Largest British owned general lighting company has recently gone bust - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 02:14:09 pm
content: Hi,Harvard Technology, the largest British owned general lighting company, has recently gone into administration.I have heard a story as to why they went bust, please may I discuss it here and ask for opinions?I am sure it will be interesting to people from other countries, if not more so, as this could happen to them.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 03:48:31 pm
content: Q1: Did you work for them directly, as a contractor, or in a company supplying services to them?Q2: Will the discussion degenerate into a political or pseudo-political thread?Q3: To what extent, if any, can you validate the anecdote/rumour?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 04:25:53 pm
content: They've been teetering on the brink for some time, and from my experience with small British companies serving the public sector thishttps://www.insidermedia.com/insider/yorkshire/tech-firm-plunges-into-red-after-restructurearticle sounds like its probably very realistic. It says they were dragged down by warranty claims on unreliable products, which is a common issue crippling startups in a strong market - the urge to supply, and get revenue, before development is complete is so strong. It says they served 100 local authorities worldwide, but I'm going to take a guess that very few were outside the UK, leaving the company vulnerable each time domestic public expenditure was squeezed.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 04:40:15 pm
content: Thanks, Coppice's kindly supplied article has actually touched on what i was wanting to discuss....QuoteQ1..No, but i interviewed with them in approx 2007, in their then small factory in Beeston , Leeds.Q2...I have just heard from trade insidersQ3....technical details which i will give below.....The story that I have heard is that they sold streetlight power supplies…and reports point to "third party" component failures.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 05:36:09 pm
content: Won't be the first, nor the last. You'll see British companies going broke in troves.But live out your Brexit fantasies in the meanwhile...

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 06:36:57 pm
content: Thanks Benta,I am impressed with the way that Germany maintains an excellent Electronics engineering industry, in spite of all the availability of Chinese Electronics....how do the Germans do it?In 2014, Germany was the worlds largest exporter by capital value.Is there some kind of over-riding Government control?Or is it just an excellent comraderie amongst the German Engineering community?The one thing is for sure, isolated, separate private enterprises in Electronics are good for small, super high-tech specialist electronics companies, but for medium sized to big general electronics engineering companies, there is a need for co-operation and sharing amongst the country’s companies (even the competitors) in order to make the country’s economic environment conducive to the support of medium to large sized electronics engineering companies. The Germans have the Mittelstandback to provide Government money for small to medium sized German electronics companies…but how do you make sure that these companies don’t just take the money and squander it?…because in Germany, the companys do not squander the government grant money

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 06:44:23 pm
content: Quote from: treez on December 22, 2018, 06:36:57 pmstm you just provided an example of what happens when government is in control ....

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 06:46:59 pm
content: QuoteThanks, but the Government was definetely not in control of Harvard Technology...Harvard was a totally private enterprise....which was given some government money to grow its business.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 07:28:53 pm
content: Quote from: treez on December 22, 2018, 06:36:57 pmIn one word:StabilityAn environment where economy, infrastructure, judiciary, employer/union relationships, lawmaking etc. do not go to extremes is the breeding ground for SMBs. (The big players can take care of themselves).This results in planning confidence for SMBs, which is a hundred times more important than just getting the cheapest labour available, or public grants.It's an environment where both employers and employees feel unthreatened and thus deliver their best.Brexit is exactly the opposite.

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 08:28:38 pm
content: Welcome back from your exile.Germany still has an apprentice program, as the UK did in its engineering heyday.The government also throws money (resources) at industries, which are in the national interest. Well that is the excuse. For example building yachts, what's the national interest? Companies training workers skilled in producing fiberglass boats aka mine sweepers and other small military craft.Finally others are not wasting resources running around like headless chickens.I was in Marks and Spencers today and asked what's their plans for Brexit. 99% of what M&S sells in Ireland is imported from "The mainland" on a JIT basis. The response was they maybe closing down and made redundant.Meanwhile, May is planning on having 3,500 troops availble to be on the streets. Sounds like the time after WWI when London sent the Tanks up Scotland to keep them under control.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 08:58:54 pm
content: Why you so concerned about the Brits? As to hate and envy remember there is Karma and you can choke one day by your own anger.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 09:19:17 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on December 22, 2018, 07:28:53 pmStability is one part of it, but Britain in the 60s had a lot of stability and yet it was falling apart. That was why the UK was so keen to join the EEC. Germany combines stability with a fairly well balanced financial environment for SMBs. One where the primary goal of the lending bank is not to drive the SMB out of business and pick over its bones.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 09:24:02 pm
content: Quote from: treez on December 22, 2018, 06:46:59 pmWhen your only customer is the government, even if its a government divided into numerous local authorities, you either dance to their tune or corrupt them into dancing to your's. Therefore the only way for the government to not be in control is corruption.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 10:00:34 pm
content: Quote from: treez on December 22, 2018, 04:40:15 pmSo, while you respond to Q2 and Q3, you decline to answer them.It seems that the correct answer to Q2 is "yes, it will degenerate into a political or pseudo-political thread".Shame. I was hoping for better, but fearing that outcome.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 10:35:43 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on December 22, 2018, 10:00:34 pmHow could the failure of a company supplying the public sector NOT be a political thread? Most of these companies survive or fail based on political issues.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 10:47:43 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on December 22, 2018, 10:35:43 pmReread the first post. Thecauseof the failure might or might not be political, even if the consequences are political.Posters can choose to impose political viewpoints on a discussion, even when they are unnecessary. Overly political threads tends to get locked.The OP has a background of contentious threads, as alluded to by the first sentence of Towger's reply. The OP might not want the thread to become overly political.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 10:59:52 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on December 22, 2018, 10:47:43 pmYou can't really separate the politics from the standards of engineering and management competence in these things. There is too much interplay.I find the OP tends to have a history of threads about engineering, when the scenario he is writing about it far more determined by politics.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 12:03:22 am
content: Quote from: treez on December 22, 2018, 06:46:59 pmJust be happy there is one less competitor for your employer. It also goes to show that doing proper testing of a product before release is very important.And given the fact that this one appearantly was sponsored this likely allows your employer to charge more for their products. Less competition and the customers have learned that choosing the cheapest isn't always a good idea. It's Christmas!

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 05:02:19 am
content: I guess we'll keep seeing ranty threads about the UK lighting sector until people start getting banned.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 08:35:29 am
content: Germany's exports are so strong because the Greeks et al keep the value of the Euro low, making exports cheaper.

author: mrpackethead
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 10:11:08 am
content: I was in Bristol last week and the general consesus, was hurry up with brexit and just get over it. Its not going to change much at all.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 10:36:29 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on December 23, 2018, 05:02:19 amHe has previously been banned temporarily for starting a politically motivated thread, but in this case he wasn't the one to turn it political.Quote from: tggzzz on December 22, 2018, 10:47:43 pmI agree and it's quite likely he doesn't want this thread to become political.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 11:42:38 am
content: QuoteNo, why would they ? It's not the governments job to do a technical audit, they judge the company on a business plan, how big is the order book, past performance, projected sales figures etc Any other investor like a bank or another company would do the same. I think Coppice summed the situation up quite succinctly,QuotePoor product reliability leading to "warranty and rectiﬁcation claims" and quite likely cancellation of future orders from some local authorities plus the collapse of Dell Bidco and the writing is on the wall.It's a shame we can't get hold of one of the power supplies to do a teardown at least that might be instructive. It's got nothing to do with politics it's just poor design simple as that.

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 11:51:16 am
content: 80% of start ups go bust within 10 years, so never read too much into a single failure. Frequent causes of failure are trying to expand too fast, and poor business management.In this case, poor design seems to be the problem. There is a tendency to cut costs to "compete with China", but that only works for China because there is effectively no warranty. If it fails, you scrap it and buy another. If customers expect a genuine 20 year lifetime, you either have to design very carefully and/or build in a high margin so you can afford warranty returns.

author: Nauris
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 02:27:27 pm
content: Quote from: chris_leyson on December 23, 2018, 11:42:38 amLast year I got one lamp in my hands that was just flickkering most of the time. I tried to do a teardown but the driver was fully potted with something black and hard, so not much to see there. Only thing I saved was two Harvard aluminium led strips.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 02:51:00 pm
content: @Nauris, thanks. It didn't occur to me that it might be potted. Harvard Technology might have had some difficulty doing a postmortem on returned supplies in that case. Potting just adds lots of mechanical stress issues if not done properly.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 03:41:46 pm
content: Quote from: treez on December 22, 2018, 04:40:15 pmWhy are you so against electrolytic capacitors? It's true they can go bad, but so can other capacitor types. They could be small because they use active power factor correction, which means only tiny filter capacitors are required.A plastic case may make thermal design more challenging, but it has advantages over a metal enclosure, such as being cheaper and not requiring an earth connection.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 03:52:15 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on December 23, 2018, 10:36:29 amIt's not just because they're political. It's always in the same vein, with some conjecture about something which makes business hard and subsequent venting how that's unfair.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 09:53:12 pm
content: Thanks, i must admit, i genuinely started this thread to find out about the tech side of their led drivers and why they failed...but Coppice's article (3rd post), blew me away because it told of a 2.3 million pound government grant that this company was given in 2013.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 01:27:22 pm
content: Quote from: treez on December 23, 2018, 09:53:12 pmThere is a political slant in those presumptions/questions, so any subsequent comments will inevitably degenerate into politics.If, OTOH, it was about, for X={public,private}, how much money is squandered by X and how X ensures it is not squandered, then it would not be political.For the avoidance of doubt, let me assure you that a lot of private money is squandered. This is unsurprising since people are people whatever the origin of their paycheck - and are often thesamepeople.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2019, 01:49:57 pm
content: I must admit many would like to know what went wrong at Harvard Technology.....In one report , poor third party componetns were blamed (LuxReview)http://luxreview.com/article/2018/12/concern-mounts-for-customers-as-harvard-enters-administration"The company blamed a batch of faulty third party components for the quality issues."..but the above report also suggests that the faults were rooted out and they got down to a 0.05% failure rate, so why did they still go under?Where is “Big Clive”…the guy on Youtube who does all the product teardowns……Clive has done streetlight teardowns before……does anyone know how we can contact him and get him in on this?It appears that a company called ECI Partners got the "hospital pass"......they bought the company in 2013, just before the severe bad news came through...they must be well annoyed.

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2019, 06:02:35 pm
content: Quote from: treez on January 02, 2019, 01:49:57 pmNo they can't. How would an investigation recoup any money anyway, it would just waste more. Investigating failures was the job of Harvard, and they failed.You seem to be trying to engineer the economy, like an engineer fixes a machine - the government/engineer steps in and "puts things right". The reality is that the economy is more like a wildlife park, where the animals eat each other. Strong fitter animals will succeed, the weak ones get eaten. The government is like the park warden, he tries to stop the animals getting too out of control, but otherwise they are left to their own devices.The Soviets tried managing their economy in fine detail, it just doesn't work.Harvard is a dead horse, no need to flog it anymore.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2019, 06:17:36 pm
content: Not much point in contacting bigclive unless you have a relevant unit you're willing to send him for teardown.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2019, 06:52:25 pm
content: QuoteThanks i am trying to get hold of some. One Dutch poster on here i think has some? Would they be willing to sell?QuoteHarvard Technology was the only general lighting company in UK that designed its own switch mode LED drivers......it had no competition in UK for the UK government to control.(there are other UK lighting co's, but they are either owned by their customers, or they are more concerned with lighting controls)As we know, the competition was coming from China...our Government could have banned Chinese imports, or heavily tariffed them, but chose not to.Indeed, the UK government could have arranged to import Chinese lights itself, so that any profit from such activity could go towards paying off the UK national debt...with the profits from such activity, the government could have even bank-rolled Harvard technology, to get it through the hard times, and keep it going.