Factory buildings have a higher than normal reliance on machinery and technologies and usually have high maintenance costs. A balance needs to be found between efficient factory lighting and the best luminary levels for productivity.

Functional Needs of Factory Lighting

The variety of functions at any factory could range from manufacturing, fabricating, assembly, disassembly, packaging, processing and repairing. Auxiliary function areas such as storage, administration and distribution areas also come into play a lot of the time.

Maximizing use of space will often translate to making the best of vertical space especially when it comes to storage. Aisle lighting for a storage area often works best in conjunction with light intensity control systems. The factory lighting needs and use of a storage area and aisles vary from day to day and need to be provide wide are lighting in a flexible way.

Generally speaking, large open areas work well with high performance, robust lighting units mounted to the roof and spaced between 5 and 10 meters apart. This type of installation is sometimes referred to as "high bay" lighting. Production floors with a high hygiene requirement such as food production will also need to consider glass free lighting and recessed installations.

Loading Bays or Docking Bays require the most robust of all factory lighting areas because the large numbers of people and vehicles that pass into the loading area. In certain countries delivery and large transportation vehicles also tend to operate during low traffic times such as late or early morning when light is at its lowest. Apart from demanding high visibility some factory lighting for loading bay an adjustable mounting arm would allow the user to direct the light into the back interior of the delivery vehicle for better visibility.

Where detailed assembly, fabrication, testing or repair is a requirement it is usually a good idea to install lighting units specifically for this station/area. Ideally these units would work best if controlled separately from the main system so that they do not operate any longer than necessary and adjustable mounting allows for flexible light placement.

Power Usage and Energy Saving

Factory lighting is just one of the elements that help save energy costs along with temperature control, ventilation systems and waste disposal. The most obvious questions one needs to ask regard both the energy consumption along with the expected lifespan of the luminaries. In many cases low-energy technologies are widely available.

Occupancy control and daylight control systems provide some very clever solutions for energy saving. Granted, there is a larger setup cost involved when investing in such sensor technologies. Integrated sensors or remote controls can be used to trigger lighting units to activate at certain times, when natural light is diminished or when motion is detected. Some lights can be manually dimmed and brightened on demand via a switch and remote.

Industrial lighting for factory units needs to be tailored to each project with efficiency and application requirement in mind. The often individual requirement for each setup means that there is no one 'right' type of factory lighting setup.