Interior lighting design is very important to the industrial world.  There are three primary arenas in which interior industrial lighting is applicable: factories, warehouses, and offices.  All three environments require systems to be planned prior to the purchase of any equipment.  Sometimes this is for energy savings only, but in other areas, interior lighting design is a key component to worker efficiency and is essential to maintaining a safe work environment. 

Office lighting is just as important in the industrial marketplace as it is in the service-oriented businesses in the general corporate world at large.  Virtually every facility, no matter how devoted to manufacturing or distribution it may be, has office space of some type.  Management and administration requires this separate space to oversee production and to make mission critical decisions about the company.

Interior lighting design in these offices follows the same principles as it does in service-oriented companies in the general corporate world at large.  Employees need comfortable task lighting over their desks and cubes.  Foyers need a certain amount of ambient lighting to look professional to visitors and clients. 

Break areas and bathrooms can be lit with general fluorescent lights that can be turned on and off at will.  Meeting rooms and executive office suites can be configured with lighting controls that can save electricity by dimming the lights and even creating different emotional states by using different combinations of lights.

Interior lighting design will contribute quality assurance and improve safety in factories where products are manufactured.  Every factory needs a lighting plan before it goes out and buys lighting equipment. 

This is because the success of manufacturing depends on precision, time-to-market, and safe working conditions.  All three of these things are directly influenced by the quality of light in the building.  Without adequate task lighting, assembly line workers cannot see and consequently work at a noticeably slower pace.  Morale tends to be rather negative too when people spend long hours at a time in dark areas.

Safety is another critical component to successful factory operations.  One major accident can shut a factory down for days or even weeks at a time.  Many times accidents happen around machines that could have been avoided if the lighting had been higher in the area.  Also, too much light can also be bad, because reflective glare can blind a worker’s eyes and cause a tragic mistake.

Every factory should act preemptively to avoid these logjams and catastrophes by spending a mere few hundred dollars on a professionally developed interior lighting design.  This photometric plan will show exactly how many fixtures company needs, where they need to go, and how they need to be mounted in order to minimize reflective glare and dispel shadows in dangerous and mission-critical labor areas.

Warehouses typically rely on high bay and low bay lights, but they still require design planning to determine the number, lumens, and placement of these lights.  Considerations need to be taken into account about how much it costs to maintain maintaining these lights and how much it costs to power them each month.  It is quite possible that you will discover that newer, more energy efficient lights engineered with longer lamp life could save money on both power and maintenance cycles.

Additionally, warehouses must also think about the same process flow and safety considerations that factories have to consider.  Areas where forklifts travel cannot afford to have reflective glare from lights that are too bright or improperly mounted.  Packaging areas cannot afford to be dark because inventory loss is likely to occur in darker areas.  As expensive as this may sound to you, please keep in mind that only work areas need special interior lighting design in order to do special functions and safeguard human life.  Many storage areas, untraveled areas, and hallways can be lit with cheaper fixtures and far less electricity without jeopardizing health or corporate revenues.