Delivering more than just light to Pilkington’s new warehouse

Providing Pilkington with more than just light

Pilkington

Gelsenkirchen, Germany

One of the world’s largest glass suppliers Pilkington, part of the NSG Group, had a challenge on their hands when it came to lighting their new 47,000 m2 warehouse facility.

“With Interact Industry, we received a connected lighting system that does more than just provide light. It also gives us data about our site, and allows us to make smarter decisions about our operations.”

- Marcel Devereaux, Category Manager Energy Projects, NSG Group

Customer challenge

As one of the world’s leading manufacturers supplying glass to the Automotive Glass Replacement (AGR) industry, Pilkington Automotive was looking to develop a brand new and ultra-modern warehouse, situated in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The company was adamant that this facility would feature only the latest state-of-the-art technology.

Meeting the current storage system and warehouse design standards was necessary in order to deliver value to the company’s customers. On top of this, the team at Pilkington Automotive was keen to align the warehouse design with their future-orientated business approach. And of course, this included finding the best smart lighting solution that offered benefits beyond providing light.

Solution

Alongside 1300+ Philips Maxos Fusion luminaires, Signify installed Interact Industry: a connected lighting system that — complete with software applications — helps the team to manage lighting and operations throughout the warehouse.

Thanks to smart lighting, Pilkington Automotive can use gathered data to distribute the workload evenly. For example, they can now observe exactly which areas receive the most frequent use. They can access this data through an easy-to-use, intuitive dashboard, providing insights into lighting usage and even allowing Pilkington Automotive to optimize lighting operations remotely.

Alongside improving operations, Interact Industry enables the warehouse to increase its energy efficiency. The system is configured so that lights are only switched on when really necessary in consideration of all legal requirements and the safety of Pilkington’s employees. This can be achieved by adapting the lighting to demand, using daylight harvesting and presence sensors. This means as well as saving up to 50% of energy, compared to sites where conventional lighting is used, the carbon footprint at Pilkington Automotive can be reduced by 290 tonnes of CO² each year too.

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