October 2, 2023
To the valued customers of Emergency Lighting & Electronics,
Due to the shortage of vehicles and emergency vehicles during and resulting from the microchip shortage and COVID pandemic, vehicles that Departments have been waiting for, for several years; have been delivered at a rapidly increasing pace throughout this year. Because we continue to be understaffed, and deal with equipment delays, as well as being hit with all these vehicles in a very short time frame, we are experiencing our first ever backlog dilemma since we opened the doors in January of 2006. We, along with the other upfitters throughout the United States have never previously faced demands to this degree. Now, with the UAW strike, we will see additional delays in vehicle deliveries starting again in the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2024; possibly even longer.
We understand Departments have been waiting up to several years for their vehicles, thus aging their current vehicles with too many miles, leaving them with service and maintenance needs that may prevent some of them from even being used, or altogether making them unusable due to safety concerns. We sincerely sympathize with the stresses your Departments are under to upgrade your fleet and get the vehicles with safety issues out of rotation. Please understand that we are doing our very best to maintain a schedule and keep everyone relatively content with the wait.
Earlier this year, as well as last, as equipment started trickling in, we were starting as many builds as space permitted. However, with the increasing lead times on equipment, (yes, unfortunately lead times have again been increasing), we found that vehicles were sitting for additional weeks waiting on the remainder of their equipment. And as we learned the hard way, we can’t bill for a vehicle that is not complete. But we would still need to pay for equipment as it comes in and maintain the salaries of our employees, the cash flow wasn’t working out in our favor. Thus, we started adding vehicles to our que (upfitting schedule) once we received both the vehicle AND every piece of equipment for the build.
The combination of the backlog of vehicle requests, equipment lead times, and the need for additional employees, has all made it beyond difficult to communicate with our customers on the lead time of their builds. Additionally, when equipment takes longer than initially informed upon order by the vendors, this further complicates the lead times we give to our customers.
Our Git Lit Team has been working long hours to try and meet department deadlines. And with the small crew that we currently have, we can not risk burning them out and lessening our team.
This notice is to inform you of our current situation, which has become the norm with upfitters throughout the United States. As much as we try, we can no longer commit to lead times on the start of a build. We reluctantly will only be able to give you a very vague idea of when we hope to start your vehicle build. And will not be able to give you a better idea until your vehicle makes the que list.
We will do everything possible to give you an as accurate of a timeline as possible. However, please keep in consideration that we can not assure the vendor's timeliness of shipping out product, what or how many employees we will have at any given time, or other circumstances that are out of our control. We take the need to maintain our standards of service very seriously, and in order to maintain our standards, we will not rush jobs just to get to the next one. We simply do not believe in jeopardizing our standards or rushing work, to provide a sub standard upfit and jeopardizing the safety of law enforcement.
We truly value all of our customers and hope to continue our relationships with all of you throughout these challenging and stressful times. Again, we very much sympathize with the desperate need for vehicles and further understand these are very frustrating circumstances. As much as we are trying to complete builds as efficiently as possible, we realize you may choose to seek out another upfitter, and kindly ask that you let us know if this is the case, so that we can adjust our scheduling and equipment needs.
We sincerely hope you can understand our situation and welcome you to contact us with any questions or concerns.
Thank you for your time and continued patience.
Sincerely,
Rob and Nicole Sprader
Emergency Lighting & Electronics, LLC.
Emergency Lighting & Electronics, LLC is a well established, family owned and operated Company that specializes in the professional vehicle equipment installations for emergency fire and police apparatus, construction and fleet vehicles, as well as sales of vehicle equipment.
We realize that municipalities have equipment other than just
Emergency Lighting & Electronics, LLC is a well established, family owned and operated Company that specializes in the professional vehicle equipment installations for emergency fire and police apparatus, construction and fleet vehicles, as well as sales of vehicle equipment.
We realize that municipalities have equipment other than just squads, ambulances, ladder trucks, engines, pumpers and command vehicles. And our vast experience extends also to trailers, motorcycles, bicycles, boats, and ATV's. We have the flexibility of coming right on-site to Departments, so your rig is out of service for the shortest amount of time possible. We can also make one-of-a-kind brackets and logos in powder coated steel or stainless, all at our convenient location in Waukesha.
And don't forget about our Station Alerting systems. Specifically customized to your Station's Department, living quarters, apparatus bay, etc...
Established January 2006.
We honor all of our products warranties, and provide you with a warranty on all of our installations. We want to make sure you are safe and satisfied whenever we touch any of your apparatus.
We strive for cleanliness and thoroughness, of which we transfer to the job site. Our end results are OEM quality. We label all of our wiring, ens
We honor all of our products warranties, and provide you with a warranty on all of our installations. We want to make sure you are safe and satisfied whenever we touch any of your apparatus.
We strive for cleanliness and thoroughness, of which we transfer to the job site. Our end results are OEM quality. We label all of our wiring, ensure that all wires are 125% of the amp load, split loom all wire harnesses, use stainless steel hardware for all mounting applications and water proof or deutsch connect all exterior connections.
We know that you are serving and protecting our communities on a daily basis. We appreciate your dedication to the communities safety and we truly care about your safety as well. We understand that getting your rig back into services as quickly and efficiently as possible is your priority. We take great pride in our custom installation
We know that you are serving and protecting our communities on a daily basis. We appreciate your dedication to the communities safety and we truly care about your safety as well. We understand that getting your rig back into services as quickly and efficiently as possible is your priority. We take great pride in our custom installations and sales of lights and equipment. Leaving a vehicle with it's original OEM look and feel.