Danlers, a Wiltshire based company, has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation. The award was given in recognition of the continuing development of its range of energy saving electronic controls for lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Managing director, Tony Kay said, “As a company we strive to be at the cutting edge of control technology so to win this award for innovation is particularly rewarding for Danlers’ dedicated team.”
Founded in 1990 by Kay, Danlers has been based at their Chippenham site since October 2000 and it is here it designs and manufactures its innovative products. The company has been growing steadily for several years and now provides work for over 60 people from the surrounding Chippenham area.
Danlers produces a wide range of products from passive infra-red (PIR) occupancy switches and time lag switches to radio remote controls and outdoor security switches. Many of the technologies are patented and some have become industry standards such as the ceiling flush mounted PIR occupancy switch and the ceiling directional PIR occupancy switch, for automatic lighting control.
In the past 5 years Danlers has seen its market share increase from 12% to 25%. This is in part due to the energy saving capabilities of its products and the growth in the energy saving market.
In 2008 the UK government passed the Climate Change Act which increased pressure on organisations to improve their energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Improving lighting efficiency is one of the most straightforward ways for an organisation to reduce both their carbon emissions and costs and studies have shown it can be improved by as much as 40% with the installation of lighting controls.
Danlers products are ‘stand alone’ controls rather than integrated systems and so are easy to install. They can be installed in a room by room or area by area basis, keeping costs low and resulting in quicker pay back periods. The ease of use and reliability of Danlers products has resulted in their steady and continued growth throughout the recession.
One of Danlers’ most popular product ranges is their PIR occupancy switches which detect the movement of people within their vicinity and ensure that lights are not left on unnecessarily. The built-in quad detector and photocell ensure that the lights are only turned on when someone is present in the room and when there is insufficient natural light available; enabling commercial and domestic users to save energy and costs.
Danlers latest innovation is the PIR occupancy switch module which measures 50mm x 25mm x 38mm and is fully self contained, making it the smallest on the market and unique. The challenged faced by the engineers was how to squeeze a high specification device into a very small space without compromising the quality and reliability for which Danlers is renowned. The solution was to use surface-mount electronic component technology to create three small interlocking circuit boards that fit perfectly into the small polycarbonate mould.
The winning of the Queen’s Award has topped off what has been an exciting 18 months for Danlers. In addition to launching a number of new products they have invested heavily in the production infrastructure and recruitment in order to ensure their continued growth in the future. Perhaps the biggest investment has been in brand new state of the art surface mount manufacturing equipment. The purchase of this surface mount equipment will not only allow Danlers to diversify the business into contract manufacturing for other electronics companies but also enable them to remain at the cutting edge of technology and innovation for the foreseeable future.
Danlers
Tel: 01249 443377
Fax: 01249 443388
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.danlers.co.uk