How to Overcome Your Leadership’s Objections to a Lighting Retrofit

Your facility’s need for a lighting retrofit is clear to you. Yet, your supervisor, the owner, or another leadership team member needs to be convinced it’s time to move forward. Objections to a commercial lighting retrofit frequently are based on misconceptions you can overcome with facts. Here are ways to advocate for your facility’s commercial lighting retrofit in the face of three common objections.

Objection: A lighting retrofit is costly. Our organization has other budget priorities.

Response: Many organizations realize a return on investment for their lighting retrofit in less than three years. Today’s highly energy-efficient lighting solutions decrease maintenance and energy costs. For example, an Oregon grocery distribution center saved $189,811 in annual energy costs and $47,000 in annual maintenance costs as a result of its lighting retrofit. Experienced lighting solution providers like Relumination offer free lighting consultations to determine the viability of a lighting upgrade.

Also, a lighting retrofit usually qualifies for significant utility company incentives. The professionals at Relumination know how to get the maximum utility rebate their clients are eligible for.

Objection: We did a lighting upgrade 12 years ago. We don’t need a lighting retrofit now.

Response: That upgrade was to T8 fluorescent lighting. Switching to energy-efficient LED lighting would reduce energy costs. Although we did see a measure of energy savings from going to T8 fluorescent lighting back then, a portion of those savings resulted from T8 fluorescent’s lower light levels. By choosing LED lighting, we could simultaneously increase light levels and lower costs.

Objection: There isn’t a business need for a lighting retrofit.

Response: Commercial lighting retrofits have benefits for all of our stakeholders. Since a retrofit can improve light levels, employees make fewer mistakes. In turn, quality control improves and the risk of injury decreases.

In addition, better lighting makes customers feel safer when they come to our facility. For management, the advantages of a commercial lighting retrofit are in the bottom line.

When you overcome your leadership’s objections to a commercial lighting retrofit, contact us at Relumination for a free lighting consultation.

How to Overcome Your Leadership’s Objections to a Lighting Retrofit

Your facility’s need for a lighting retrofit is clear to you. Yet, your supervisor, the owner, or another leadership team member needs to be convinced it’s time to move forward. Objections to a commercial lighting retrofit frequently are based on misconceptions you can overcome with facts. Here are ways to advocate for your facility’s commercial lighting retrofit in the face of three common objections.

Objection: A lighting retrofit is costly. Our organization has other budget priorities.

Response: Many organizations realize a return on investment for their lighting retrofit in less than three years. Today’s highly energy-efficient lighting solutions decrease maintenance and energy costs. For example, an Oregon grocery distribution center saved $189,811 in annual energy costs and $47,000 in annual maintenance costs as a result of its lighting retrofit. Experienced lighting solution providers like Relumination offer free lighting consultations to determine the viability of a lighting upgrade.

Also, a lighting retrofit usually qualifies for significant utility company incentives. The professionals at Relumination know how to get the maximum utility rebate their clients are eligible for.

Objection: We did a lighting upgrade 12 years ago. We don’t need a lighting retrofit now.

Response: That upgrade was to T8 fluorescent lighting. Switching to energy-efficient LED lighting would reduce energy costs. Although we did see a measure of energy savings from going to T8 fluorescent lighting back then, a portion of those savings resulted from T8 fluorescent’s lower light levels. By choosing LED lighting, we could simultaneously increase light levels and lower costs.

Objection: There isn’t a business need for a lighting retrofit.

Response: Commercial lighting retrofits have benefits for all of our stakeholders. Since a retrofit can improve light levels, employees make fewer mistakes. In turn, quality control improves and the risk of injury decreases.

In addition, better lighting makes customers feel safer when they come to our facility. For management, the advantages of a commercial lighting retrofit are in the bottom line.

When you overcome your leadership’s objections to a commercial lighting retrofit, contact us at Relumination for a free lighting consultation.

Improving Worker Safety and Profitability

Maintaining a warehouse or distribution center is not an easy task, especially since these buildings are generally quite large and demand more time and effort compared to other operations. For instance, operating a small antique shop is simple because you can start and finish with great results in an extremely short period of time, but a warehouse just has so much square footage to cover. It is important to consider the fact that the lighting is a crucial part of any building, but especially warehouses and distribution centers as they require so much lighting and have a lot to do with worker safety.

Better Light Quality, Less Accidents

When you invest into LED lighting, you will know that the quality level of lighting is better than other options. Protecting your workers is an important part of running a business, especially because an injury claim can cost thousands of dollars rather quickly. Additionally, dealing with a serious injury from your employees can lead to a huge damper on productivity as they may be an important part of your team. While this may indirectly relate to lighting, this does not change the fact that going with LED for warehouse & distribution center lighting is definitely the best option available.

Longer Lasting, Less Replacing

It is not uncommon for a warehouse to require dozens of lights to maintain proper lighting, and this can get expensive, especially when you consider energy expenses. Fortunately, LED lighting lasts much longer than alternative choices, so not having to replace them as soon as you would with other types of lighting means savings on the purchase of lights and the time required to replace them.

Excellent Durability is Ideal for this Work Setting

While there are some businesses that do not go through much physical work, a warehouse is likely to see a lot of moving around of items with heavy machinery. It is extremely beneficial that LED lighting is very durable compared to other lighting types, and this is because being able to withstand a little bit of pressure can mean not needing to replace a light after getting hit by a hand or object lightly.

If you want to improve your warehouse or distribution center with LED lighting, contact us for more information.

Meeting Industry Standards for Lighting Warehouses

Warehouse productivity is directly linked to good lighting. Poorly-lit areas can result in mistakes, accidents, lower productivity, and higher operating costs. A well-lit warehouse enables companies to counter all of these negatives, resulting in higher productivity, lower operating costs, and therefore, higher profits. Integral to achieving the positive results is a basic understanding warehouse lighting standards.

Regulation Standards

OSHA Standards govern installation requirements for warehouse lighting and other industrial and commercial activities. OSHA measures light in “foot-candles.” One foot candle is the amount of light needed to illuminate one square foot of area from a uniform light source. While this takes detailed analysis and calculation, our customers know that we do those calculations on their behalf as part of our job specification. The regulations say that areas should be effectively lit with even distribution, and no gaps, across the work area. The light should be bright enough for specific jobs to be carried out without eye strain or dazzle.

How Relumination Works to Support These Standards

Firstly, we understand the need for our customers to maximize productivity and comply with State and Federal requirements. We are successful and well-established. We have in-depth experience of installing and updating warehouse and distribution lighting systems. Our responsibilities for our customers include:

  • Keeping up to date with State and federal standards.
  • Knowing OSHA regulations and how to build changes into the projects we are working on.
  • Keeping track of compliance tasks as they apply to projects and maintenance programs.
  • Using the latest OSHA software to do the calculations each regulatory standard demands.
  • Keeping all work streamlined so jobs are completed efficiently and without disrupting the warehouse productivity.

To achieve this we apply a powerful 6-Step Process. We begin with a detailed Needs Analysis followed by an engineered systems design which uses your current lighting locations and intensity to calculate the most efficient system for your facility.

We use the latest in photometric technology to ensure you get the right lighting intensity. Photometrics is a system which analyzes current lighting the way a human eye sees it. This means we can accurately design and install exactly the right kind of lighting. We propose everything in detail, allocate a dedicated project manager to ensure everything is done and completed as agreed. We then check everything, train your staff as needed, and begin our warranty and service support process.

 Choosing Lighting Fixtures

Obviously lighting fixture choice is driven by both regulation standards and bottom-line results. There are three main types of warehouse lighting: LED, fluorescent, and high-intensity discharge. LED lighting is the most cost-efficient because of:

  • The lower level of electricity consumption.
  • The longer lifespan (up to 250,000 hours.)
  • The ability to include customized and adaptable controls ranging from basic motion sensing to task tuning and progressive dimming. Providing even more energy savings.
  • Initial costs can be offset by the many local utility companies offering incentives for energy-efficient upgrades. Our staff has expertise and experience to navigate all of the utility rebate guidelines to maximize available dollars.

Our goal is to help you achieve your goals. Contact us to discuss your plans, answer your questions, and offer the advice you will need to make the best decisions.