Lean & Green – From the Archives
Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970. In that inaugural year Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin inspired an estimated 20 million Americans to join together and combine their pet causes on a single day, April 22, to rally and protest against the destruction of a sustainable and healthy environment. An official Earth Day team emerged and paved the way for the Environmental Protection Agency and cleared the path for the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. It was 1990 when Earth Day went global and participation really spiked. This year, its 42nd, over 1 billion people in at least 192 countries actively celebrated Earth Day.
Harbinger has used an outside consultant for years to help us analyze and adjust our own methods of manufacture, making sure that we keep our own waste to a minimum while educating us on ways in which we can recycle, repurpose, reduce and rethink how we do things in our own backyard. You know, if you wanna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk. As technology is ever-changing and consumer needs adapt, it is an evolving exercise that keeps our business environmentally fit. In the spirit of reusing materials, we tapped into our archives for this month’s news letter about LED lights and retrofitting existing signage to take advantage of this
cost-saving, energy-saving, space-saving technology.
LEDs
Our implementation of green materials started in 2000 when we began using LED products specifically designed for channel letters. At that time, the energy-saving benefits hadn’t reached today’s standards. The lights were only available in red, and the cost was high – nearly three times the cost of neon. Now, LED lighting costs less than neon, and the modules are available in various colors.
When we learned China, and many other countries, were migrating away from fluorescents toward greater use of LED technology, we knew it was the right choice for our clients. Members of our team traveled to China to learn more about “green” technologies.
When implemented in signage, LEDs represent significant energy cost savings for customers, particularly when used in large, single- and double-faced sign cabinets. Estimated energy savings can range between 60 and 80%. LEDs can be applied in various indoor and outdoor signage, including menuboards and channel letters, and the lights offer more design versatility because of their smaller size. Although initial upfront costs are incurred, the benefits related to operations and energy cost savings yield positive ROIs for most customers.
For our multi-location clients, Harbinger creates new LED-lit signage, and we also perform green, retrofitting services on existing signs. Currently, our team is fulfilling a contract with one of our largest clients to replace fluorescent lights with LEDs in pylon-sign cabinets.
To show clients the benefit of retrofitting their signage with LEDs, our teams conduct energy audits to assess the energy used by existing signage. An onsite consultant examines the current lighting products in use and estimates the financial benefits that LEDs could provide. Some clients can save as much as $7,000 per location per year, resulting in an 80% savings on the electric bill and an ROI of 2½ to three years.
Retrofitting signage with LEDs has represented a major portion of Harbinger’s sales in the past couple of years. As a result of this success, our company increasingly emphasizes our green program and products, and Harbinger’s long-term goals greatly revolve around green technology.
Learning about LEDs’ many benefits jumpstarted our research into other green products that could benefit our customers and our company. Harbinger has adopted additional green materials and processes, such as using low-VOC paints and practicing responsible disposal techniques. We started using low-VOC paints in 2005 to continue our efforts to produce a green, cutting-edge product. At the time, it increased our costs by 10% and required our team to learn a new application process because of the paint’s thinner consistency.
Manufacturing
Harbinger also practices green initiatives through lean manufacturing. More efficient and organized lean practices reduce waste, increase output (helping us to be more profitable) and elevate product quality.
Harbinger first adopted lean manufacturing 2½ years ago. Because lean requires an intense, academic journey and a full commitment from your team, the initial conversion posed challenges. To help make the transition, we hired a consultant. The first day, our consultant measured how many footsteps our team members were taking to walk work orders to our foreman’s office in a two-story building in the middle of our work area.
The consultant determined we spent an extra $30,000 each year marching work orders up the stairs to that office. The next morning, a wrecking crew tore down the foreman’s building.
Today, Harbinger has been recognized as a fast-moving, top-performing lean organization. Members of our leadership have been quoted as experts in lean by top publications, and the company has been recognized by the Jacksonville Lean Consortium for its hard work.
A key lean principle that has benefited Harbinger significantly is one-piece flow. One-piece flow is a first-in, first-out philosophy in which one workpiece at a time moves between operations within a workcell. This method has helped us cut the turnaround time for standard products from 30 days to nine. Benefits include a higher quality product, because we can easily monitor each
process and each piece that goes through the cells.
Our manufacturing space is divided into several, independently operating cells, each of which produces a specific sign component, before the product moves on to the next cell.
Each cell is set up with the concept of “everything has a place, so everything is in its place.” Each tool board has a photo that shows where and how the tools should be placed. If something is missing or out of place, our manufacturing team
notices immediately. For example, we’ve even outlined, on the floor, where the trashcan goes. This has made our team more efficient because they can quickly and easily find the tools that they need.
Future plans
We continue to invest in research and development of green techniques and technologies. Harbinger’s team members travel to China often to research the latest in advanced lighting technologies. They bring back and test anything that could be a fit for our business. We’re testing many new products now and look forward to releasing more information on this in the near future.
Harbinger anticipates that, like the other green solutions we’ve implemented, an increase in green offerings will lead to continued growth and success. In the past year, Harbinger’s sales have increased threefold, largely due to our use of green products and services.
In addition to increasing our green-product offerings, we also hope to expand our internal green practices, including recycling a greater percentage of our waste and having team members go through the LEED-certification process.
read the whole article at www.signweb.com
A Word on Our Gallery
Named after the quarry that once sustained our area and the street on which we are now located, Harbinger opened Florida Mining, our gallery space, last year.
When Harbinger changed location, a driving force behind the master-planning vision was to include space that would be a vehicle for emerging artists, and a way to support the arts in our community. In return, incorporating art into our business has served to enhance our lives here at Harbinger and those of our visitors. It also serves to inspire innovation, promote creativity and foster collaboration – all qualities that are important in our business.
Florida Mining has become a home where emerging to mid-level artists are able to showcase their work, where novice curators are able to hone their skill and where we have an ever changing, always interesting environment to work in. Beyond what we can put on the walls, we’ve offered our community a space that could hold people within its walls, too. Florida Mining donates the gallery as an inspiring venue for non-profit groups to gather. With only the expectation of sharing our space, we have simply opened our doors and let art, in its many forms, happen. 
It’s taken root not only in the building, but has crept into our minds and into our soul.
If you haven’t had a chance to see the gallery, now is the time. Currently on display, Triple Threat: 3 Artists Redefining Savannah, will be open until April 24th. The show is an exhibition of new paintings by three of Savannah’s most notable emerging artists, Matt Hebermehl, Michael Porten, and Troy Wandzel. Be sure to come by before the 24th to see for yourself! In May we are excited to present another group show, Floridians, opening on May 4th and continuing through June 15th. Chromatically driven, this group of work will be a playful and exuberant look at innovative painting and installation art. And what’s next? You’ll just have to wait and see!
Visit www.floridamininggallery.com to learn about more about our current and upcoming shows and to be added to our guest list.
Extreme(ly Successful) Makeover
January saw the end to ABC's wildly popular show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Running for nine seasons, host Ty Pennington and a swarm of designers and laborers would transform a downtrodden house into a veritable palace for a family facing special needs or straining under stressful circumstances. Everything was dazzling, over-the-top and made us at home viewers feel warm and restored from the glow of deserving people getting help. So what happened? Well, once the team was gone and the cameras were shuttered, life rolled back in. That family still struggled with the very things that caught show producers' eyes, though now they had to figure out paying taxes on the upgraded property, how to maintain a tricked out, 5,000 sq. ft. structure while caring for four disabled children and just heating and cooling it. Too many of these homes later ended up for sale and even in foreclosure. Yikes. Good intentions simply aren't enough when a long-range plan isn't in place.
At Harbinger, clients such as Edwin Watts, Daily's and CoolSculpting Centers know that we have been doing our own extreme makeovers for a while too, but with far better results. Our clients are business owners who are focused on the bottom line, but with their eye looking to manageable growth and maximum profit. Their monthly business expenses, opportunity costs and maintenance must be in perfect balance with daily operations, lest they face a similar fate as ABC's hit show: cancelled.
Traveling coast to coast, Harbinger engages in a thorough consultation with clients to look at their current physical space and to discuss their concrete and abstract goals. Determining what works, must go or just needs tweaking is a necessary component to our process. We find out all the nuances of our clients, get educated about their existing customers and those they want to attract. Harbinger ferrets out the business's past and decodes the business's desired future achievement. Think of what we do as the ultimate in retail therapy.
By working with a design agency, graphic work is expedited. A team is assembled and a complete custom redesign and rebranding concept emerges. Harbinger then works and reworks the concept until it becomes a meticulous and viable branding strategy. Operating ninja-style, your Harbinger team will descend on your location during closed operating hours and in a time span of overnight to three days, your retail environment can be entirely revamped! Depending on the scope of your project, you will see your storefront's metamorphosis through repainting, installations of new furniture, new signage, new or retrofitted lighting fixtures, floor to ceiling wall graphics, window graphics, exterior signage and lighting, light boxes with interchangeable components, cut letters and new carpet. It's a lot, but we can do it.
Selling in today's environment is a lot more than just hanging a shingle and having a product. You may stock the most current trends, display the widest variety of spark plugs or offer the most luxurious linens, but if no one is coming through your door, your amazing inventory and attentive sales staff will remain your secret. Your brand is your business and it is worth your attention. With a Harbinger "Extremely Successful Makeover," you can expect a higher traffic volume, increased sales numbers and a lot of "ooh la-las."
Foretelling Four Signage Trends for 2012
New Year’s Predictions for Signage Trends
1. QR code integration
Quick Response (QR) codes have invaded our culture and are not a phase or a trend. QR codes provide an affordable way to maximize information while maintaining the visual integrity of promotional material. Harbinger believes that incorporating QR codes into signage is another way for our clients to link prospective customers to their brands. A customer merely captures a QR code with his or her smart phone and is immediately transported to the information the brand wants them to have. Customers are able to connect to something that catches their eye, without having to weed through a lot of excessive clutter. Your QR code can easily be incorporated into digitally printed signs, traditional signs, vehicle wraps and any other printed item.
2. In-store graphics
Interior and landscape architects are always trying to bring the outside in and the inside out. Why? Because it creates a seamless transition from one to the other. We are able to duplicate that same idea through the use of grand scale digital prints and graphics within a retail space. The storefront can be a teaser to the brand’s central nerve that is stretched throughout the interior space. The use of interior graphics provides a fluid and encompassing experience to customers. A company’s brand can be present at all angles or focused in determined areas.
3. Green … as in, environmentally friendly
Going green is all the rage, but what does it really mean? To customers, it means that you are being sensitive and aware of the waste that you create. Going green sends the message that your brand is responsible for what it does and is committed to more than the “cheap and easy.” But what does it mean to your bottom line? It can result in tax reductions and lower monthly overhead. Something as simple as using light-emitting diodes (LED) in your new signage provides a major reduction in carbon footprint because LEDs produce more light per watt than traditional fluorescent or incandescent lights. Not to mention that the expected life span of an LED light – 25,000 to 50,000 hours – greatly reduces the frequency of service and bulb replacement for lighted signage. Your monthly power bill will thank you, too. Another way to go green and get closer to that LEED certification is through the use of low-VOC paints, which contain far fewer harmful volatile organic compounds. What does this mean? Signs painted with low-VOC paints emit less carbon compounds into the atmosphere and, in turn, are more environmentally friendly while posing fewer health risks to those around the painted surface. The use of low-VOC paints is visually undetectable in the finished product.
4. Retrofitting existing signs
What could be more green than working with something that already exists? At a time when so many of our clients are looking to minimize expenditure, retrofitting a sign with LED bulbs can have a significant impact in reducing energy and ongoing maintenance. Powered by just 12 volts, LED lighting provides an estimated energy savings of up to 80 percent. Sure, to tweak existing signage isn’t free of cost, but the long-term benefit pays off big time. You avoid the cost of an entirely new sign, and can look forward to increased monthly energy savings in the years to come. For clients, such as for multi-location petroleum retailers and convenience outlets that run their bright signage from dusk to dawn, retrofitting is a no-brainer to boosting profit margin.
5 Ways Business is Better with Gas Price e-Signs
Remember when changing gasoline prices involved the "suction cup" method of using long extended poles or climbing up a ladder to slide numbers into a plastic slot on your sign? Or when it took employees nearly 30 minutes to make a price change while exposing themselves to physical dangers and inclement weather? How about when the prices weren’t changed fast enough to be competitive?
If those are today's realities instead of the "good old days," it's time to consider upgrading to digital gasoline price signage. New signage and existing sign retrofitting is available, making upgrades a fiscal reality for nearly any budget. Also, the business benefits are numerous.
Instant fuel price updates – Gasoline price changes can be done remotely in less than a minute and connect directly to the POS system. Stores can stay competitive, never having posted fuel prices 5 cents too high or too low for any amount of time.
Labor savings – Employees can concentrate on customer service and other essential duties because they no longer have to go outside to change fuel price signs. The store is never left unattended.
Reduced liability – Without the physical aspect of changing signs, workers’ compensation claims and other liabilities related to the dangers of working at heights and around heavy automobile traffic areas can be minimized.
Attract customers – Digital signs have a wider viewing angle, which can be seen from more vantage points. Also, some consumers equate state-of-the-art signage to modern, cleaner stores.
Product promotion – Prices and promotions for in-store products, such as cigarettes, soda or milk can be displayed along with gasoline prices.
Harbinger has converted or installed more than 120 digital gasoline price signs for customers around the country since 2009. The company works with leading component suppliers, such as Daktronics, Future Media and Watchfire2 to ensure the latest LED technologies are used. New signs or retrofitting options are available.
Quality Control to Meet Brand Standards
No two signs are alike. But to keep with brand standards of national clients, the difference should be undetectable. When seeking a sign manufacturing company to create dozens or hundreds of brand signs, inquire about its processes that ensure signage consistency.
Mike Lev, operations manager, explains the quality control checkpoints Harbinger uses when building multiple signs for a national account.
"Sign consistency and quality control begins with standards for each customer's product lines," Lev said. "Shop drawings and CAD drawings are set for every department, enabling us to perform several different fabrication functions simultaneously. When it’s time for final assembly, all the pieces are ready."
Harbinger uses lean manufacturing processes, such as cells instead of "assembly lines." When a product is moved from cell to cell, it is inspected and the work order is reviewed. Quality control measures including visual controls, templates and guides are in place at various cells to help equipment operators avoid mistakes.
Upon completion, the sign is thoroughly inspected for workmanship, safety and whether it meets the customer"s brand standards. Lastly, the product is inspected for proper labeling and destination before being loaded onto the freight truck for delivery.
"Lean manufacturing enables us to closely inspect and QC every single sign we manufacture, not just every three or five signs. As well, we provide this individual attention while actually increasing efficiency and product flow," Lev stated.
What Our Move Means for You
Moving a headquarters and manufacturing facility is a daunting task for the company making the move. But, for customers and partners, it should be nearly undetectable. That is the goal of Harbinger, which will be moving a few miles from its current location to a much larger facility this summer. By operating both locations throughout the transition, Harbinger will ensure minimal disruption in its manufacturing and shipping.
What customers and partners will notice, however, is faster turnaround and expanded services following the move.
The 51,500-square-foot building features 35-foot high ceilings to accommodate larger signage and multiple loading docks for faster shipping. The production space is 2.3 times larger than the current facility, allowing for more streamlined operations and more equipment that can run simultaneously.
Harbinger’s new facility will be based on Lean manufacturing best practices to maximize efficiency and throughput.
- The paint booth is centrally located on the manufacturing floor; as painting is the last step of production it is important that all other production areas feed into it efficiently.
- The production area of the most highly demanded products is closest to the shipping and install lines.
- Overall equipment placement and layout of the production floor is designed with efficiency and increased workflow in mind.
The new location houses a larger graphics room to accommodate additional printing technology as Harbinger becomes more multifunctional. Previously only serving to print and cut vinyl for various signs being manufactured by Harbinger, the graphics department will have the capacity to print vinyl banners and site signs, and create custom fleet graphic wraps.
Offices within the building also are designed for improved communication flow and integration between departments. More conference rooms and internal meeting spaces, including conversation “bars,” facilitate collaboration.
The company will create its new workspace to ultimately benefit its current and future customers. Producing top-quality, consistent signage in an efficient and timely manner, and offering more product options to better serve as a one-stop signage resource are the effects of this move Harbinger hopes its customers notice.
Six Steps to Site Surveys
It’s not as simple as just “putting up a sign.” A successfully executed signage program is dependent on many critical factors, one of which is an analysis of the site. Following these six steps to site surveys is a good start to great signage.
- Check state, county, city and association codes and zoning laws to ensure sign compliance.
- Take photographs of the future location of the sign for onsite renderings and notations about any property issues that may affect the signs.
- Confirm property lines of the business for setbacks, easements, and sign location.
- Make sure the site plans match the actual site.
- Conduct an underground utilities location survey to identify hidden conduits, pipes, and power and communication lines that may affect sign foundation installation.
- Ensure the site conditions are appropriate and ready for sign installation.
The Lowdown on Low VOC
First introduced to the market in 1992, low-VOC paints are becoming more widely used on interiors and signage. They are sometimes required by legislation, depending on state and county codes, and for U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification eligibility.
Paint contains thousands of chemicals, with the most harmful being volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They are unstable, carbon-containing compounds that readily vaporize into the air, which can cause air pollution and numerous health issues. As paint dries VOCs are released into the air. Although VOC levels are highest during and immediately after painting, they continue to be released for several years.
Low-VOC paints contain reduced levels of these harmful chemicals, making them more environmentally friendly and posing fewer health risks to those around the painted surface. Low-VOC paints are just as durable as traditional paints. Also, they can be custom-mixed to match colors and applied in the same manner. Although low-VOC paint costs more than traditional paints, the price continues to decrease as advancements in development are made.
Harbinger offers low-VOC paint as an option for its signage and continually stays up-to-date on the latest products that offer advancements in drying time, quality and durability. The company highly recommends its use when signs are designed for interior spaces.
Eye Appeal (Chain Store Age)
Edwin Watts Golf Utilizes "One-Touch" Signage Program
Harbinger helps Edwin Watts Golf in times of crises, with an ongoing "one touch" program for exterior signage and by bringing ideas to the table. Below is an excerpt from the feature case study in Chain Store Age magazine's June 2011 issue:
“The prints — we call them window clings — were Harbinger’s idea,” [Therese] Grossman said. “They’re beautiful and very impactful for our customers.”
Grossman explained that Harbinger came up with the idea of the window prints.
“It proved an economical way for us to try something new while meeting budget,” she said. “One of the benefits for a very specialized retailer like us in working with Harbinger is that they have a very broad base of experience and of doing different things that they are able to share with us. They bring a lot of great ideas to the table.”