Sheet Delivery of LED Backlight Panels for User Interfaces from Lumvatech. Multiple uncut light panels delivered in sheet form shift to accommodate high volume customer projects. Customer acceptance of sheet delivery has been overwhelmingly positive.

1. Lumvatech Executes on Sheet Delivery of LED Backlight Panels for User Interfaces
Multiple uncut light panels delivered in sheet form shift to accommodate high volume customer
projects. Customer acceptance of sheet delivery has been overwhelmingly positive.
Summary/Review: ​ Project development has shifted to sheet level design and implementation
of alternate cutting processes. Panel singulation moves to customer control.
Rapid prototyping continues. Provides rapid assessment and demonstration of their LED backlit
user interface designs by customers.
Cutting is still available from Lumvatech. It is limited to product development, prototyping, and
low volume/high value programs.
Acceptance: ​ Customer engagement over the last 2 to 26 weeks validates that there is MORE
WORK FOR OUR CUSTOMERS in this transition. The opportunity to gain project, timeline, and
resource control throughout the project life outweighs the requirement for added up front work.
Lumvatech moves down the supply chain to become a component supplier providing mostly
uncut sheets of thin light panels. The next steps of value added cutting, assembly, lamination,
and integration can now move. This creates the opportunity for our customer to become the
prime contractor in many cases.
Technical Requirements (TR):
There are now two stages to the TR process.
The first stage being prototype and development deliverables.
The second stage defines how the final production sheets will be delivered.
Stage one remains unchanged from our current business model and process. Lumvatech
continues to design and deliver custom prototypes in two weeks. This enables the rapid
development of their custom HMI/UI system designs by our customers. This also allows
Lumvatech to continue to make rapid, low cost changes in the lighting system. Allowing other
slower and more costly elements remain fixed.
Stage two defines a sheet size that is optimized for the customers’ cutting processes. These
sheets are provided by Lumvatech through our established supply channel. Customers and
projects can take advantage of our volume. We can also leverage our suppliers to provide the
optimum custom sized and edge referenced sheets.
The panel definition stage also provides an entry point for the customer/partner to exercise their
supply chain and in house preparation processes. Many sophisticated or capable customers
are now transitioning to providing us with precut, custom registered, and orientation marked raw
sheets. Lumvatech takes these customer defined and pre­cut sheets and produces a custom
image specific to the user interface on the sheet. This can be as few as 3 or as many as 200
panels and literally thousands of images per sheet. The sheets are then rapidly returned to the
customer for the next steps such as final cutting, gasketing, lamination, and assembly.

2. Materials: ​ Our IP based imaging process is applicable to many different plastic materials. To
date we have worked predominantly in polycarbonate (PC). There are cost, durability and
inertness benefits to this material. A secondary material we are shifting to is acrylic. Thickness
will drive much of the material selection which in reality is driven by cutting and secondary
processing requirements. It is our understanding that PC should not be considered for die
cutting above 20 mil thickness. Further PC is not suitable for some laser based cutting
processes (out gas, burning, discoloration) though modern CO2 lasers mitigate this challenge.
Thicker than 20 mil (30 mil up to 3 mm) the minor cost penalty for acrylic raw material may be
offset by the speed, accuracy, and availability of alternate cutting technology.
We did not anticipate the high value that our partners can provide in this equation.
The availability of cutting technology and capability at the customer site can drive a shift to
either material and also impact the material thickness.
The final stack up, switch technology, and added processing like thermoforming, heat bending,
or in mold decoration may have a larger say than cutting into the thickness decision.
Yes there is more work for you (our customer) but you gain control, increase your revenue, and
profit potential. The change from single panel to uncut multi­up sheet delivery does add another
piece to the supply chain but most agree that if your company is the added layer it is a good
thing.
(Following is the text made available May 10 explaining phase one.)
Lumvatech has been actively transitioning new projects from individual panel to sheet form
delivery for the last six months. We are also converting current projects when possible. This
shift in how product is delivered is a result of the continual growth and maturation of our
business. The model of production of individual light panels will continue in some
circumstances while this transition to outsourcing non­IP based activities is completed.
The shift to sheet based multi­up delivery is a direct response to market demand. We are
seeing an escalation of higher volume projects. These projects have delivery timing
requirements that prevent a single path of post image light panel processing. Our response has
been to create multiple levels of post imaging processing with multiple paths to outsourcing.
This includes various combinations of light block assembly, lamination, cutting, thermoforming,
and final assembly by external suppliers.
Do we EVER cut?​ We do not plan to get away from cutting entirely. Small production runs, low
volume programs, high complexity/high value programs will often demand a simpler supply
chain. Even in these cases, we will work to move non­imaging processes to you. Perhaps you
have new equipment, new partners, new customers? We will never understand your business
as well as you do. You may have new equipment, new partners, new projects or customers that
are driving automation, innovation, or capital investment. Moving processes to your control and
facilities will allow you to make better decisions for your business.

3.
What about prototypes?​ We can still provide one­up prototype light panels as part of your
development process.
Our IP based process for making “multi­up” image tools requires the creation of the “one up”
tools first. There are generally more than one revision of the tool required to optimize the image
to the application (LED locations, size, shading, etc.). Working in the one­up mode through this
part of the process allows the fastest and lowest cost path to multi­up. When the one­up is
stabilized, the multi­up becomes largely a cut­n­paste operation. There is often one final, fine
tuning needed at the multi­up stage. This shortens our pre­production lead time and volume
production lead times.
Project development.​ This change is best handled from the inception of the project. The
material selection, thickness, LED selection, light panel, blocker, LED location, and other
elements can be considered from the start to ensure a successful final design and produce­able
user interface.