LED and Controls for Manufacturing

In today’s competitive manufacturing world reducing costs can be the difference between profit and loss. Lighting is one of the least expensive ways to trim costs. As well as trimming costs lighting has been proven to boost worker morale and bring a positive mood into your space. Relumination is committed to helping commercial and industrial businesses reduce overhead costs, save electricity, minimize facilities management expenses, and decreasing our environmental footprint. Here is how we can help with LED and controls for manufacturing.

Benefits Of Manufacturing Lighting Solutions

– Reduced lighting  electricity and maintenance costs

– Improved lighting colors, levels, consistency and layout leading to increased productivity

– Longer fixture/lamp life span resulting in no production shut down

– Zero lost workdays to due to improved safety

– Reduces production turn-backs/mistakes

Why Led Is Better For Manufacturing Facilities

– Outdated incandescent or fluorescent fixtures won’t provide proper lighting

– LED uses a fraction of the power when compared to traditional bulbs making them energy efficient

– The lifespan of a LED bulb is up to 10,000 hours

– LED generates less heat, making it easier to keep a large facility cooler

– LED is durable and can hold up in a most workplace environments

Why Controls Help Manufacturing Facilities

– Dimming controls

– Programmable control zoning

– Sequence of operations

– Motion sensing

– Humidity/Temperature monitoring

– Data collection

Using LED paired with controls in your manufacturing building will benefit your budget, productivity, and employees.  LED will help take your lighting to the next level and reduce overall maintenance and operating costs. You have control over the rest of your manufacturing building and having control over your lights is important too.

Don’t just take our word for it. Check out some of our previous manufacturing projects to see for yourself how we can take your building to the next level. Contact us today to learn more about LED and lighting controls in your manufacturing building.

 

 

Choosing Quality LED Fixtures for Your Business

As with many business decisions, selecting the best LED fixtures for your business requires a careful weighing of cost against quality, value, and functionality. The wealth of choices and options available can seem overwhelming, and the decision hard to make without expertise in lighting. Here are some suggestions for examining your options.

How to Evaluate LED Fixtures

What should you look for when selecting LED fixtures? Keeping the lights on is, of course, essential, and is a significant cost of running your business, so you’ll want to know how to evaluate available options. Some aspects of LED fixtures to consider include:

  • Maintenance – LED fixtures have a dramatically longer lifespan than traditional incandescent or fluorescent lighting, at up to 250,000 hours. They also do not require ballasts, so you will see savings in the frequency of replacing bulbs as well as in not having to replace worn out ballasts. In addition, because LED lighting doesn’t “burn out” in the traditional sense, you won’t see sudden outages, but can schedule bulb replacement more flexibly.
  • Energy Consumption & Efficiency – It’s no secret that LED fixtures consume far less energy than traditional lighting. Understanding comparative energy consumption of traditional versus LED lighting can clarify potential savings.
  • Lighting Controls – Integrated lighting controls can be a key driver in lowering lighting expenses with features such as automated dimming and daylight and activity sensors. Lighting controls can provide substantial additional value in safety, ambience, and in employee and customer satisfaction.
  • Environmental Considerations – Do you have special environmental considerations for LED lighting? These could include high- or low-temperature spaces, indoor or outdoor settings, or moisture exposure. LED lighting, for example, is not cold-sensitive as fluorescent lighting can be.

What to Look for in Quality LED Fixtures

When you’re evaluating LED lighting solutions, here are some important specifications to note.

  • Lumens per Watt – Lumens measure how bright a bulb is, while watts show the power consumption of a bulb.  The measure of lumens per watt, indicates how efficient a bulb is.    Lumens per watt will vary depending on how a bulb makes light (incandescent, fluorescent, LED, etc.), the quality of materials used to make it, and how much energy is wasted as heat rather than light output. With traditional lighting, more watts = brighter light, so more electricity is needed to create brighter light. With LED lighting, the correlation is less direct. As an example, a 100w incandescent bulb has an efficiency of 16 lumens per watt, a 26w CFL bulb rates 61 lumens per watt, and a 22w LED bulb is most efficient at 73 lumens per watt.
  • Warranty – As with any smart business decision, be sure to consider warranties on parts and labor so you’re not left in the lurch if a problem arises.
  • L70 (LED Lifetime) Ratings – With traditional lighting, bulbs either emit light or don’t (they burn out). LED lighting will very slowly decrease in brightness over time. In general, it’s best to replace LED lighting when it has lost 30% of its brightness — that is, when it’s producing 70% of its original lumens. That 70% level is the L70 rating of an LED bulb.  For example, an LED bulb with an L70 or LED Lifetime rating of 50,000 hours means that it can be on for a minimum of 50,000 hours before it will have lost 30% of its brightness.
  • Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) – The visual temperature of lighting, measured in Kelvins,  indicates where the color of the light falls between cool, bluish-white and warm, golden light. Bright, cool light will generally be better suited to a warehouse or outdoor situation while warmer light will usually work best in a restaurant, hotel, or office.  Areas within a facility may also require different temperatures of light.
  • Motion Sensors – Motion sensors allow you to automate whether lights are on, and even how bright they are, depending on activity. You may want to have lighting that comes on automatically when someone enters a conference room or a particular warehouse area, for example. Because LED lighting doesn’t require warm-up time to come to full brightness, lights can come on quickly, as needed.
  • Dimming – Dimmable fixtures can be very useful in situations where constant light is needed but only active areas require the brightest light. Automatic and even manual dimming can dramatically reduce lighting costs by lowering usage in unneeded spaces.
  • Advanced Controls – various capabilities of a lighting control systems including, but not limited to, daylight harvesting, scheduling, task tuning, energy usage reporting, humidity/temperature monitoring. Advanced controls allow a broad or granular bird’s eye view allowing more specific controls for needs of the space.
  • Type of Fixture – The types of LED lighting fixtures available are nearly endless, and can be chosen and mounted to suit any need and environmental considerations. High bay lights can illuminate large warehouse areas, linear lighting can work well in aisles, troffer lights are common in offices and schools.

How to Compare Competitor Products

With so many options to consider when evaluating LED lighting choices, you will need to compare options carefully.

  • Credibility and Experience – Are the fixtures produced by a company with experience in the field and a solid reputation?
  • Value – The upfront cost should not be your only consideration. Cheaper LED lighting will often fail to achieve its stated L70 rating.
  • Up to Date – If you want to take advantage of the latest advances in integrated lighting control and automation, you’ll need to select compatible products.
  • Compliance – The Federal Energy Management Program has efficiency requirements for some commercial and industrial LED lighting. Other regulations may also be applicable. Ensure your lighting and contractor are knowledgeable and in compliance with such requirements.

The experienced team at Relumination is ready to help you choose the best LED lighting for your business, and apply our years of expertise and high standard of service from needs analysis through project completion, service, and support. Contact us today to see how we can work together for a brighter future for your business.

Reasons to Upgrade Facility Lighting

As a decision maker, you know that every decision you make for your business requires a thoughtful consideration of the costs and benefits involved. Here we will show that not only is a retrofit eco-friendly, safe, and cost effective in the long term, it is a great way to present a bright, clean, and contemporary look to everyone who enters your space.

Retrofitting will Save You Money

While the upfront cost of a retrofit may seem overwhelming, in the long term you will keep more of the profits you make because your overhead (lighting) will cost less. A cost benefit analysis of switching from fluorescent lighting to LED was done at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. They found that switching to LED would save them over $930,000 cumulatively over the course of 10 years.  The analysis shows that the savings in energy costs far outweighs the higher expense of the fixtures themselves. They also note that because LED generates far less heat, during warmer months and in warmer climates the cost of cooling is lowered.

Retrofitting Makes Your Space Safer

LED is solid state, which means there are no harmful gases to worry about. And because they are constructed from plastic, they won’t shatter into sharp shards of glass. And as previously stated they produce very little heat, so handling them after use will not burn bare skin. In addition, the light produced by LED is easier on the eyes and creates less lighting fatigue than fluorescent lights. As noted in the SWOSU analysis, this is due to their low emission of infrared light and zero emission of ultraviolet light.  All this adds up to a safer environment for your employees and customers.

Retrofitting is Better for the Environment

Less electricity used means less fossil fuels burned which means less carbon emissions. We all want to lower our carbon footprint and slow the rate of global climate change. While retrofitting your lighting may not be the most drastic green action you can make, it is among the lowest cost-of-entry steps you can take into a more carbon-neutral footprint.

Modern Fixtures for a Modern World

LEDs are bright, rich in color variety and send a message that your business is forward-thinking and environmentally conscious. When someone steps into your space, they should feel welcomed and safe. Bright, warm lighting is an excellent way to make your business more inviting. Cooler lights show a product’s true colors when on display. There are attractive solutions available for every need and purpose your business has.  And a well lit space makes people feel safer; they can see who they are with, what they are doing, and where they are more clearly.

In short, LED lighting technology is an easy win for everyone.

For more information on how to retrofit the lighting in your business contact us.