Quality parking infrastructure places a premium on the user experience, particularly in safety and easy navigation. That user experience is then paired with a significant cost focus by asset owners and operators to maximise value – either in the immediate, via low upfront costs, or in the long-term, via reduced whole-of-life costs.
Across Australia and New Zealand, Stanilite® has a presence in parking facilities in all major cities and most regional centres, making it the go-to choice for asset owners and facilities managers. Recent improvements to the Stanilite Economy and Platinum ranges have only stepped up the heat in this sector.
Safety and navigation leadership meets value
In safety, both Stanilite ranges deliver a robust emergency and exit lighting environment that ensures safe egress for parking facility users and other occupants. Legibility is a prized quality and the viewing distances of both ranges – up to 36m – coupled with the performance benefits of LED technology, showcase industry leadership in efficient and effective sightlines.
This is where navigation advantages come to the fore. For parking facility users, the ability to quickly and easily see exit signs is expected but often not there in practice. The quality of the design logic that drives Stanilite’s product development ensures absolute clarity in wayfinding across the entire portfolio of products.
A key advantage for parking infrastructure is the ability to gain these safety and navigation benefits at the same time as sharpening costs. The ABB Emergency Lighting team has achieved this in two critical ways – delivering the lowest maintenance products in the market, and leveraging extensive research and development effort (R&D) to deliver Economy range improvements at a tighter price.
“Streamlining our manufacturing has opened the way for us to reduce prices across our Stanilite Economy range while embedding the benefits of the latest in LED and lithium iron phosphate technology,” said Stephen Charlton, Global Product Manager (Asia) Emergency Lighting. “It’s the same R&D team that delivers our Platinum range, drawing on the same engineering insights, to ensure that clients seeking safety, reliability and cost excellence can find a solution with us.”
The long life of LED capability, matched with lithium iron phosphate batteries, provides energy and maintenance savings in addition to high performance. They are part of the Stanilite equation that ensures parking facility owners and operators can fulfil their duty of care through absolute safety compliance, while reducing ongoing maintenance frequency and burden, and reducing power consumption costs.
Hard-wearing products that stand the test of time
A major advantage of the Stanilite offer is the ability to provide products specifically designed with hard-wearing properties, such as high-end control gear and components, and superior, specialised circuits designed by the ABB team to overcome common vulnerabilities found in competing circuits. Several models also offer qualities such as vandal-resistant and weatherproof guarantees.
Here, the win-win value comes through again, with these fit-for-purpose features available in the streamlined, improved and highly cost-competitive Economy series. The ABB team doubled down on value, leveraging 45 years of engineering history and those R&D benefits to enable a lower-priced offer with a new, extended two-year warranty across the entire Economy range.
For clients seeking cost savings from a whole-of-life perspective, the Platinum range provides the benefits of monitoring integration. This now includes Nexus RF Infinity® capability that reduces ongoing equipment and installation costs. It also extends the product lifecycle such as by enabling existing hardware to adapt to facility changes. Easy integration with building management systems further simplifies and streamlines monitoring, creating labour and hardware savings. The ability to remotely analyse system performance further ensures razor-sharp cost management.
Greater value at a lower cost
When the facilities management team at Queensland’s popular South Bank carpark was looking to refit the existing, 24-hour operational carpark to save on power consumption, they set stringent return on investment targets as the final go/no-go hurdle. ABB’s Emergency Lighting team knew the Stanilite Platinum range was more than up to the task.
Over the following five years, with no upgrade, the facility was facing approximately $600,000 in power and maintenance costs. Changing to the Platinum range slashed those costs to approximately $250,000 – for a hardware investment substantially lower than the difference and promising more savings in years to come. The work, delivered in 2019, has also set the facilities management team up with long-term monitoring value. They can complete activities such as compliance tests and maintenance planning from their offices or even off-site locations, eliminating the need for personnel to physically walk the carpark – extra value in time savings and better safety.
As parking infrastructure exemplifies the balancing act between compliance and safety, upfront investment and whole-of-life cost management, the new, streamlined Stanilite Economy range, and advanced Platinum range, challenge the very idea of value. Efficiency gains stretch investments further, at a time when that is needed most.
