Canada Line was a project that was started when our founder joined Peerless, and he would finish it before he left the company. With a little over a year’s time, we were to take the designer’s rough sketches and turn them into a fully functional fixture that was outside of the normal design parameters of Peerless. We managed this product from conception to production. We worked with the designer in order to meet their design criteria, and the owners to ensure that the project would be completed on time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. In this process other divisions of Acuity were asked to assist in the project. We was successfully able to work with another facility and staff where they were unfamiliar with standard Peerless products.
This was a challenge since we needed to work with two separate design teams, and a manufacturing facility accustomed to producing commodity fixtures and not custom fixtures. The fixture was designed to be enclosed and able to withstand a hosedown from a high pressure hose that would be used for cleaning the transit stations. This fixture would be lensed and could be connected to other units in a linear run. There was a design element to maintain as well throughout the process that was challenging but not impossible. We assisted with the design concept which led to a patent for the fixture. In addition to the Canada Line, Peerless would offer it as a standard product after market research was performed to determine if the product would be accepted in the marketplace. Today it is offered in the Peerless catalog as the “Station” fixture.