats that enable visitors to sit back and observe the production process in its totality. This, said Besford, is all about transparency. “When we conduct group tours, we can start by showing visitors how our machines work and what they do; but by being so transparent with our working process down on the factory floor, people can see that we’ve nothing to hide,” he explained. “This is the level of professionalism at which we operate at all day long, irrespective of whether or not people are watching.” In turn, this should give visitors every confidence that Tamlite is the ideal partner.

The in-house theatre, which rotates on a 360-degree platform around the showroom and is controlled via a tablet, enables guests to sit back and see its lighting products on the walls and in the ceiling, and the presentation also includes luminaire videos and additional marketing collateral.

One of the most renowned brands within Tamlite’s commercial range is Starlite, which is designed for use at home, and in restaurants, hotels, bars and any other area that’s in need of a special touch.

Part 3 – Emergency

The third and final part of the tour was a guide through Tamlite’s EMAX (emergency, extreme and hazardous areas) solutions.

Jason Horton, Business Manager at Tamlite, explained to me, “The backbone of our business is residential/commercial properties, and the goal is to help businesses to continually reduce energy costs while complying with the relevant laws and legislation. There are still lots of fines for hoteliers, landlords and residential care homes for failure to comply with laws in particular emergency standards and best practice, but Tamlite is on hand to help overcome these problems.”

Tamlite has recently introduced an exterior wall light with a dark sky optic – named TAURUS – which is designed to deliver one of the best light distributions using the technology available. It can avoid glare, using only one-third of the power, and the dark sky optic can reduce upward light output with less than 2% ULOR.

Exploring the company’s philosophy

Following the tour, I had the pleasure of meeting with John Allden, Managing Director of Tamlite, who offered some unique insight into the company’s outlook. He started by commenting on Tamlite’s 52 years of success, and noted that the company could still do more to fully convey its range of capabilities.

He remarked, “Our unique selling proposition is that we offer a full manufacturing service. From our light engine operation at Tamtec in Telford, we manufacture high-quality surface mount modules, allowing our product design team to produce innovative luminaires, and quickly respond to the constantly evolving lighting industry.

“As they have the best hands-on experience with these types of lighting products, and also ask the best questions, we find that contractors are the best visitors to our site here. As we show people around, we often come up with new ideas and new solutions, which our design team can implement on site.”

I was interested to learn that Tamlite is establishing a number of high-profile contracts with local authorities, university campuses, and health facilities – including an energy reduction programme the company is undertaking for the University of Exeter, which will include wireless control of the entire estate.

Allden continued, “There’s only a handful of other UK lighting companies doing what we’re doing. These types of projects are ground-breaking, and it’s all about staying close to the contractors, producing an original specification and implementing a production team to deal with the larger contractors. It requires more specialist recruitment, as 70% of the decision-making process can be made by the contractor, so it’s essential to involve the right personnel.”

The wellbeing trend

Tamlite are leading the way on raising the awareness of the role that lighting plays in the relation to wellbeing, and specifically, the detrimental effect that low-quality/poorly designed lighting can have on an individual’s welfare. Often, a problem within office, education and industrial environments when changing from traditional lighting sources to LED, is point for point replacement rather than a review of how the lighting can be best applied.

Tamlite believes that its high-quality luminaires and experienced lighting designers can provide the ideal solution, to help business owners or those responsible for maintenance overcome such a negative effect.

“Energy usage is now a given, but the concept of ‘wellbeing’ is less understood,” said Allden. “What’s driven this has been the homogenisation of luminaires, which has actually opened up new entry points. To this end our product development teams can build in to lighting solutions a greater degree of control, and thus add even more USPs into our products. This, in turn, helps contractors – who have a job to sell themselves – and in our experience, the most knowledgeable and engaged installers relish the opportunity of doing something new.”