A complete dust collection system will improve indoor air quality by removing dust from a series of work stations, machines and tools. Furthermore, one large centrally ducted dust collection system addresses the need for using an industrial air cleaner on each workstation.

One large central dust collector system can often do the work of dozens of smaller, individual air cleaners, providing complete industrial plant dust collection for the entire facility.

Central dust collection systems generally consist of large media dust collectors (such as cartridges or bag houses) with an inertial separator used as a pre-sorter (such as a cyclone or drop out box). The pre-sorter removes large chips, and then the media filtration removes fine particles. Large chips are collected in bins or drums.

Filtration media often uses some form of cleaning such as mechanical shaking or a sudden pulse of air that knocks built up dust cake from the filters. Electrostatic precipitators are rarely used for large dust collectors, since they do not have the capacity to store a large volume of dust. Though, electrostatic air cleaners are frequently used alongside central systems to clean atmospheric background dust that is not captured by the ducted system.