Importance of Industrial Lighting Part One ― 5 Benefits of Proper Industrial Lighting

Industrial lighting has significant differences from home lighting. Fixtures for industrial lighting are of higher output, larger size, and more durable quality. Moreover, industrial lighting is applied to warehouses, garages, factories, and other places that have risks of injury and accidents.

Generally, there are a large number of workers working in these places. The safety and productivity of workers are highly related to industrial lighting. However, many people ignore the importance of proper industrial lighting. Poor lighting is negative to working performance, causing headaches, misjudgment, errors, or even injury.

To increase the awareness of the importance of proper industrial lighting, we would like to introduce 5 main benefits of it in this post. The benefits of proper industrial lighting include enhancing visual experience, reducing accidents, improving the working environment, decreasing health problems, and increasing productivity.

Enhance visual experience

There are various tasks and partitions in industrial sites. Heavy machines, precise inspection, shipping and receiving, packing, and other tasks are all included in the industrial site. Workers are working at different jobs even in the same industrial site. Thus, proper industrial lighting covers requirements of all tasks and partitions and then enhances the visual experience.

There is no doubt that visibility is the leading requirement for industrial lighting. Workers need adequate lighting to accomplish their tasks. Neither too bright nor poor lighting will decrease visibility. Of course better lighting quality also enhances visual experience.

CRI (Color Rendering Index) refers to the ability to reflect the true color of the item. The closer the color rendering index is to 100, the more natural the colors of items will appear. Industrial lighting with CRI above 70 is appropriate to show the true colors of the objects.

Uniform and even distributed industrial lighting balances the lighting throughout the task areas or the whole industrial site. Strong brightness contrast may result in sudden blindness. Another factor that is related to visual experience is glare. Glare will cause discomfort in visual experience and visual fatigue. Wrong lighting installation and excessive illuminance are the common reasons for glare.

Reduce accident

Loading, shipping, machine operating, and other heavy tasks included in industrial sites are possible to cause accidents. Accidents often occur because of misjudgment, which has a relationship with poor visibility or excessive lighting.

Proper industrial lighting is composed of sufficient lighting and good quality lighting. It plays an important role in reducing accidents. Proper industrial lighting contributes to clearer vision for workers and helps them recognize position, people, and the speed of moving objects, being able to avoid accidents or hurting people.

However, the degree of reduction of accidents achieved by proper industrial lighting depends on industrial environments and workers themselves. Harsh industrial environments are still of higher potential danger than other places even if they are equipped with proper lighting. Furthermore, if workers do not treat their tasks carefully and seriously, accidents may occur due to their negligence and carelessness. Proper industrial lighting allows a certain number of accident reductions, but not all.

Improve working environment

Proper industrial lighting adds value to the working environment. Lighting is able to light up the whole space, bringing a more positive feeling to workers. A working environment looks dull and tedious without proper lighting.

The working environment is supposed to be clean and comfortable. A dull working environment shifts workers’ focus to complaining about the environment instead of doing their work. Poor working environments also have detrimental effects on psychological.

CCT is a key factor that influences the psychological. CCT (Correlated Color Temperature), indicates the hue of a light source. What we usually explain as “cool white” or “warm white” refers to CCT. Warm white light makes workers feel more relaxed, but it also shows a dim working environment. It seems that workers are not welcoming in the dull and dark working environment, leading depressing atmosphere. In contrast, a clean and bright working environment with proper industrial lighting shows respect for workers and motivates workers to work hard. Therefore, improving the working environment is beneficial to increase productivity. Cool white light with CCT around 5000K is ideal for industrial working environments.

Decrease health problem

Both too low and excessive lighting will cause health problems. Workers are suffered from eye strain and fatigue in low-lighting conditions. Glare can cause visual fatigue and damage to one's eyesight. In addition, the glare is very annoying as it often causes people to feel anxiety, lack of concentration, and other psychological discomfort. It would cause serious insomnia and headaches even worse.

Improper lighting with flicker can result in stroboscopic effect. The stroboscopic effect is hazardous to workers who operate the machines in industrial environments. The motion of the machine will be slower or even stopped due to the stroboscopic effect. Workers can’t perceive the danger of operating machines and touch them, which may cause injury. Some workers are more sensitive to flicker in higher frequencies. Other defects include reduced visual performance, distraction, less motivation, headaches, dizziness, impaired intellectual, etc.

Comfortable and qualified industrial lighting can decrease health problems. Workers are capable of working more efficiently with healthier bodies.

Increase productivity

All efforts are aimed to increase productivity in industrial sites. The same as industrial lighting improvement. Workers are less likely to make mistakes in a proper lighting environment.

Research showed that proper industrial lighting could increase about 10 to 50 percent productivity. Workers are less likely to feel exhausted or asleep in a bright enough and comfortable lighting environment as well. Research showed that a 30% to 60% decrease in health problems, such as eye strain, nausea, and headaches could achieved by proper industrial lighting. Since workers concentrate on their work, accuracy and speed are promoted. In consequence, proper industrial lighting helps to increase productivity.

Industrial lighting is important for visual experience, worker health, safety, and productivity. Though initial cost of industrial lighting is expensive, more profits are reached by proper industrial lighting due to the increased productivity. AGC is a professional industrial lighting manufacturer. If you have any problem with the industrial lighting for your specific application, contact us for more details.