Todd Morello,
GOJO Wooster Facilities Maintenance Team
Lighting Upgrade Leads to Energy & Costs Savings
In 2016, GOJO expanded operations to a facility in Wooster, Ohio. The added space allows us to continue to grow and meet our manufacturing needs, while simultaneously helping to create jobs in the area. Rather than causing significant environmental impact and ecosystem disruption by building a new site on empty green space, we chose to renovate a vacated industrial facility. We estimate that renovating, rather than building new, saved approximately five million pounds of materials.
Retrofitting the outdated lighting system in our new facility was one of the first jobs we took on, and in doing so, we were able to reduce lighting costs and ease the load on the electrical infrastructure.
Redesigning an outdated lighting system was a challenge, but thanks to the efforts of Wooster Facilities Maintenance Team members, Harry Ritenour and Todd Morello, the new system is a significant improvement over the previous one. “We created a template for the future to reduce and control our electricity usage for lighting based upon our real-time needs—we can schedule the lights for production schedules around the clock, or by shift,” said Morello. He added, “We can also dim the lights, and there are motion sensors and ambient light detectors, so the system ‘knows’ when we need light and when we don’t.”
“We created a template for the future to reduce and control our electricity usage for lighting based upon our real-time needs—we can schedule the lights for production schedules around the clock, or by shift.”
— TODD MORELLO
GOJO Wooster Facilities Maintenance Team
The system is connected to our Wi-Fi, and controlled from our local intranet, eliminating any wiring, except for the actual power source. This connectivity allows us to detect any issues with fixtures before they fail, adding security and reliability to the system. Morello adds, “The next step is to integrate the system into our production scheduling to achieve maximum control of the system, allowing us to understand how much power we’re using and when.”
Since coming online in February of 2016, we have recorded more than a 60 percent energy savings in comparison to the previous system. Additionally, the system’s capabilities will allow us to continue to learn and refine the way we light the facility, which will result in further savings.