Seeing the LED Light at the End of the Tunnel

LEDtronics CEO and Founder Pervaiz Lodhie oversees a COVID-19 guidelines-compliant production assembly line as technicians build LED bulb parts at the company’s Torrance, Calif. plant. Photo by Raffi Shubukian/LEDtronics   By David Dickstein, contributor TORRANCE, Calif., July 27 2020 — Pervaiz Lodhie doesn’t need the brightness of a 118,000-lumen LED High Mast Luminaire to see the impact COVID-19 has on the lighting industry. He need look no further than the company he and his wife founded in 1983.“I’ve never seen anything like it in my four decades in the business,” said Lodhie, the 76-year-old CEO of Torrance, Calif.-based LEDtronics, one of the few lighting manufacturers in the United States. “We’ve endured recessions, 9/11 and other pandemics, but this crisis is particularly challenging and scary because of the unknown.” So much about the disease is still a mystery – its epidemiology, when a vaccine will be developed, whether a second wave is coming – as Lodhie points out. “These and other challenges have a direct impact on business, let alone health,” he said. As for the latter, everyone at LEDtronics is enjoying good health, according to a wood-knocking Lodhie. Since Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency, all guidelines have been followed or exceeded at the company. COVID-19-related cleanings are performed daily at the entire South Bay facility. “The well-being of our employees is Job #1,” Lodhie said. Turning to the health of the company, LEDtronics is shining brightly despite the current challenges. Helping LEDtronics weather the COVID-19 storm was a series of corrective actions the company serendipitously took prior to the pandemic. These included cutting expenses, improving efficiency and returning to core strengths and products. Being prudent, proactive and essential have enabled LEDtronics to remain fully operational during a tumultuous first half of 2020. “We have survived under impossible circumstances in part because we design, manufacture and ship our products ‘just-in-time,’” Lodhie said, referring to the methodology aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers.A strong customer base doesn’t hurt, either. LEDtronics serves almost 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies, the majority being part of “essential” market segments – OEM, government, defense, utility, healthcare, and food packaging. “As a supplier of critical parts to essential businesses, from defense and aerospace to government and power plants, we, too, qualify as an ‘essential business’ and can stay open,” Lodhie said. “The ability to keep the lights on, so to speak, comes with the need to make sure there is no disruption during this period and to provide our customers with the same excellent service and superior quality LED lighting products that we have since 1983.” Being fully operational doesn’t mean it’s been business as usual for LEDtronics, however.“We’re definitely working under different work conditions,” Lodhie said, noting that some full-time employees are working remotely and part-time. “Not surprisingly, there’s been a slowdown in work coming in and work going out.” Reduced orders have eased production at LEDtronics’ factory in Torrance, where 75 percent of the company’s products are either manufactured or assembled. As for the remainder, the company’s plant in Pakistan and its strategic partners in China have operated at full capacity since early June. “I have no doubt many companies with bad financial fallback plans will not survive this once-in-a-century global disaster,” Lodhie said. The entire lighting industry is about to be at a crossroads due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent report by ResearchAndMarkets.com. The study implies that “with the energy industry being the hardest hit by the pandemic and the stringent lockdown and restrictions imposed by governments worldwide, the LED lighting market will feel the shocks.”As for Lodhie’s outlook for his industry, he sees an LED light at the end of the tunnel.“I have no doubt that soon we will have robust economic growth,” he said. “Companies that survive this pandemic will be stronger than before, us included.”— David Dickstein is a California-based freelance journalist. He is a regular contributor to the Southern California News Group, publisher of the South Bay Daily Breeze, and other news organizations.

3 Places You Might See LED Lights in Power Plants & Utilities

For crucial locations such as power plants and utilities, lighting is one of the most important factors in keeping these workplaces safe and working efficiently. With incandescent bulbs proving to cause complications in the most important applications, they are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Directly replacing existing incandescent bulbs with LED in these high-risk places provides a far more efficient, advanced lighting technology while also making the work environment safer.

Transmission Station Control Panel Indicator Bulbs

Utilities or power plants have control panels to operate their various different machines and equipment. These control panels are usually running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If they use incandescent bulbs for the indicator lights, they would need to be replaced very often, resulting in waste of time and resources.

At times, control panels are situated in tricky places, making changing the bulbs often very difficult. LED panel indicators have an extremely long light life, so you don’t have to worry about replacing them often at all.

Some common lamps and bulb types found in control panels are:

• Miniature bayonet Ba9s base
• Telephone slide base
• Midget flange
• E12 Candelabra screw base
• 2-pin cartridges

Emergency Warning Lights

There are all kinds of different safety measures installed in utilities and power plants to ensure proper, safe functionality. One of the most common safety measures in place are emergency warning lights. These lights become active when any sort of emergency occurs, like when transformers blow up, distribution systems fail, or when batteries go bad.

When these lights fail to function when needed, the essential machinery and equipment breaking down isn’t the only concern. Without emergency warning lights operating properly, it can possibly lead to a hazardous work environment for employees. Worker safety is paramount for all companies, and that’s why long-lasting, durable LED lighting technology is necessary for emergency warning lights.

Status Indicators

LED lights can also commonly be found in such applications as status indicators for:

• Transformers
• Batteries (including back-up batteries)
• System indicators

Status indicators are essential for industrial applications like these because they determine whether machinery and equipment are functioning, malfunctioning, require replacement, etc. LED lights are ideal as status indictors because they provide bright, reliable light in a compact, durable form.

A Company Power Plants and Utilities Put Their Trust In

When it comes to crucial industrial applications, LEDtronics has been the trusted LED light provider for companies like American Electric Power, New York Power Authority, Watts Bar Nuclear Plant – TVA, Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power, and many more. With almost 40 years of experience, LEDtronics offers top solutions for all power plant and utility lighting needs!

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3 Things to Consider When Choosing an LED Manufacturer

Switching to LED lighting might seem like a relatively easy task. However, with so many brands in the market, how can you be certain you’re purchasing from the right company for your LED lights?

You need an LED lighting solution—not just a product

It’s simple and easy to find a basic LED replacement bulb for your home. However, for specific markets such as Defense & Aerospace, Transportation & Railroad, and Industrial Controls, their crucial and unique applications require a very specific lighting solution. Less experienced LED manufacturers often just sell a customer what they have in stock without fully determining what the customer’s application needs are, which can result in a waste of time, money, and resources. If the LED manufacturer isn’t spending significant time getting to know your application, that should be a red flag.

LEDtronics’ nearly 40 years of experience allows us to properly assess the customers lighting needs and specific situation, then provide the best lighting solution to meet their specific project needs. We ensure our customers that the lights we provide for their project are the correct solution, and not just whatever is on the shelf.

When it’s essential to have LED lights you can rely on

When it comes to more industrial applications like Automation, Power Plants, Aircraft instrument panels, or Warning/Signal lights, you need lighting that you can rely on. While other LED manufacturers will promise you that their brand is the best for your project, can you really trust a lighting company that only jumped on the LED bandwagon recently?

Many of today’s self-proclaimed ‘LED expert’ lighting companies previously only ever dealt with old forms of lights such as incandescent or fluorescent, and then suddenly joined the LED movement when it boomed. Some other companies were selling to completely different markets when they added on lighting out of nowhere.

LEDtronics has manufactured and sold only LED lighting since 1983. To this day, our product has been trusted by customers such as:

• 80% of Fortune 500 companies
• Defense & Aerospace
• Government & Municipalities
• Power plants & Utilities
• And many more markets and industries

They can’t risk utilizing unreliable, unproven LED lights in their essential applications.

How limited is the warranty?

When it comes to purchasing LED lights, it’s always important to check the warranty that it comes with. You don’t want to end up in a situation where you’re arguing with the LED manufacturer because of a loophole in their warranty.

Many companies boast ridiculously long warranties on their products, but when you read the fine print, you realize it really is too good to be true. More often than not, the warranties are very limited and conditional, which means that if something goes wrong, you’re stuck with lighting you can’t replace or return.

LEDtronics prioritizes giving our customers the best value for premium quality and a hassle-free customer experience. We offer unconditional warranties because we stand by the engineering and quality of our LED products.

Why choose to work with LEDtronics?

When you’re selecting an LED lighting company, beware of those that take shortcuts and lack experience. LEDtronics has almost four decades of LED experience to back our superior quality products, with stellar customer service to provide you with the best lighting for your specific needs. Make sure you don’t settle for less when addressing your lighting needs.