LightSources/LightTech

LightSources/LightTech
Pioneering New Lamp Frontiers

by Judie Bizzozero

In 2003, the two companies streamlined their North American and European operations, which resulted in a global approach to designing and marketing indoor tanning lamps. LSI continues to provide superior tanning lamps manufactured with the customer, salon operator and equipment maker in mind.

LSI has been a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of application-specific lamps for more than two decades. The company combines advanced manufacturing technology with traditional craftsmanship to produce high-quality lamps that exceed most performance expectations, even in the harshest operating environments.

With production facilities on two continents, LSI responds to customers’ global needs quickly and effectively. LightTech—located six miles from Budapest in the town of Dunakeszi—controls the company’s production of lamps and operates its own glass factory.

Since its formation in 1993, LightTech has become a leading European manufacturer of specialty fluorescent lamps and the most technically progressive supplier in its field. Its emphasis on quality, innovation and customer relations is why it is one of the fastest-growing tanning-lamp manufacturers in the world.

In 2003, LOOKING FIT® magazine visited LightTech to see first-hand the company’s unique approach to manufacturing, technology, product research and development. I revisited the facility in October 2005,where I witnessed more advancements that solidify the company’s corporate philosophy to guide by innovation, quality and meet the challenges of customer demand.

LightTech’s research and development team is responsible for a continuous stream of product improvements and developments, while the production facility and glass factory implement quality-management systems unparalleled in the sector.

“Absolute concentration on quality, innovation and a customer-friendly attitude are the pillars of LightTech’s business strategy,” says Karl Platzer, executive vice president of marketing and sales, and chairman of the Hungarian Tanning Association. “Our focus on customer satisfaction and service allows us to continue to grow with our customers and not in competition with them.”

In the last two years, LightTech has added a number of accomplishments to its growing list of successes, including a new building that houses the company’s headquarters and marketing offices (as well as an in-house tanning salon with two stand-up units and a sunless unit for employees to tan and engineers to test lamps). A second furnace in the glass factory was built to accommodate production of specialty lamps, and an additional manufacturing line was added to handle increased orders. Additionally, LightTech’s already superior quality-control department evolved even more.

Since 2001, LightTech has been operating its own glassworks factory on its compound that produces glass tubes for UV lamps 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This means the optimal composition of glass is guaranteed; self-production improves efficiency, since it makes the company independent of the supplier network. The company also only uses phosphor from its own mixing lab.

“The glass factory is our strength because it provides the highest flexibility for our customers with key emphasis on customer service,” Platzer says. “We can supply small quantities of lamps for our customers. The addition of the second furnace was something we envisioned from the very beginning and it already has performed beyond our expectations.”

Quality control is a serious subject at LightTech, and the department boasts the most modern instruments and test equipment. This ensures that customers receive only top-quality products. The control laboratory also takes statistical samples according to the ISO 9001 standard and checks these in terms of UV-spectral distribution, calculated tanning effectiveness and geometry.

LightTech became ISO 9001 certified in 1999,which means it complies with the International Organization for Standardization’s stringent criteria for work accomplished and also meets customer requirements. The company was recertified ISO 9001 in 2002 and 2004. The facility also holds TUV and FED certifications. LightTech’s measurement laboratory was accredited in September 2004 by the German Accreditation Council (DAR); the accreditation was renewed in 2005.

According to the company, only two tanning lamp manufacturers worldwide— one of which is LightTech—have this accreditation. The conditions of the certificate include having the right instruments, technical experts, trained laboratory personnel and proper testing conditions. According to Platzer, LightTech’s unique quality management system allows private-brand customers to come in and audit LightTech in order to certify the quality level of their own products. “We take the name of our OEM customers very seriously and make their own customer brand with the highest value to them and us,” he adds.

The company’s Europeanwide Measuring Competence Team also ensures that the latest tanning lamp technologies are fine-tuned for different types of OEM equipment and measured accordingly. LightTech views this practical measuring service as a key ingredient of customer information to be able to supply the optimal type category to different European standards.

“We are able to supply RTS lamp equivalency reports according to the new German self-regulation recommendations that require strict regulations. Only OEM and accredited laboratories can supply these reports, and LightTech is one of a handful,” Platzer says. “We are very proud of this distinction as it sets us apart from others in the field.”

Calling it the most significant innovation in tanning since the sun, the talented LSI/LightTech team recently introduced SolGlass™—an innovative and proprietary glass technology that creates the most-effective tanning lamp on the market. The roll-out of SolGlass was met with rave reviews at the ITA Tanning World Expo in Nashville, Tenn., and the Solaria show in Cologne, Germany last fall.

According to Platzer, the secret is its worldwide patent-pending unique combination of the new SolGlass Technology with a certain phosphor combination. In the past, the transmissive properties of currently available glass prohibited the use of certain phosphor blends because those phosphors would produce UV output in an area that would be blocked by the glass. In other words, transmission that yielded output in only a certain area of UVB could be used.

Always thinking of better and more efficient ways to produce lamps that provide superior tanning performance, the team of engineers at the LightSources/LightTech designed a new type of glass that allows for transmission at a different area of the UVB spectrum. The result is a smaller amount of UVB placed at a much more efficient area of the spectrum to yield spectacular melanin stimulation.

“In its infancy, the tanning industry largely relied on the lamp manufacturer to deliver what it thought was the best lamp it had to offer, often with very few choices,” says Christian J. Sauska, LightSources’ director of the U.S. tanning products sector. “SolGlass allows for a greater amount of UVA to be used to produce simply what we believe is the best tan the industry has ever seen.”

SolGlass technology is based on a combination of a newly developed glass tube and a proprietary phosphor blend. The new glass allows for more effective and efficient UV transmission—especially at the wavelengths that create the greatest tanning effect. Due to the efficient UV transmission, SolGlass incorporates an innovative mix of the UV phosphors that have the most tanning impact on the skin—narrow-band UVA for immediate coloring and short-wavelength UVB for persistent pigmentation.

“This unique combination of the newly developed special “open glass” and the innovative phosphor mix provides the most-effective UVB spectrum and highest UVA readings than any other tanning lamp,” Platzer says. “Even lamps with so-called “open glass” will have a problem matching this outstanding performance. At 300 nanometers, SolGlass allows more than 75 percent of the UVB energy to pass through the glass; typical U.S. tanning lamps allow only about 36 percent.”

The SolGlass lamps are manufactured to FDA standards as well as current and future new European standards, he adds.

The company also is developing the T-14 FatLamp™ technology, which allows tanning bed manufacturers to safely increase lamp power—up to 300 watts— in new bed designs without increasing the amount of heat generated, impacting cooling requirements or degrading lamp life.

In addition to the increased wattage, the T-14 features greater lamp diameter and surface area, which helps reduce radiant heating and improves the lamp’s cooling efficiency. The T-14 also allows equipment manufacturers to develop high-power next-generation products that can provide equivalent tanning results in a much shorter time with the same number of lamps, ballasts, starters, etc., as in current bed designs. According to the company, the lamps last longer than other high-power lamps because their energy is spread across a greater surface area, creating less degradation of the UV phosphors.

“An OEM customer can use less lamps, less ballast and less starters per sunbed to achieve the same or even better tanning results,” Platzer says. “We call it an evaluation of ‘cost of UV’.”

LightTech also is working on new colored lamps that, in addition to tanning capability, help set a specific mood and emphasize a salon’s unique personality. The company has developed a proprietary process for producing colored tanning lamps that meet the same strict standards for quality and performance that all its innovative lamp technologies meet. Available colors include pink, blue, green and yellow.

As the leading European manufacturer of specialty fluorescent lamps and one of the most technologically progressive suppliers in this field, LightTech plans to continue to be an innovator in the indoor tanning sector. The company’s research and development team currently is working on new product developments to improve tanning solutions for its customers with the industry’s highest flexibility in product availability.

“We respect our competition and that is why we constantly improve our technology and planning,” Platzer says. “Our success lies in our relationships with our customers. We are committed to keeping an open dialogue, providing the best tanning products, customer service and research and development in the industry.”