Philips Consumer Lifestyle

Philips DAP, for years a user of Isoware, developed with Metaware a portal to make information from quality management systems easily and rapidly accessible for users.

Philips DAP CEO Andrea Ragnetti awarded the “Simplicity IDP Award” to the Speed & Simplicity project team for their “outstanding and exceptional team contribution”. Metaware took part in this project.

Portal Isoware Philips DAP gateway to information
Opening up information sometimes creates a considerable bottleneck within organisations. Philips DAP, for years a user of Isoware, developed with Metaware a portal to make information from quality management systems easily and rapidly accessible for users. After a first introduction in the DAP-location Hoogeveen the portal is now in use within the whole Food and Beverage Business Unit.

Philips DAP Food & Beverage, known for Senseo coffee apparatus and the home tap Perfect Draft, also produces mixers, grills and all kinds of kitchen equipment. Per year, 20 million products are distributed worldwide.

During the last few years, an important part of production has been moved to foreign countries, whereas in the Netherlands the emphasis lies in innovation and product development. This is a turn around, which has resulted in a need for other processes and information.

In the Center of Competence in Hoogeveen, TQM-manager Theo Afman heard comments from within the organisation indicating that employees found it cumbersome to find the correct information fast. “From questions and observations it appeared that there was, on the one hand, too much information and, on the other hand, some users experienced difficulty in finding their way to the correct documents. Then together with Metaware we sought a manner of simplifying the system”, Afman stated.

The portal which now exists offers to the user the possibility of approaching the system both from the process side and also from a specialised function. The user has direct insight in the procedures, instructions and the tools which are necessary at a certain step in the procedures. “From the users we have received much praise for the simplicity with which information now available is stated”, Afman explained with pride. The slogan “Sense and Simplicity” from Philips is very appropriate for this tool.

The portal is available by means of the intranet of Philips DAP and is an integral part of the product creation process. Not all functionality of Isoware is available by means of the portal, but this new set-up accelerates and simplifies the search for information considerably. Afman doesn’t discount the possibility that the tool in the future will be developed with personal dashboards, but keeps his options open: “Technically there are many possibilities. We must continue to assess the difference between costs and profit”.

The success of the portal did not remain limited to Hoogeveen. At the Philips DAP-location in Amersfoort, manager of Business Excellence Wilfred Ruijsch, needed a tool within DAP Food & Beverage to better direct the innovation process. “We want to improve our processes”, Ruijsch specifies as the basic idea. “For that, clear agreements are necessary concerning the formats to use, the documents and the deliverables. Simplicity is a key word”, continues Ruijsch.

On the basis of the experiences in Hoogeveen, the portal was further developed has since then been used throughout the Food and Beverage department. Ruijsch also received positive responses from the users: “This mission has succeeded. We have improved our processes and the system has become more user-friendly. Deliverables are easy to find and also navigation has improved. Isoware applies well for this portal structure”.

The portal also impresses the international Philips organisation. At the internal improvement competition for development teams for the Europe and North America region, the portal of Theo Afman and his development team was awarded a well-deserved third place. That was not quite enough to participate in the world final, but Afman is absolutely not dissatisfied: “The users evaluated this portal with, on average, an eight out of ten. Moreover, on our intranet the number of hits of Isoware in six years time is fourteen times greater.”