Bandit Lites World Headquarters Revamped as Sales and Installation Facility

Due to enormous growth of Bandit Lites Sales and Installation projects, the lighting leader's world headquarters in Knoxville was recently revamped as a sales facility with a renovated conference room, updated warehouse, and dedicated testing and demo areas. Following a collaborative process of zeroing in how to make the intake, testing, and output most efficient, Bandit's team devised a system that streamlined the process with the entire front of the warehouse scoured, painted and sealed with painted lines to designate spaces for check in, prep and testing and ultimately shipping.

"These changes have allowed us to work more efficiently, keep track of project status, and streamline the whole process," says Knoxville facilities manager, Brad Hylton. "Every item that arrives is checked in and then sorted into an incoming area, all branded and labeled based on what site, venue, or job they're slated for," explains director of operations Roth Edwards. "Then everything is prepped, tested, and labeled to the Bandit Standard before they're moved to the outgoing area, shrink wrapped, and palletized."

"We run a test show through every fixture before it ever leaves the warehouse to make sure the end user has no issues," says Alex Becker, Bandit's sales and production assistant. "Once the fixtures have passed our testing phase it goes into the 'out' side of the warehouse in its respective bay. This is all done to make it more efficient as everything for a specific project is in one location, making it easier to track what we have received and what is needed for each project. This all saves time while the install technician is on site."

Additional updates to the world headquarters include placing the whole building on one control system with several different staging areas showcasing the different areas of architectural lighting the team offers. Bandit's conference room was also renovated offering a revamped meeting space for the sales team and visiting vendors.

"In addition to all this, we increased our local network internally to a 10GB backbone, giving us a more powerful infrastructure to support the sales team," Edwards adds. "We also hired David Sloan as our IT manager as part of the sales initiative to increase our ability to work remotely and offer greater internal support."

With the sales side of Bandit experiencing this incredible growth, a dedicated support team was assembled consisting of new hires Genny Wynn and Nick Brown as well as positioning Becker for gear testing and prep and Hylton for logistics.

"During this live show shut down the sales team has not missed a step," states Bandit chair Michael T. Strickland. "Goods have continued to flow in and out, as the large number of installations are still ongoing. VP of sales and integration Chris Barbee has guided the entire team during this timeframe to assure the valuable Bandit clients are supplied with the highest quality services, as always."