BACKGROUND
United Solutions was founded in 1919 by Eugune L. Tourigny as United Comb & Novelty Company in Leominster, MA. In 1977, Edward W. Zephir Jr. acquired the business from the Tourigny family. The company rebranded itself in 1986 as United Plastics. Twenty years later, in an effort to provide customer solutions, not simply products, the company aptly rebranded itself again as United Solutions. Today, United Solutions endeavors to manufacture high-quality products at the best value to its customers. United Solutions is able to achieve its success through the hard work and dedication of its employees and longstanding relationships with its valued customers. United Solutions has three state-of-the-art facilities, strategically located in Leominster, MA, Sardis, MS, and Gilbert, AZ. The company specializes in the manufacture and supply of plastic housewares, paint, office, and hardware products. United’s products can be found in most leading retail stores across the United States.
THE CHALLENGE
The United Solutions HQ in Leominster, MA is a 170,000 facility of mostly manufacturing space. Dave Zephir, Engineering Manager, had noticed the pre-existing T8 highbay lighting fixtures needed repair, and some had failed. Highbay lighting can be costly to replace or repair, especially in 30 foot ceilings. The challenge was to retrofit the existing fixtures with more energy efficient and longer lasting LED lighting with motion sensors in key areas, to avoid continuous 2-3 year maintenance cycles, reduce energy consumption, and improve the light levels of the facility. This all needed to be completed with a payback of less than two years.
THE PRISM SOLUTION
Prism conducted a comprehensive site evaluation and identified cost-effective lighting solutions. In the manufacturing area, 234W T5 highbay lighting were replaced with 86W LEDs. LED highbay lighting have, on average, 75,000 hour longer lifespans than T5 highbays. Prism also installed motion sensors in select areas of the facility that are occupied intermittently. In the offices, 88W and 60W T8 lighting fixtures were replaced with long-lasting LEDs.
In total, 512 T5/T8s were retrofitted to LED lighting, lowering United Solution’s energy consumption from 704,700 to 170,400 kWh, an energy reduction of 76%.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Prism helped United Solutions receive over $133,000 in utility incentives from National Grid. United Solutions is estimated to reduce its energy consumption by over 534,000 kWh and save over $60,600 on its energy bills annually. The company is expected to become cash flow positive in under 16 months.
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