MBM Corporation, a leading food distribution company, headquartered in Rocky Mount, NC, saves over $100,000 per month using T5 HO lighting manufactured by Industrial Lighting Products.  MBM has accomplished this by completing a retrofit program that has replaced nearly 6000 400W MH fixtures in each of their 31 distribution centers with 4 lamp T5 HO fixtures.  Each fixture utilizes an occupancy sensor, to turn lights off when they are not needed. 

MBM, one of the largest privately held companies in the US, distributes food to restaurants including Burger King, Chick Filet, Arby’s, and Golden Corral.  Dewey Clark, the Director of Operations Support, estimated that 95% of their fixtures stayed on 100% of the time.  By utilizing the instant on feature of the T5 HOtechnology, they were able to apply sensor controls to turn off the fixture when not needed.  Dewey Clark comments on the impact, “It is a project that everyone was very skeptical about in the beginning, but once we got a few branches rolled out everyone seemed to get on board.  The biggest adjustment is the motion sensors, and knowing that “dark” is good.  Everyone likes to see a bright, well lit warehouse, but now the culture is that we are saving money when the lights are off.  One added advantage is that now everyone is much more energy aware in other areas.  Overall it has been a great success.”

Besides the obvious energy advantages, there have been other savings as a result of the project.  The lamps are lasting much longer because they are on less.  Also, the refrigeration and freezer sections are experiencing an energy savings because of the reduced heat from the T5 HO fluorescents compared to the HID’s.

MBM chose ILP as their vendor because of ILP’s ability to respond to their specific needs.  ILP’s hinge frame lens design with the hard mounted sensor was a real plus for MBM.  The hinge frame lens will decrease the effort required to re-lamp while the hard mounted sensor will ensure that the sensor optics are always aimed in the right direction.  ILP also helped reduce the installation cost by pre-installing the lamps and pre-wiring the sensor so the contractor could hang, plug, and go.  This was especially important given the different internal wiring configurations needed to meet the requirements for the freezer, dry storage, and shipping areas.

MBM’s total project cost was approximately $1.3M.  This includes fixtures, installation, rebates, salvage, and disposal.  They estimate their corporate project payback will be approximately 11 months.  Since the completion of the high bay portion of the project, MBM has begun to install ILP’s troffer retrofit kit to reduce their energy draw on the office fixtures.

The fixtures were provided by ILP through the CED branch in Wilson, NC.  Sammy Barnes at CED provided on site support meeting with the customer on a regular basis through the discovery and quotation phases.  CEDs support was critical to ensure that ILP was able to meet MBM’s technical and delivery requirements.