Philips Consumer Luminaires (former Massive/PLI) Information Technology
Product Data Management at Europe’s leading lighting producer
The challenge:
Philips Consumer Luminaires Information Technology NV (formerly Massive) is the market
leader for insight and outsight lighting in Europe. The company was founded in 1926 and has grown from an essentially Belgian company into a highly successful multinational business with
a presence in most European markets and beyond. Within its production plants in China and Eastern Europe Philips produces over 150.000 lightning elements every day. The product range covers about 10.000 different models; changing and re-newing about 25% every year.
One of the main company’s strengths is that the design teams are working closely with the international and local marketing teams to ensure they are fully aware of individual market needs, resulting in market oriented products. The in-house team of designers is constantly working hand in hand with the product and test engineers, creating not only great designs, but also designs that are technically advanced.
To do so, all involved teams not only use pencil and paper, but they also use a Product Data
Management Software (PDM) that supports the maintenance and gathering of all product information throughout the entire product life-cycle. With the usage of this essential application Philips is able to optimize the development time and ensure a smooth transition to the actual production lines, while constantly guaranteeing the high standards of quality.
The solution:
The PDM application was transferred with PKS AX/ware Server Builder into real server code;
therefore the development and also the database stays on the iSeries. For the graphical user interface a Windows-Client was configured on the base of a detailed style guide with PKS AX/ware WIN3. The solution includes also offi ce integration.
The Windows platform is used for document storage and document publishing based on Lotus
Notes with build-in image validation. The project was done within 4 months (April to
July 2004).
The benefits: Central data vault, Offi ce and E-mail integration No training effort to use the modernization tools Reduced development and maintenance costs due to single source strategy Reuse of existing application Preserve application- and businessprocess know-how
The customer:
“Our employees today are satisfi ed with our application and the state-of-the-art
Windows front-end. The functionality is excellent and the modernization with the
PKS AX/ware clearly helped us on our development strategy”
Mr. Victor De Kaey,
Development Manager at PLI
PLI Information Technology NV
Kontich, Belgium www.philips.com
Industry: Manufacturing
Annual Revenue: 320 Mio € in 2004
Employees: 3.500 at year-end 2004
Central data vault, Offi ce and E-mail integration
