If you are employed in an office, store or shop for normal times, i.e., nine to five every workday, you are spending about a quarter of your existence there. And since whatever your work may be you have to use your eyes all the time, the illumination in your shop should concern you. With wrong lighting you could lose your vision faster than typical or your work suffers. This holds true in all kinds of workplaces, be it a pi kappa alpha shop of specific items, a basement carpentry space, or a dental office design to quieted down anxious patients.
Dim lighting strains the eyes; everyone grants that. It can often produces inaccurate work performance, or reduce efficiency. Wrong lighting does about the same, modifying the atmosphere of the space and its inhabitants at the same time, which is the why rooms of different uses use different lighting systems. Some have subdued reddish atmosphere, others may lean to blue, and still others will not employ any source other than natural light, such as painter workshops. Yet, it extends way beyond that plain division.
Lighting is determined by various means, among them lumens, CRI, foot candles and, once, candlepower. Lumen is the amount of light produced by a fixture. Color rendition index (CRI) is the gauging of color acuity of an eye (and hence not readily quantifiable). Foot candle is how much light connects with an object, based on one lumen per square foot. Candle power is of course how much light is produced by a source as compared to one lighted candle. It is analogous to horsepower in engines.
Additionally, all lights have coloration, from ultraviolet of longer wavelengths termed often as cool, to white which is warm. Warmer lighting usually has higher temperatures and better lighting, but utilizes more energy to produce it. High effectiveness lamps may skimp on energy and hence emit less bright lighting. This sort is not appropriate for workplaces that require good lighting, such as plants or machine shops, apart from non-work areas like passageways. Certain work places need all around lighting so ceiling lighting must be enhanced with area specific lighting systems. Narrow beam flood lights should be very apt for such requirements.
Bright sunlight produces light at around 5,000 foot candles (fc) at around ground height. If a bit overcast, lighting will hover around 2,000 fc, and obliquely lighted space on a bright day should have 200-500 fc, just the correct amount for comfortable work. On artificial lighting, the more the lumens the more the foot-candle there is and the more useful lighting will be at your work area. While this would, on paper, cost comparably more than high efficiency lighting systems, it will be more than recouped by employee efficiency that promotes good business.
It is thus crucial to compute the foot-candle lighting that reaches the work height in the shop, store or office to the right levels, so that employee efficiency will be at optimum. Illuminating the place where they spend a quarter of their lives will, in the end, get back to the advantage of your business. And employee efficiency is what business is very interested about.