Today, Quickfit is the most installed and identified exit in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Rewind to 1981, and it was an Australian-born innovation delivering a new slide and connect exit lighting solution to the market.
It ticked all the right boxes then, as it still does today, such as delivering quality design and manufacturing outcomes and total reliability, while meeting the highest standards of occupant safety.
Its point of difference was the unique steel slide and connect bracket. This opened up two opportunities not previously available in the market. The first was enabling wall and ceiling mounting via the same bracket. The second was separating the bracket from the rest of the fitting, allowing bracket-only installations during building and infrastructure fit-outs that, in turn, eliminated the risk of damage to the lighting fixture during construction.
The leading fixture for easy management
Much like Band-Aid and Hoover, the Quickfit design so precisely met a market need that it became the industry standard, with ‘quick-fit’ solutions replicated over and again by companies across the emergency lighting industry.
It was quickly recognised for advancing the emergency lighting industry in Australia, helping clients meet their ever-increasing safety obligations with a solution that provided unequalled savings in installation time and costs, and in future upgrade capability.
In addition to the bracket innovation, features such as simple wiring, positive power connector placement that guarantees proper connections, 16mm power terminals for easy cable junctioning inside the bracket, and a full-length cover for safety, all make for the easiest and safest installations.
Those advantages, plus simplified swapping and upgrading without the need for specialised tools, translate into easy ongoing maintenance.
The value for clients – both installers and facilities managers – is a truly user-friendly solution that considers whole-of-life benefits. Across the lifecycle of the asset, it unlocks savings in hardware procurement, software upgrades and labour – all while keeping safety front-and-centre.
Behind the scenes of continual improvement
The key for the ABB Stanilite® emergency lighting range has been continual improvement in two key areas – electronics and design aesthetics.
“The breakthrough idea that made Quickfit the benchmark it is today has remained largely unchanged, but the wider emergency lighting industry has made significant advances in other areas, such as design and technology integration,” said Stephen Charlton, Global Product Manager (Asia) Emergency Lighting.
“We’ve never allowed the Quickfit concept to stagnate and we’ve done that by adopting a continual improvement mindset of incremental updates over the last 30 years.”
Some of those improvements have delivered greater compatibility with the latest in LED and lithium iron phosphate battery technology, as well as monitoring software.
The original ingenuity of the bracket design has also created a new benefit as it enables backwards compatibility in both hardware and software. As one example, new Quickfit installations can work with existing Quickfit diffusers. This allows existing installations to be upgraded to the latest technology – a streamlined approach that once again creates time and cost savings.
A new, expanded Quickfit range
Under the new Stanilite Platinum range, Quickfit products include standard, jumbo, cabled, wireless, theatre mask, weatherproof, Nexus® monitored and DALI lighting system configurations, complete with 24m and 36m viewing distance options.
For clients already using Quickfit hardware with Nexus RF monitoring, a significant advantage is the ability to upgrade to the landmark Nexus RF Infinity solution, due to its backwards compatibility. Nexus RF Infinity offers another boon for installers and maintainers with digital enhancements such as hassle-free mobile phone commissioning, report distribution from mobile devices, building management system integration, enhanced IT security, and dynamic mesh networking that adjusts to building changes, including introducing automatic route optimisation.
Innovation that never rests
The Quickfit innovation won the Australian Manufacturing Product of the Year (Australian Industry Awards) in 2001, alongside the Commendation for Best Product in Manufacturing (Queensland IES, 2001), Luminaire Design Award of Commendation (IES the Lighting Society, 2001) and DesignMark™ (Australian Design Awards, 2002).
Since then, ABB Australia’s Emergency Lighting team’s commitment to innovation has kept it at the forefront of emergency lighting excellence. Following its outstanding reception in Australia, Quickfit has enjoyed excellent take-up in New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
The team continues to draw on more than 45 years of engineering history to integrate the best in hardware and software advances to maximise client investments.
