BRIGHT lights of success await a York company whose revolutionary switched-on device is about to go into production, generating at least 25 jobs and tens of millions of pounds in sales, it was disclosed today.

Qwality Monitoring Ltd, based in the Raylor Centre, in James Street, has perfected the prototype of an invention which allows engineers to monitor and control the on-off button of virtually any electrical device.

Using a PC, or even a mobile phone text messaging system, highways engineers will be able to learn at a glance exactly which street light among thousands has gone out; IT bosses at firms will be able to switch off computers accidentally left on overnight; health and safety officials can re-activate at a distance or send repair staff to any emergency lights which suddenly go on the blink.

Investors and a stream of potential buyers have been hugely impressed by the lifesaving, money-conserving Emergency Light Monitoring unit (ELM), triggering managing director Paul Harvey's aggressive estimate of £36 million turnover within two years.

Armed with a £60,000 loan from the Department of Trade and Industry, plus £30,000 capital investment by the HSBC bank in York, Mr Harvey began talks last week with two manufacturers pitching to design and develop the product, one of them from York.

Not counting manufacturing jobs, the project is likely to mean employing at least 16 people - many of them sales staff - over the next three or four months, bringing numbers on the payroll to 21. By the end of the year, at least 25 people could be working there.

Mr Harvey, 47, who was born in Yorkshire and grew up in Australia, said: "We hope to be in production in two weeks' time."

Already Blackpool Council is considering testing the product, fitting the two-by-one-inch ELM microboards into streetlights along the seafront which are pummelled and often made useless by the waves of the winter high tides. "If it works there, it will work anywhere," said Mr Harvey.

Closer to home, both Leeds and Bradford Councils are considering setting up test sites for what ultimately could save them time and money sending out crews to inspect streetlights; and the device has excited directors of the De Vere Hotel chain which has 21 hotels and 12 associate hotels throughout Britain.

The idea of a monitoring system occurred to Mr Harvey a couple of years ago when Qwality was servicing a contract to monitor lifts for Manchester City Council. He said: "I had already designed the software but wanted hardware that would help in a control management system.

"I actually made the hardware and it worked, but I did not consider that it was manufacturable so I shelved it. Then over lunch with Glyn Lynch, our sales and marketing man, we decided that it could be used for monitoring emergency lighting and even street lighting, and the bells started ringing from there."

HSBC bank put Mr Harvey and his team "through the hoops". Mark Vines, HSBC area manager at York, said: "The conclusion is that the product has a tremendously exciting future."

Updated: 12:01 Tuesday, January 21, 2003