LED Lighting Benefits for Paper Mills

To continue our industry specific look into why making the change to LED lighting can benefit companies, we're looking at how paper mills can make lighting improvements. While industrial mills are large spaces, paper mills need a keen and focused eye to create quality product. Using quality products to do so, means using LED bulbs.

Cost

The paper industry has taken some hits over the past twenty years. With the rise of the Internet, putting content online rather than in print, transferring data to electronic files and running paperless businesses, not everyone has come out unscathed. This is understandable when we consider the importance of conservation (something LED lighting promotes in its own way). However, we still need paper, we just need to evolve the approach of its production.

This is why paper mills more than many other industries need to ensure low overheads. Fortunately, LED lighting helps this also. With retrofitting for older buildings and plug and play for newer ones, initial installation costs of LED can be kept minimal. However, once installed, their longer lives, greater output and cost effectiveness means money is going to be saved.

Quality

Pairing the competitiveness of the paper production industry with its need to be efficient, one thing which cannot change is the quality of the product. This means creating paper which is used from recycled material as much as possible and is produced as efficiently as possible.

With fresh paper product made from woodchips, lighting needs to be right. The treatment of these chips requires an acid bath which is then washed off during the creation of pulp. Paper mills need strong lighting to ensure this product meets the right standards. Since the machinery used to create this product is so large, they need large spaces to house them. With high bay LED lighting, you can be sure you can fill these spaces while not losing any power for the task at hand. This is over the long term as well with lumen depreciation being much less when compared to their florescent and metal halide forebears.

With recycled paper, this is perhaps more important. The treatment process for recycled paper needs to ensure any impurities are gotten rid of. LED lighting is being implemented more, especially for maintenance and trouble shooting. The reason for this is because LED lighting can provide powerful inspection lighting in lightweight casings.

Whatever the process, ensuring the paper has exactly the right dye is imperative. With bulbs like the 1K Ultra series from OEO, you get supreme brightness when you need it, but also have a 50,000 hour lifespan with up to 60% reduction in energy consumption. The same goes for inspecting the final product in terms of quality, consistency, watermarks, etc.



Safety

Paper mills also have specific considerations when it comes to safety. As with other large spaces, the longer last LED light bulbs mean they need to be changed less. They also have greater durability against the solvents and hazardous materials utilized in paper mills.

However, one of the greatest safety concerns in paper mills is the fact that mass quantities of paper are a fire hazard. LED lighting is contained in such a way that they are much less likely to explode when compared to bulbs such as CFLs. Being a newer technology, their casings are harder to break open and they are considered much less of a fire risk. This means LED lighting can save money in paper mills as well as save livelihoods.