Smart Warehouse Management Service Picks LED Lighting and Controls from Current
Smart Warehouse Management Service Picks LED Lighting and Controls from Current
Innovative technologies are the foundation of smart warehouses that help customers stay ahead of their competitors. Thanks to a partnership with Current, one logistics leader is making several of its warehouses in Mexico even smarter with LED lighting and wireless controls that are curbing the company’s environmental impact while establishing a digital ceiling that can grow with the needs of its facilities.
Big Goals in Mexico
The company operates an important number of warehouses in Mexico and, like many other large facility owners, is proactive in its approach to improving site efficiency.
Fed up with metal halide and fluorescent lights that use significantly more energy than today’s LED equivalents, the company started to look at retrofit options for eight of its warehouses. Specifically, it wanted to reduce lighting electricity demands by 70 percent at the warehouses by installing LED fixtures that could be controlled individually or in groups.
Powerful Lighting Meets Precision Control
The team tasked with making the purchasing decision evaluated several lighting and controls packages before narrowing their choice to Current and a leading competitor.
They liked how Current’s Albeo™ ABV2 LED luminaire provided outstanding light output across its spacious storage centers. Testing showed the high-bay fixtures could consistently achieve 200 lux at floor level—a considerable improvement in brightness compared to existing lighting.
At the same time, the team was excited to learn each Albeo fixture could be individually and wirelessly operated using Daintree lighting controls from Current.
One of the biggest challenges the team was facing was keeping up with the ever-changing needs of their customer base. Daintree provided the ability to control on/off switching, dimming and scheduling of lights, so warehouses could instantly adapt to new requirements. Easy access to these controls from any web browser also meant that the team could manage multiple sites from any single access point, which was a huge advantage for the global company.
A Solution to Stand Behind
Ultimately, Current’s promise to deliver the results the company wanted inspired confidence, and it was decided that all eight warehouses would be outfitted with Albeo LED fixtures and Daintree controls.
Current installed nearly 300 new lights in each expansive facility, and the returns have been outstanding. On average, lighting efficiency was improved 88 percent across the warehouses, with energy-reduction targets exceeded by up to 120 percent at some sites. Considering each building measures about 250,000 square feet, this is helping the company shrink its carbon footprint and serve as an even better steward of the environment.
In fact, as the result of its new LED lighting and controls installations, the warehouses will avoid 977 tons of CO2 emissions annually from electricity production. This is equivalent to taking 207 passenger cars off the road or planting 8,100 trees to offset carbon expenditure*. These massive savings are the result of Current working with the business to optimize each individual warehouse to get the best result possible.
These latest facility improvements represent one of the many ways the company is achieving its energy-conservation goals, including other waste-reduction, water-recycling and reuse activities across its global property portfolio. Target reductions have already been attained, and electricity use at company facilities continues to decline while the business grows.
Future-Proof Facilities
Building on this strong momentum, several more warehouses in Mexico will be transformed with LED lighting and controls from Current in the coming year. In addition, the logistics company has started to evaluate new outdoor LED solutions aimed at improving visibility in parking lots and around the perimeters of buildings.
On top of this, Current’s Albeo fixtures are raising the digital ceiling by establishing a ubiquitous mesh network across its facilities that, in time, could be leveraged to collect and share data-supporting functions within the smart warehouses. For instance, the same LED fixtures that use wireless lighting controls today might tomorrow be equipped with additional sensors that help identify, track and manage assets and inventory from the “bird’s eye” vantage point only LED lighting can provide.
No matter how an organization chooses to improve productivity and customer service through new technologies and data visibility, Current’s intelligent lighting solution can serve as a platform for expanding the connected potential of its smart warehouses well into the future.
