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atg strengthens global position with new American manufacturing facility

atg airports has opened a new manufacturing and distribution facility in the United States to support increased demand from Central and North America for its flexible range of airfield lighting solutions.

The new plant, which has been opened in Florida, supports the company’s existing USA office which was established earlier this year as a response to growing demand from Central and South America.

Successfully audited by the BSI and accredited to ISO: 9001:2008 quality standards, the new factory is operating to atg’s group quality management systems and brings an influx of jobs to the country, employing administrative, sales and manufacturing staff from the USA. Furthermore, atg airports is already planning future new appointments as it rolls its new sales strategy out across America.

This expansion into the American market comes at an exciting time for atg airports, which has just launched its new internationally compliant IRIS AGL LED to UK airport professionals, against a backdrop of global pre-orders. Final FAA certification is due by the end of September and the product is set to be available globally by the end of the year. Once granted, atg’s USA operations will support all current independent and future FAA-funded projects under the Airport Improvement Program (AIP.)

Kevin Armstrong, atg’s Sales Director said: “We are always doing everything we can to respond to the needs of airports worldwide and our new factory will allow American airport developers to access our products manufactured in their own country. It will also help us to enhance our supply to nearby territories including South America. ”

Next month will see atg’s key USA management team promoting the company’s American operations at the next Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESALC) event. This takes place in Tuscon, Arizona between the 20th and 21st October.

Future looks bright for IRIS, the world’s latest AGL LED

atg airports is officially launching IRIS, the world’s latest internationally compliant AGL (airfield ground lighting) LED, against a backdrop of thousands of global pre-orders for the product.

The UK based airfield lighting specialist is to unveil its brand new IRIS lighting system to UK airport professionals throughout July 2013 at various locations including Manchester and Heathrow Airports. The product will then be available worldwide following the issuing of final FAA compliance certification. FAA testing is already 95% complete and final FAA paperwork is anticipated by the end of August 2013.

Kevin Armstrong, atg’s Sales Director, commented: “We are revolutionising the market for airfield lighting with IRIS and are delighted with the amount of interest and substantial pre-orders received from airport operators. We are heavily investing in new production facilities dedicated to the IRIS range”

He added “Our objective was to create a brand new LED fitting that would not only be world class in terms of performance, but also ultra reliable and easy to maintain. At a time when airports everywhere are making an effort to reduce their carbon emissions and airfield maintenance costs, IRIS will help them achieve this.”

One of the major attractions of IRIS is the environmental benefits it brings to airport operators looking to adhere to green standards set by the ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation Programme. IRIS is designed to be recycled, LEDs reduce power consumption (resulting in less carbon dioxide emissions) and the fitting uses an internal closed loop control system, which monitors LED parameters, maintaining a consistent light output throughout the life of the fitting.

In addition, potential impact damage to aircraft landing gear is reduced with IRIS because the fitting’s height above the pavement surface is reduced from 12mm to less than 6mm. Furthermore, IRIS has no negative slope which means there is nowhere for water retention or dirt to build up in front of the prism, this means that the photometrics are optimized for all operating conditions.

A great deal of consideration has gone into the design of IRIS in order to reduce maintenance costs. The innovative new product is assembled with minimum parts and interchangeable arrays, allowing airfield engineers to save on maintenance time and reduce the amount of spare parts needed. Furthermore, IRIS fits into existing airfield architecture, allowing a quick changeover from old tungsten halogen to the new cutting edge IRIS LED lights.