Application Power Hire Ltd... What’s In A Name?

We get asked from time to time “what is a SMART home solution provider doing with such an ‘abrupt’ company name?”.

It is actually based on a few simple ideas, that later on became a bit too long-winded for the purposes of being a KNX Integrator so we shortened the name to just “APH”.

Want to know why? Please read on...

The initials APH belong to the director of the Company, so we thought a name using those letters would be a good idea. Ten years ago we were mainly employed within the power generation sector of industry with a lot of involvement in the oil & gas industry. We were working with a lot of diesel engine, steam and gas turbine power generation systems and also ship’s propulsion packages and, in those days, employed by some of the biggest players in the market. This role was known as an “Application Engineer”.

Simple enough... a company name using the initials APH... Working as an Applications engineer from within the Power industry and available for ‘Hire’.

We thought about calling the Company Application Power Hengineering Ltd. but then thought no–one would ever get the joke! (or the spelling).

Several years later we were drawn into the world of SMART Building Engineering as a direct result of engineering a solution for our own home West Side Cottage . From there more and more people asked us to ‘engineer’ (perhaps design is a better phrase), a home control solution for them and the Company slowly changed it’s focus away from power engineering and towards the KNX SMART Home world.

Going forward a few more years and having won awards and accolades for the work we have completed using the KNX platform, the Company’s name sat ‘awkward’ against what we now do.

Speak to any Accountant about the trials of changing a Company name and they will tell you it is not only expensive, but many who know you now will always call you by the original name they found you under! Couple that with an unblemished credit history with the banks and all the suppliers we deal with and you have yourself an administrative nightmare in trying to stop what you are doing and change every last detail of your identity... we decided it was just not worth the risk and the cost in doing so.

We are still Application Power Hire Ltd. (legally) but we ‘softened’ the image to just “APH” and now most of our Clients know us as ‘plain & simple’ APH. We get much correspondence as APH and we even receive cheques and payments with the same simple letters on them (something else we had to convince the bank about before they would accept such cheques).

So we would respectfully ask you not to worry that we are power engineers still (a skill set that often proves useful when designing some of our bigger projects) but that we are dedicated KNX Integrators focused on bringing the best of today’s technology inside your front door.

As the logo in our headed paper states... We are “The Ultimate State of Control”.