Alarm bells…

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Perth, 9^th December 2014

You can really sense that the year is coming to a close, some of my clients, business relations and project colleagues are already partially switched off probably planning their year-end holidays, others are rushing to finish up loose ends before the end of the year. It is really a countdown even though for most there are at least another two solid weeks of work ahead! The LED problems still remain the same…the quality and performance are definitely getting better and more and more new players are popping up in this cut-throat market. Budgets remain the single most challenging issue to resolve in all (of my) projects. Today again the client could still not get himself to sign off on the purchase of light fittings even though we had done several rounds of value engineering, checked and double checked samples for compliance to basic quality and performance and most off all had brought down the costs to within striking distance of his budget. What happened? Some new (Chinese) lighting supplier managed to squeeze his foot in the door with an offer that my clients think he can’t refuse; it is less than half the price!… Really!?!?…Are we going to start the whole exercise again? To overpower the client’s mind the supplier sent copies of all the awards and quality certificates they have been receiving over the last few years. As most are in Chinese I can’t decipher what they are for, but I know from experience that these kind of documents do not mean much…some of them you can just buy on line! I am not saying that is what they did, but if prices are less than half of my already super value engineered solution, my alarm bells start ringing. I discarded all the certificates and asked the client to request the supplier to do the same due diligence as we did previously; all alternative light fittings to be provided with proper and detailed cut sheets and working samples. Once I have been able to review and verify the quality and performance and we indeed are comparing apples with apples, we can start to consider this supplier. Ring, ring…

Light Watch 5-209: Decorative lighting manufacturers like chandelier makers are another breed of manufacturers who have still to learn about how to use LED technology! While the fittings may look beautiful many of them have major LED lighting issues, too bright, too many points, not dimmable…; here are some close ups of the chandeliers in my Jakarta project that look impressive but all had some lighting issue one way or another…