Dear Reader: Facilities Managers won’t be surprised when learning there is sometimes a surprise around what he/she thought they were reading from a specification sheet, and what they see in terms of performance in their plant. The science of lumens is susceptible to that, as manufacturers and Facilities Managers have no choice but to talk […]
Lumens Don’t Matter. Delivered Lumens Do. Read More »
Dear Reader: If you were to read the literature, it seems the industry throws around two terms almost as if they were interchangeable – efficacy and efficiency – when, in fact, they mean two very different things. Efficacy is the measure of the overall lighting fixture, simply the amount of work it provides (lumens) divided
Efficiency versus Efficacy .. What’s the Difference? Read More »
Dear Reader: Time has value. And as such, a part of the analysis as to what the quality of an LED lighting system investment would is to determine what the return on that investment would be over time. Because dollars invested today are not available for other investments once they’ve been deployed (spent) on a
Factor In the Value of Time with Internal Rate of Return Read More »
Dear Reader: We’re pretty negative on the value of the Simple Payback metric in assessing the investment quality of a potential LED lighting retrofit, as it alone doesn’t do a very good job in modeling the complete benefits of LED. We ‘get’ the need to produce it, as the vast majority of management personnel need
Simple Payback Isn’t a Key Performance Metric Read More »
Dear Reader: As people, we live daily with the constant need to assess how to maximize the output of every one of our inputs. We do that by any of a myriad of ways, from determining what car will provide the most miles per gallon, to which steak will give us the most ounces per
The King of Lighting System Metrics: Lumens per Operating Dollar Read More »
Dear Reader: It’s not uncommon for the primary metric, when determining a go/no go decision, to be Simple Payback, which, simply put, is the total cost of the investment (in this case a lighting system) divided by the annual dollar savings. The better approach to determining the quality of an LED investment is to engage
The Investment Long View with the Life-cycle Cost Benefit Tool Read More »
Dear Reader: There are three sides to the equation that determines how much money your firm spends per kWh of electricity, and they are your kW of consumption (units), the number of hours you’re consuming that electricity (time), and when (peak versus off-peak). While you can persuade yourself that all three components are fixed –
How to Improve Your Facility’s Cost per kWh Read More »
Dear Reader: It’s always good to measure where your plant stands not only in comparison to where it once was (in order to drive and quantify continuous improvement), but to measure how you compare to other plants across America vis-à-vis any of a variety of available metrics from which to build those models. Our industrial
Compare Your Plant’s Performance to Others’ With Benchmarking Read More »
Dear Reader: The primary governing body over emergency and exit lighting is the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and their publication entitled NFPA 101, Life Safety Code is the gold standard. But first, some definitions, as provided by 29 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) 1910.34(c) OSHA: Exit Route – A continuous and unobstructed path of
Emergency and Exit Lighting, for Human Safety Read More »
Dear Reader: Most manufacturing and food processing plants include some spaces that are classified by the National Electrical Code (NEC) as hazardous locations, “where fire or explosion hazards may exist due to flammable gases or vapors, flammable liquids, combustible dust, or ignitable fibers or flyings.” The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) has written a
When it’s a Hazardous Area, Use Hazardous Fixtures Read More »