The benefits of industrial LED lighting: savings, safety and productivity

Inadequate lighting can have a negative effect on an industrial facility: slower picking times in a warehouse, or missed quality checks in a production unit. Insufficient lighting also makes it impossible to work safely on site.

Your lighting system should never be the cause of a workplace injury.

Good lighting, on the other hand, brings immediate benefits.

The atmosphere becomes more pleasant, people feel safer, and productivity rises. As efficiency improves, long-term operating and maintenance costs fall.
Although many facility managers know that the lighting should be improved or modernised, it is hard to decide where to start. Below we discuss the benefits of switching to industrial LED lighting, to help you make that decision.

Energy savings

Given the energy savings available from switching to industrial LED lighting, a retrofit should be a high priority. The most common power ratings for industrial LED luminaires range from 95 W to 495 W (the typical range in an industrial or factory setting). Compare this with a conventional HID (high intensity discharge) high-bay luminaire and the equivalent range is 175 W to 1000 W.
Switching to LED luminaires cuts energy consumption immediately by 40–60%. In monetary terms this means savings of up to around HUF 90,000 per luminaire per year on electricity. Depending on the size of the facility, this can have an enormous effect on the operating balance.

If you would like to calculate the payback on an investment in industrial LED lighting, you can do so free of charge with our online calculator.

FREE ONLINE PAYBACK CALCULATOR

Lower maintenance costs and less downtime

Many facility managers prefer to wait until a few conventional high-bay luminaires fail in order to save on maintenance costs — but in the meantime the lighting over the production line may be getting dimmer. Rather than risking the safety of your employees and the efficiency of production in order to save on maintenance, it is worth switching to modern industrial LED lighting: this allows maintenance costs to be cut drastically while still meeting the requirements for safe working. Replacing conventional 400 W HID (high intensity discharge) luminaires with LEDs in an average industrial facility, for example, can pay for itself within three years.

Improving productivity

Industrial LED lighting can improve assembly accuracy and potentially speed up assembly operations. One reason for this is that industrial LED lighting uses an advanced lens system, which means the light is directed exactly where it is needed and is not wasted on the ceiling or scattered too thinly across surfaces. Switching to industrial LED lighting can improve general visual conditions and alertness, reduce shadowing and improve colour recognition during assembly, which in turn can mean greater efficiency and better production.

Safety first

Lighting modernisation also improves safety in industrial facilities. If an employee cannot see a hazard clearly, accidents can happen. Workplace accidents can be prevented by using appropriate industrial LED lighting to illuminate oncoming pedestrians or materials handling equipment.
Alongside general facility lighting, it is worth considering an upgrade of task lighting too, for reasons of both safety and productivity (for example by modernising the safety and emergency lighting). Lighting workstations properly can reduce machine- and worker-related accidents by making hazards more visible.
Industrial LED lighting casts very few shadows and retains its light output far longer than conventional HID (high intensity discharge) high-bay luminaires. Even where an older high-bay luminaire is still working, it is likely to be operating at a fraction of its original output, which can lead to more workplace accidents and safety complications.

Conclusion

Industrial LED lighting is demonstrably more energy-efficient and more durable than conventional fluorescent, high-pressure sodium or metal halide (HID — high intensity discharge) lighting. As a result, most manufacturing plants are planning an LED lighting upgrade in order to reduce energy and maintenance costs. These savings alone can justify the need for a lighting modernisation project.
The more abstract savings, which are harder to quantify, are often overlooked — yet they are exceptionally important. Consider the gain that could be realised from a 1% increase in productivity thanks to better lighting of the facility and the workstations. What about a 5% reduction in safety incidents? What would that mean for insurance costs and workplace accident claims? If the overall quality of the products improved by 3%, what would that mean for the cost of defective goods and for customer quality complaints? Industrial LED lighting can improve quality both during the manufacturing process and at quality control and inspection stations.
When you are considering an industrial LED lighting upgrade, take the less obvious benefits into account as well, and a project that seemed hard to justify suddenly becomes an easy one. A further argument for taking an industrial LED lighting upgrade seriously is that the better-known manufacturers offer warranties of five to ten years on their LED high-bay luminaires.

That is (almost always) longer than the payback period.
And that is before mentioning that state (corporate tax) support is currently available in Hungary for energy efficiency investments of this kind, and it can amount to as much as 65%.

Click here to read more about this in our article.

If you too are considering an industrial LED lighting upgrade at your facility, we would be glad to hear more about your project.

Let us be your partner in lighting modernisation, from design to installation.

You can watch our reference video on industrial LED lighting at the link below:

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