Most manufacturing environments are dangerous, and cause injuries and fatalities each year. Hard hats, eye protection, safety devices, guard rails, and numerous work procedures are used to combat the problem. At the very top of these safety measures is good lighting. Without good vision, work safety is impossible.

Providing your work force with safe lighting is best done with LEDs for the following reasons:

Provides Bright Unidirectional Light

With older technologies, providing a brightly lit work area conflicts with economics. The reason is their energy inefficiency. On the other hand, LEDs produce less waste heat, and therefore provide bright lighting without high energy bills. LED light is also unidirectional, which means most of it goes exactly where it’s needed: at the work area.

Provides True Color Rendition

Accurate color perception is important in manufacturing environments. The colors of warning signs are chosen for specific reasons. The colors red and yellow, for example, are commonly used for hazard signs. Lighting that distorts true colors diminishes the effectiveness of these signs. Instrumentation and control panels often rely on color. Emergency stop buttons are commonly colored red, and finding them in an emergency is difficult in the presence of color distortion. LEDs produce a white light that mimics natural sunlight and therefore provide true color rendition.

Provides Greater Reliability

Solid state LEDs are tougher, last longer, and resist vibration better than lighting made with glass bulbs and tubes. They won’t suddenly burn out. This means you can count on them to always illuminate your work areas. When they reach the end of their life, they dim gradually. This gives you plenty of time to replace them.

LEDs Don’t Flicker

Fluorescent lighting flickers near the end of its useful life. This is dangerous because the flickering may cause a strobe effect, which makes some types of moving machinery appear stationary. This is extremely dangerous, especially in noisy environments where you can’t rely on sound to tell you when the machine is running. When used with the right high quality power supply, LEDs don’t flicker.