2016 Highlights – The Year in Review
2016 has been a significant year for Raytec’s Hazardous Area Division for lots of different reasons. As the New Year approaches we wanted to share a few highlights from 2016 which have made this year such a success, including the launch of innovative new products, expanding the team and moving to a new factory! We’ll also give you a sneak peek into what you can expect from us in 2017.
Innovative Product Launches
2016 saw the launch of a number of ground-breaking products, extending our unrivalled Ex LED portfolio into a range of new and exciting applications.
Most recently we announced the upcoming launch of both a high power, heavy duty Floodlight and a high power Highbay solution built on a common platform.
To be launched early next year, the luminaires are designed for large spaces and will deliver up to 25,000 lumens. Customers will be able to specify and configure the product as a Floodlight or Highbay variant, with a dedicated bracket kit to mount and position the lamp head in either orientation.
Earlier in the year saw an interesting launch in the SPARTAN Safety Shower Linear. Using long-life green LEDs, the Safety Shower Linear is designed for installations where a safety shower unit is located, for easy identification in emergency situations.
The Linear range was also further extended to include SPARTAN Linear variants designed for loop in, loop out wiring applications. Lumen output and light distribution deliver the same outstanding performance and excellent reliability as the standard Linear products, but the new variant offers a more flexible solution to deliver a faster, more cost-effective and easier installation.
Explore the Linear range here.
We often manufacture custom made products – and one that we’re getting a lot of demand for at the moment is our range of SPARTAN Turtle Friendly Luminaires.
Currently available on request, but due for official launch in the New Year, these luminaires are extremely important for many coastal hazardous facilities, or sites located near nature reserves. Any fans of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth 2, who caught the recent Hawkshill turtle hatchlings TV episode may know why! Turtles are attracted to blue-white light. So, confusing the light from a nearby town with moonlight, these baby turtles were seen wandering towards the town instead of the sea – a common problem with hatchlings. Raytec’s Turtle Friendly lighting uses a warmer wavelength of LED lighting to combat this problem, avoiding the dangers associated with the turtles wandering in the wrong direction.
How Tough is SPARTAN?
Possibly one of our favourite activities this year has been producing our ‘How Tough is SPARTAN?’ video series. The practical test videos have seen us putting the SPARTAN products into extreme conditions and under extreme stress – in an attempt to challenge the durability of the range.
The first video threw our SPARTAN Flood into both a repeated drop test and an extreme height drop test! The next saw some of the hazardous team taking turns at ‘whacking’ our SPARTAN Linear with various ‘weapons’! And most recently our SPARTAN Emergency Bulkhead took a dip in the sea off the Northumberland coast – GoPro style!
The videos have gained a lot of interest and are testament to the tough and extremely durable and reliable nature of the whole SPARTAN range. If you’ve missed any of them, you can view them on our website video library.
Watch out for the next How Tough is SPARTAN video in 2017 – Deep Sea SPARTAN!
Factory Move
2016 has been a busy year for us. We are delighted to announce that, having outgrown our current premises, we are moving to a bigger and better facility before the end of the year!
The move to the new 30,000 sqft UK premises in Ashington, Northumberland comes to support our plans for continued growth in 2017 and beyond – providing nearly 3 times the amount of space for expansion.
Our hazardous area LED lighting division has seen exponential growth in the last few years. The move to larger premises will allow us to expand our product portfolios, increase our production capability and continue to build our team of lighting experts even further – and remain the lighting partner of choice for a challenging range of applications.
“We have always been proud that all of our luminaires are designed and manufactured here in the UK. We started out in Ashington over 10 years ago and we’re thrilled to be moving to our new premises and staying in the local area – just 100 metres down the road in fact!” comments David Lambert, Raytec Managing Director (Joint). “Crucially, the new move will allow us to tackle more challenging projects, provide quicker lead times for our customers, with the flexibility to respond to market demands for more intelligent and bespoke solutions”.
David goes on to say “We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all customers, suppliers, alliance partners and friends of the company for their support over the years. Our close partnerships, joint ventures and technology integrations have played a vital role in our success – and we look forward to continuing to lead and drive lighting innovation in our key markets”.
By January 3rd – our first working day of 2017 – all business will be operating from the new location.
Our phone number and email address will remain the same. However please update your records with our new address details as follows;
Raytec Ltd
Unit 15
Wansbeck Business Park
Rotary Parkway
Ashington, Northumberland
NE63 8QW, UK
Growing Team
2016 saw us welcome new members to our commercial, technical and production teams.
Amr Elsaadani joined our technical team as Senior Electronics Design Engineer, with a strong background in LED lighting design. New to the sales team is Lee Westwood as Area Sales Manager. Lee has spent all of his working life helping customers to specify hazardous area electrical products – his previous employers include ATX, Dialight, Redapt and Pepper and Fuchs. Also on board is Jim Cooper as Technical Sales Executive. Previously of Victor Products and Hadar Lighting, Jim also has a lifetime of experience in working in the hazardous area lighting sector.
We’ve also been delighted to welcome a number of new additions to our hazardous area production teams. With ISO 9001 certified products and processes, our ever growing team of production operatives are dedicated to ensuring the highest levels of quality at all times. With increased capacity we can look forward to delivering quicker lead times for our customers and tackling more custom built products for bespoke customer needs.
Barry Thompson, Director of the Raytec Hazardous Area Division comments on the new appointments. “Growing our sales team will give us the resources to ensure we can give our customers the support they need, and provide them with quality specification and product training. This is essential for us so that we can be sure to support both new and existing customers. Similarly, investing in our technical and production teams will give us the resources we need to develop our products and provide the most innovative solutions for hazardous area applications”.
“It is an exciting time in the hazardous area division, and growing our team and moving factory shows our commitment to our customers – and these are just some of the things that will help us continue to develop and innovate”.
Looking Forward
The 2017 roadmap is already looking to be as memorable a year as this one.
Moving into the New Year you can expect us to announce a range of new and exciting product innovations at the cutting edge of EX LED lighting technology – and our new factory move will support our growth and development along the way.
Above all, we are passionate and dedicated to driving the evolution of LED lighting technology for hazardous area applications worldwide.
