Those who work in the food and beverage sector must comply with very precise rules: the preparation and serving of food and beverages must take place in environments where hygiene and safety are guaranteed, eliminating the risks of contamination starting from the design of the working environments and the choice of equipment used. The issue regulated at European level and regulated in Italy by Legislative Decree 193/07 requires the designer to refer to the HACCP (Hazard-Analysis and Control of Critical Points) protocol to analyse risks and control critical points. Lighting also falls within the HACCP scope.
The lighting criteria to be met are very strict. All rooms must be provided with adequate lighting, natural or artificial. Suitable luminaires must be provided for inspection purposes. Lighting fixtures located above production areas must be of the safety type and protected to prevent product contamination in the event of a breakage.
The importance of lighting systems
Lighting systems are important for proper evaluation and management of the following factors:
– Checking the conformity of raw materials, by-products and foodstuffs. At all stages of the business processes from reception, production, packaging, storage and finished product departure;
– Verify the state of hygiene in the pre-operational and operational phases, aimed at preventing cross-contamination and promiscuity between products;
– Verify the condition of the foodstuffs produced;
– Verify the presence of possible dangers from infestations, machine breakage, hygienic state of operators, foreign bodies, etc;
– Check the state of the environments such as mould, condensation, stagnation, flooring and others;
– Prevent accidental events and loss of food conformity;
– Prevent falls, slips and unsafe use of equipment that could endanger the health of workers.
The usefulness of LED lighting systems
LED lighting represents an important action and step towards the ecological transition.
The strengths of this technology can be summarised as follows:
– Quality of light: LED technologies work at lower temperatures and have a better colour index more similar to natural light;
– Energy efficiency: systems using these technologies offer efficiency and energy savings of up to 50 per cent compared to conventional ones;
– Longevity: these systems have greater durability and almost zero maintenance. In addition, they do not suffer from dimming like conventional lighting systems that tend to decline in intensity over the years.
The QUANTUM offer
Quantum knows how crucial it is to see what you are doing, as the basis of all process monitoring is visual inspection, which will not be effective if there is poor or inadequate lighting.
Our turnkey project is realised without introducing changes to the wiring of the existing electrical installation.
In order to transform your lighting system into a generator of savings, we intervene by replacing the existing luminaires with new digital LEDs connected to the Internet:
– We equip each luminaire with its own intelligence using technologies of our own design;
– We network it
– We control it via the Internet
– We collect its energy consumption and operating status
The system proposed by Quantum enables complete control of the lighting system via a hierarchically arranged network of interconnections (Smart Grid) that allows each individual lighting point to be remotely controlled according to predefined sensor inputs or profiles, alarms to be managed and consumption/savings to be reported.
A further step: the control system
Checking consumption is the starting point of any energy audit.
Our technicians, with EGE (Expert in Energy Management) and CMVP (Certified Measurement & Verification Professional) qualification, take care of energy surveys and calculations, taking a census of installations and mapping the systems connected to the network, using ad hoc computer supports and specific measurement instruments: a real check-up of the company’s energy needs and consumption is the basis of our intervention proposals.
It is necessary to be able to read the data remotely and for this Quantum provides tools to monitor the energy trends of your utilities: the EARP (Enhancing Automated Reporting Platform) software incorporates the IPMVP (International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol) for automatic baseline adjustment and energy pattern recognition through Artificial Intelligence that enables the prediction of ECM (Experimental Sampling Method) behaviour and Smart Alerts.
The EARP is not just an energy monitoring dashboard, but a complete turnkey solution that collects and analyses energy data and any other factors that provide correlations and predictions on system behaviour. The EARP is also an analysis environment where the industry-standard IPMVP protocol is used to evaluate and track adjustments to the baseline and ensure that savings are always comparable with the current situation.
In a supply chain as important as the modern food industry, where lighting should not be considered as a marginal element but, on the contrary, absolutely basic, Quantum presents itself as a one-stop shop, distinguished by the use of innovative technologies and taking charge of all aspects of the implementation of solutions, including the paperwork for obtaining TEEs and project financing.