The prospect of carrying out maintenance work fills all senior managers’ minds with dread. The potential for lost revenue, additional requirements for stock management and logistics and upsetting the status quo can cause plenty of issues, but when you’re dealing with a warehouse that’s carefully temperature controlled at -21C these issues increase significantly.

Delice

When leading UK bakery experts Delice de France decided to make improvements to one of their major storage and distribution centres in Southall, these are exactly the problems that they faced.

The improvements in question were the replacement of standard sodium and fluorescent lights with LED (light emitting diode) units – improvements that make both financial and environmental sense. Delice de France worked closely with Sheffield’s Constellation Lighting to develop a solution that would maximise the benefits achievable.

Generally speaking, replacing traditional lighting with LEDs of comparable (if not greater) light output can save in the region of 70% in energy costs, so these lights start paying back the investment cost as soon as they are switched on.

LEDs also operate more efficiently at lower temperatures, making the highly suited to refrigerated storage applications. Further to this, the lighting units generate very little heat (unlike the sodium lamps), allowing for more efficient refrigeration and additional cost saving, since the plant’s cooling systems don’t have to work as hard to maintain the temperature.

Delice de France contracted Constellation Lighting to replace 110 sodium lighting units with LED modules within the cold storage area, and a further 44 fluorescent lighting units with vapour proof LED fittings in the loading bays. Using the expertise and experience of their own installation teams, Constellation completed the fit-out without compromising the integrity of the cold store, by working at an average operating temperature of -21C.

Additional benefits achieved through the introduction of Constellation Lighting’s LED modules, include:

• instant start up – 100% light within 100ms

• up to 100,000 hours lifetime leading to reduced maintenance costs

• use optical lenses rather than reflectors thereby reducing the glare for forklift drivers and ensuring that all the light generated is directed to where it is needed

• ‘White’ light is easier to work in, better for reading labels and more comfortable for the workforce, thereby increasing pick-rate and productivity.

A representative of Delice de France commented, “The decision to introduce LED lighting into our warehouse and distribution areas represented a significant investment for the company. However, we are already noticing the difference both financially and in the working environment. anticipate that within 14 months of the installation, we will have recouped the money invested in this technology. Not only that, it is very important to Delice de France that we have reduced our carbon footprint”.

www.constellationlighting.com

Comments are closed.