The lighting controls industry is undergoing a rapid transformation. To meet this opportunity, Legrand, North America is increasing its resources and presence in the residential and commercial lighting and shading business. To handle current and future growth, Legrand has made several investments within its Building Control Systems (BCS) division, comprised of brands and product lines Wattstopper, Vantage Controls, QMotion, and Solarfective, including building out new facilities in San Jose and Carlsbad, CA and Pleasant Grove and Orem, UT.
The strategy for the new facilities was to further improve integration of company functions and accelerate product and service innovation—all to better serve a growing customer base and help them make projects successful from start to finish within this new market. With lighting controls growing more complex with the advent of LEDs and wireless technologies, the human-centric lighting trend and the movement toward net-zero energy, high performance, and smart buildings and homes, the focus is on delivering solutions make that jobs easier, faster, and safer throughout the entire building design, installation, and maintenance phases.
The Pleasant Grove office serves as the center for software innovation for the BCS division. This facility houses residential sales, marketing, and service support, an area of expertise with Vantage Controls being founded in the area. Also, a new 17,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Orem, UT supports warehouse, manufacturing, and inventory operations all under one roof.
The new facility in Carlsbad, CA is the BCS product innovation center and focuses on engineering, product development, and marketing with an emphasis on supporting commercial lighting controls solutions. The new Silicon Valley office based San Jose, CA continues to be where strategic alliances and partnerships are managed to accelerate lighting innovation. This area is the birthplace of Wattstopper, a company founded in 1984 in Santa Clara, CA by brothers Jerry and Steve Mix, and acquired by Legrand in 1996.
The latest facilities feature modern open-office designs and are equipped with the latest Legrand solutions, including advanced lighting controls and integrated shading. Legrand is dedicated to transforming the use of energy in today’s workspaces—increasing building energy efficiency, functionality and comfort—starting with its own facilities.
The Pleasant Grove facility exceeds national and state energy codes—Utah adopted the 2015 IECC energy code, among the most stringent in the country. The lighting power density in the facility is 30 percent below 2015 IECC requirements and the current Utah code requirements. This was achieved by installing a combination of Legrand dimming controls, light and occupancy sensors, plug load control, energy-efficient LED lighting, and fine tuning lighting levels for each specific zone, room, and area of the building.
This investment program will continue in 2017 with the expansion of its Service and Operations Center in Plano, TX. This new facility will incorporate many of the concepts and design ideas used in other Legrand facilities.
“The series of moves allow us to not only support business growth and provide ideal work environments for our employees and guests, but also to build upon specific expertise in each of our locations,” said Tom Lowery, president, Building Controls Systems division at Legrand. “This highlights the company’s dedication to bringing in great people and ensuring that they have comfortable and efficient workspace to better service our customers.”
