Tuesday, September 30, 2014

From Spring Cleaning to Fall Maintenance

We all know that spring is the traditional time to clean out your home and garage after being tucked snugly inside and restricted primarily to our homes over the winter months. And summer is a busy time for both work and family. But autumn is the season to fortify, batten down the hatches and prepare for the cold winter months ahead. As it is for our homes, our businesses have similar seasonal duties that must be attended to ensure smooth operations.

For most of us, October signals the start of our fourth quarter of business for the year, and it is important to allot as much of our time during this quarter to ensuring that we have a successful and profitable new year right from the start. In many cases, business may slow during the winter, but even if it doesn't, we have to work as if it is our busiest season. The best way to handle the fourth quarter is to set aside tasks that should be completed each week or each month.

Many of the tasks we must perform at this time of year are planning related. This is the time to set goals and identify potential obstacles. The first of the goals that come to my mind is a sales or revenue goal. The trick in setting this goal is to aim high while maintaining a sense of realism. You don't want to sell you and your staff short, but you also don't want to make it impossible to hit the target.

One way to increase sales and revenue is to advertise effectively and implement sound marketing strategies, but in order to accomplish this, we must first analyze how our marketing has worked for us for this year. Has it worked as well as you had expected? Is your advertising budget being spent effectively? What are some of the alternatives available?

A proven method for analyzing your marketing strategies is known as the SWOT method, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This usually refers to your own business, but it can also be applied to specific approaches to marketing. When applied to your company, SWOT helps you develop your strategy for the coming year. When you apply SWOT to specific marketing techniques or providers, the method helps you determine a true value, and the key word here is opportunity.

The fourth quarter is the perfect time to identify new opportunities that will help you achieve your goals for the coming year. If we can be of any service to you, don't hesitate to let us know. I look forward to hearing from you, and good luck in carrying out your fall maintenance at home and on the job.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Adapted: An Insider's Perspective on Backlighting Translucent Surfaces

By Richard Ashoff
Note: In this blog entry, Richard Ashoff, CEO of Tylerco, Inc. sheds some light on how his SLABlite product for backlighting translucent surfaces works.
With the growing interest in backlighting translucent materials, such as onyx, glass and certain types of quartz surfacing and solid surface, a lot of questions have been coming up. In an effort to help you understand the ins and outs of the process better, specifically as it relates to our SLABlite product, I have put together this blog post.

Lumens
What are lumens and have you ever been concerned about them before? Lumens per sq. ft. would refer to lights that are used to illuminate commercial areas. There are requirements that lights have to meet for building codes. However, talking about lumens really just confuses the issue and really has nothing to do with backlighting surfaces.

There are many ways lighting translucent material can be achieved. You can use light bulbs, fluorescent lamps, LED strips or LED tape, and many companies have tried them all. However, more goes into lighting translucent surfaces than the actual lights. When backlighting surfaces, the first objective is to enhance the translucence of the material being illuminated. The SLABlite is designed to throw light 1 inch. We don’t care about the rest of the environment. That is why lumens are really beside the point.

Translucent material has to be backlit as if the sun were shining through it. There can be no hot spots or shadowing. The SLABlite’s foundation is based on a light guide. A light guide is the same technology that is used to light cellphones, computer monitors, TVs and signs. You would think that this would be easy enough to do. Unfortunately, you can’t just take the light guide technology and throw it under a slab and think it will work or last for any amount of time.

 An average LED bulb is stated to last 50,000 hours. That is the equivalent to 5 to 7 years of continuous burn. This would be acceptable if you could easily replace the bulb, but having to replace a bulb that is under an installed heavy slab is definitely NOT easy. So, we engineered the SLABlite for an increased lifespan – a minimum lifespan of 20 years. Because we are only trying to light 1 inch away from our light (the translucent slab material), we drive our LEDs at a lesser rate, which gives us a longer life. It also reduces the heat output from the LEDs. Heat is the enemy when dealing with LEDs.

What If?
Another issue is potential failure of an LED. The SLABlite’s LEDs are wired in parallel and in series on the same panel. If an LED were to fail, the whole panel will not fail, and the other LEDs will fill the gap. The SLABlite also has a surge protector on board. You never know when there might be a surge on the electrical line. We design protection and backup so you don’t have to get a jackhammer to remove the light.

Ease of use is also an important factor. SLABlite can be custom cut on the jobsite to fit any configuration. That means you never have to send out your template to have a pre-made configuration made for a particular application. The SLABlite is modular. You can build as big or as small as you want. When you have covered the area, you simply cut the panels to fit. You can drill holes for faucets and cut around sinks as easily as cutting plastic.

Additionally, the SLABlite is waterproof. It has been installed in pools, fountains, baths, boats and cement. Rather than using a potting method to seal the LEDs in a panel, SLABlite includes patented waterproofing that allows for heat contraction and expansion. SLABlite waterproofing avoids problems that occur from natural heat expansion and contraction, which can cause LEDs to separate from the panel and expose them to the elements.

SLABlites have been in the field for more than seven years, passing the 1 million hours of burn rate in 2010. We are proud to say that we have never lost a panel. Not one.

So, when you are looking for a product, make sure you are looking at a product that was made to do what it is being used for and not a product made for another type of lighting that has been adapted for your surfaces. You may think you have a less expensive product you can adapt, but an adapted product is usually a poor substitute that will cost you aggravation and a lot of money in the end. The one made for a specific use has taken into consideration things that could happen during its lifetime and has built-in solutions for potential problems that could arise. Sometimes “cheap” isn’t.

Thanks to Tylerco for sharing their expertise on backlighting,