Most facility managers don’t give their lighting much thought until something goes wrong, like a forklift hitting a pallet in a dark aisle or an inspector citing your loading dock for falling below the OSHA minimum.
In an industrial facility, lighting is at the intersection of safety, compliance, and operational costs. It is one of the most important systems for many reasons.
Facility managers need to understand what lighting standards they must meet, what lighting to use, and how they can create a lighting plan that achieves both compliance and functionality in one fell swoop.
OSHA Lighting Standards for Industrial Facilities
OSHA’s lighting standards are brief but carry legal weight. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires minimum illumination levels in any workspace where visibility impacts safety. This includes virtually all industrial facilities.
The numbers are straightforward. General work areas require a minimum of 5 foot-candles (fc). Stairways and passageways require a minimum of 2 fc at every point on the route. And any facility with the possibility of power interruption must have a standby lighting system that will maintain the minimum lighting in the event of an outage.
That five foot candles is not a lot of light. To give some perspective, a typical, well-lit office operates between 30-50 fc. OSHA’s standard is aimed at avoiding catastrophic outcomes (collisions, falls, struck by in darkness), not creating a visually productive space. That’s why you’ll turn to IES recommendations next.
The enforcement side is also critical. The discovery of OSHA lighting minimum violations during an inspection results in citations, fines, and, in severe cases, mandatory shutdown of the facility until the issue is addressed. This particular inspection is also relatively easy to conduct, since all an OSHA inspector needs to do is walk the facility with a light meter.
Where IES Picks Up
OSHA tells you the minimum lighting required. IES tells you what will achieve those results and actually work.
The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) publishes recommended levels of lighting depending on the specific task in question, and in industrial facilities, the gap between OSHA’s minimum and IES’s recommendations is significant. A warehouse facility that complies with the OSHA minimum lighting standard with 5 fc of ambient light is still not bright enough for pulling orders or barcodes.
Depending on the type of warehouse and the degree of precision required, IES recommendations for warehouse areas range from 5 fc in the case of inactive storage to 50 fc for fine item picking. On the manufacturing floor, the spectrum of recommendations varies widely, depending on the complexity of the task, from 30 fc in the case of simple assembly with large parts to over 100 fc for inspection or fine detail work.
This distinction is crucial, since compliance with OSHA will only lead to suboptimal performance of your facility. A facility with 5 fc may be compliant, but the people who work there will be squinting, making more mistakes, and moving slowly.
The IES recommendations reflect what people really see when they work, not just making sure they don’t trip and fall.
Why a Lighting Plan Is More Important Than Your Fixture Choice
Yes, your light fixtures are important. But a common mistake in industrial lighting is skipping the planning part. The facility manager finds a high-bay LED that looks promising and buys as many units as needed for the square footage. Then he or she installs these units on a grid and six months later discovers that half of the aisles are over-lit, workstations receive too little illumination, and the energy savings haven’t materialized. This is because the old layout has simply been repeated with the help of new hardware.
Planning prevents this problem. The first thing that goes into a lighting plan is the facility itself: floor plans, ceiling heights, locations of racking, and places where the various tasks occur. A 40-foot clear-height warehouse facility with narrow aisles needs a completely different approach than an open manufacturing floor with 20-foot ceilings. The lighting plan considers these differences before fixture selection.
Fixture types emerge as a consequence of the facility plan. Wide-beam high-bays are used to light open floor areas, and narrow-beam or linear fixtures are used to illuminate individual aisles, where a wide beam would simply waste light on the tops of racks and not the faces. Task lighting becomes necessary in workstations, where general ambient light level is not sufficient for fine tasks.
A skilled lighting designer will also perform photometric analysis, that is, a computer simulation of the light distribution in the facility. This is how you’ll discover dead spots, over-lit areas, and problems with light uniformity before the installation of the actual fixtures begins.
If your lighting designer is unaware of OSHA minimums, ANSI/IES RP-7, and local energy codes, find a new one.
Source: FSG Media
Choosing the Best Fixtures for Your Facility
By now, you probably know the answer: LEDs. The benefits of switching to LEDs over previous technologies (like metal halides or fluorescent systems) have been proven repeatedly: 50,000 hours of operation, instant-on capability, and energy savings between 50% and 70%, depending on the fixture.
Typically, such installations pay off within two to three years due to reduced electricity bills alone.
But which LED fixture should you choose?
High-bays remain the core of industrial lighting. They are intended for mounting heights of 20 feet and higher and are the first thing people think about when talking about warehouse or manufacturing facilities. But not all high-bays are the same. If your facility is open, it requires a different optic than a facility with aisles. This mistake means that you either over-light the tops of the shelves and don’t provide enough light on the floor, or leave dark spots between aisles.
Task lighting is another consideration. Workstations where people do inspection, assembly, or quality control usually need additional, adjustable lighting in addition to the general lighting from the overhead high-bays. The ambient light may reach 30 fc on the floor, but the recommendation of IES for fine assembly is 100 fc. This difference should be compensated with the use of task lighting.
Lastly, emergency lighting is something that is best planned from the beginning, not added later on. OSHA requires stand-by illumination in case of power interruption, and combining emergency drivers or battery back-up in your primary fixtures will be cheaper and more convenient than buying additional heads later on.
If you are replacing an existing facility with LED fixtures, then LED retrofit kits can significantly reduce the cost and time of the replacement, as you will use the existing housing and wiring. Only check beforehand that your existing fixtures are compatible with retrofit kits.
Working with a reliable lighting contractor can ensure you choose the right fixtures for your space.
Source: FSG Media
Controls Are Where Your Extra Savings Are
A carefully selected layout is responsible for your lighting levels. Controls, in their turn, will stop your energy expenses from spiraling out of control after the installation.
Occupancy sensors become your best friend. Most industrial facilities have zones that stay empty for a few hours, and lights burning at maximum capacity in empty aisles are a complete waste of energy and money. Sensors will be able to turn down the illumination of unused areas, saving you money without any initial investments.
If your facility allows natural lighting in some areas (for example, you have skylights or large windows), then daylight harvesting is the way to go. The idea is to use photosensors to reduce the output of the artificial light based on the increasing amount of natural light. So, you’ll still be able to maintain the foot-candle level at the task plane, but without working as hard for it.
A centralized control platform integrates all sensors and control methods for your facility. Instead of controlling each zone independently, you’ll be able to manage them centrally, schedule lights according to shifts, and pull compliance documentation.
What’s Actually At Stake
There’s nothing abstract about compliance with OSHA lighting requirements. The consequences of failing to comply will come in a very specific form.
From the enforcement standpoint, violations of OSHA lighting requirements can result in fines from around $5,000 in the case of a standard violation to tens of thousands of dollars in the case of a willful or repeated violation. In some situations, an inspector may even shut down the facility, forcing you to fix the issue immediately. It’s not a fine anymore; it’s lost production time and extra expenses related to hiring emergency contractors.
From the safety standpoint, there’s no way to put a price tag on injuries and accidents, but the fact remains that inadequate lighting is one of the factors behind slips, trips, falls, and struck-by incidents. All of these are among the most frequent causes of injury in industrial facilities, and eye strain caused by low lighting levels worsens the situation.
The good news is that the benefits of compliance are the direct opposite of these risks. Improved safety and productivity of workers, reduced errors in picking and assembling. All facilities that have invested in lighting beyond OSHA requirements report lower picking errors and improved task accuracy overall. The morale improvement is also real, as people definitely feel the change in the work environment even if they can’t quantify it.
Considering Your Building’s Uniqueness
Your industrial facility has unique features that affect light behavior in it, and your plan must take them into account before the installation of the fixtures.
The most obvious feature is natural light sources. Skylights, windows, and translucent wall panels contribute to ambient light during daytime, but they do it differently depending on the weather, season, and time of day. A lighting plan that relies on natural light to maintain IES-recommended foot-candles at 2 p.m. in June will fail miserably at 6 a.m. in December. Your plan must include the worst-case scenario, and controls will be responsible for reducing the light output when it’s not needed.
Another factor that is often underestimated is obstructions. Mezzanines shade certain zones. Tall racks prevent efficient light distribution from overhead fixtures. Overhead cranes and ductwork are in the way of the light beam between the fixture and the floor. None of them are uncommon in industrial facilities, but all of them change the effective light level on the floor. Your photometric analysis that doesn’t consider these obstructions will overestimate the coverage of the fixture.
If you plan ahead, it’s a good idea to consider the infrastructure for future sensors and controls at the time of the installation. Our industrial lighting walkthrough checklist can help you start planning for a lighting upgrade project.
Getting it Right the First Time
Facilities that benefit from lighting the most are those that take it as a complex solution, and not the replacement of some hardware. Fixtures, layout, and controls interact with each other, and compromise in any one of them will negate the efforts made in the others. A great LED high-bay installed incorrectly without proper controls becomes an expensive lamp in the wrong place.
If you are planning the construction of a new facility, the retrofit of an existing one, or just want to see if your current setup is compliant, it’s always better to consult an expert. FSG specializes in designing and installing lighting systems in industrial facilities. We work nationwide with single-facility and multi-site projects.
Contact us to speak with one of our lighting experts and ensure your facility is up to proper industrial lighting standards.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are OSHA lighting requirements for industrial facilities?
The minimums for general work areas are 5 foot-candles (fc) at the floor level, 2 fc for stairways and passageways. Every facility with potential power interruptions must also have a standby lighting system that provides those levels in the event of an outage. Those are the minimums, the bare minimum you have to meet in order to be compliant. The facilities that actually care about performance use IES recommendations.
What’s the difference between OSHA lighting requirements and IES lighting recommendations?
OSHA gives you the absolute minimum you have to meet to be compliant. IES recommendations are meant to be practical, taking into consideration the complexity of the task. While the OSHA standard of 5 fc keeps you out of trouble, the IES recommendation is usually 20-30 fc for active warehouse storage and 50-100+ fc for manufacturing, depending on the complexity of the task. OSHA is the minimum for compliance; IES is for efficiency.
How to calculate the required lumens for warehouse lighting?
Calculate the foot-candle level you want to achieve and multiply it by the area in square feet. Since 1 foot candle = 1 lumen/sq. ft., a 50,000-square-foot warehouse facility with a 20 fc requirement has 1,000,000 lumens as a starting point. It is a rough calculation. The actual required number of lumens will depend on the efficiency of the fixtures, ceiling heights, obstructions, and light loss factor.
When should an industrial facility use high-bay vs. aisle vs. task lighting?
It depends on the facility. The facilities with open floor area with ceilings over 20 feet are illuminated with high-bays. Narrow-beam and linear fixtures are better in racking aisles because they don’t illuminate the top of the racks. Task lighting is a supplement, not a replacement. You add it to individual workstations where ambient light from overhead fixtures isn’t enough for fine work, like inspection or assembly.
Are smart lighting controls useful in industrial facilities?
In most cases, yes. Occupancy sensors alone can help you cut energy expenses by dimming or turning off fixtures in zones that are empty during certain periods of time. Daylight harvesting is also possible if you have skylights or docks that allow natural light into the building. Your fixtures adjust automatically based on ambient light level. So, you don’t pay for producing light when the sun does it for free. Costly initially, but the short payback period makes it worth an investment for any facility that plans to continue operating the same space in the next few years.
