OSRAM CTO Gives Insight into Market's Transition in the Digital Era

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OSRAM

Light+Building 2014 was a huge success for OSRAM, where they showcased their newest innovations, products, and range of services. After the expo concluded, OSRAM conducted an interview with Dr. Peter Laier, Member of the Board, CTO about the markets transition into the digital era. 

 Dr. Peter Laier, Member of the Board, Head of Technology (CTO) of OSRAM Licht AG (photo courtesy of OSRAM)

In the past years, OSRAM has carried out significant restructuring measures and cost saving procedures. At the annual press conference, the executive management had a positive view to the future. On what is your optimism based and how is the company currently structured? 

The business year 2013 was conducted positively for OSRAM in accordance with three essential aspects. Following the successful listing we also put in a final burst operatively as well, and in terms of our company restructuring we've made major progress, and were ahead of the implementation plan. Our brand promise of "innovation and quality" passes on security to customers in these times of fundamental change. We're also maintaining our leading positions in various important market segments. For example we're number one in automotive lighting, number one in projection and entertainment, number two in general lighting, and we've also been number two for many years in optical semiconductor components, commonly known as LED chips.

LED business makes up a third of total revenue for OSRAM, and the ratio of SSL products and solution sales has increased compared to the previous year. What are you currently doing to ensure continuous and healthy growth in this segment, and how do you estimate developments in the LED market in the coming years?

We believe that LEDs as a whole and in almost all applications will become the dominating technology with lighting. It goes without saying that we intend to drive forward the LED penetration of our portfolio, and in 2017 its revenue share should be over 50%.  We see ourselves as well-equipped for this because our optical semiconductor component sector has been the global number two for many years ahead of companies from Korea, China, Taiwan and the United States. Our optical semiconductor business with locations in Germany and Malaysia, and soon in China, has developed a lot of pioneering achievements in the lighting, visualization and sensor sectors in the past 40 years.

At the light+building preview, OSRAM presented the first LED lamp in light bulb form manufactured in Germany. What's the strategy behind this "Made in Germany" campaign?

The manufacture is a commitment to Germany as a location. OSRAM produces essential components in the LED value creation chain for general lighting in Germany, including LED chips, LED lamps and LED luminaires. Local production is part of the strategic approach of manufacturing LED lamps near to the specific markets, for example in Europe for Europe. This achieves shorter transport paths and times in this fast-moving LED era, and therefore advantages in terms of rapidity as well.

The lamp we showed at the light+building preview is also pretty outstanding in terms of technology – it concerns a 40 watt replacement that on the outside has the same dimensions as its incandescent lamp equivalent. This means we provide a real light bulb replacement that with regard to size fits into any luminaire that was previously equipped with a light bulb.

It's an exciting product but for me it's merely one product from a very wide-ranging and very competitive portfolio, which is an important point in my view.

Does this portfolio contain other technological highlights?

We're currently developing modular platforms in many general lighting areas, and with LED lamps as well. Modular platform in this sense means that identical modules are used in a variety of products. We do this because of three reasons: It enables us to present a wider diversity of variants, cost-efficiently and quickly. Also, the platforms enable us to be flexible. As you know, the development cycle with LED chips is currently between six to nine and sometimes twelve months, and then a new generation with improved performance enters the market. Until now it would have been necessary to develop a completely new lamp, but platforms make available clearly defined interfaces. This means we're able to exchange individual modules without having to completely redevelop the lamp. This in turn helps us to respond more rapidly to component modifications and also to customer needs. The third point is that platforms benefit highly from a uniform language of design, and this allows us to achieve differentiation in the market.

A further fair highlight is an OLED luminaire by the designer Werner Aisslinger that should feature a higher efficiency level than previous OLED luminaires. When do you expect the breakthrough in the market with OLEDs?

The fair highlight in the OLED sector is the OLED panel that's also installed in the luminaire by Werner Aisslinger . We've made a significant step forwards compared to the last light+building, and our panels have now overtaken energy-saving lamps in terms of efficiency and are continuing to get closer to LEDs.

The Werner Aisslinger luminaire demonstrates what's possible: We are able to install appealing luminaires with OLED in conference rooms and hotel lobbies that also supply functional light.

We're expecting the first market breakthrough not in general lighting though but in the automotive sector, for example with rear light. In September last year we presented a road-compliant OLED tail light, and we expect series OLEDs on the roads at the latest from 2016.

OSRAM is continuing to focus on the light and health sector as a future market. This is a controversially discussed area where currently several surveys and research projects are being carried out. How do you judge the developments in this sector, and what market potential can be expected here?

Well, initial findings from the light and health sector have already been available since the turn of the millennium. LED technology and intelligent control though allow us to leverage on this. For example, with pendant luminaires for schools and offices we can also generate an "artificial sky" that can be modified in terms of color temperature, in addition to the warm white illumination of desks. This provides support in synchronizing the biological clocks of employees or pupils to improve their performance, and surveys have shown that the learning success of pupils could be improved by up to 50% with the use of concentration-supporting light. Market surveys also predict significant market potential for products and solutions in this field. It's what we see as well, and especially in the office sector. A lot of workstations today are planned to provide support and care for the body according to the key term of "ergonomics", and the right light also makes them more supportive for our minds – lighting ergonomics if you like. We believe that such solutions will become a matter of course in the future, just as height-adjustable desks are now.

The Sistine Chapel in Rome is being equipped this year with a new LED solution, and last year you upgraded the lighting in the Munich Lenbachhaus museum. How lengthy/ time-consuming were the preliminary analyses and surveys/tests (and also negotiations with the contractors and light planners), how long did the project phase take, and what are the special features of the new lighting concept for the Sistine Chapel?

Normally we think in terms of years instead of months with such projects, and of course extensive preliminary work is needed prior to actual project implementation. A specific color rendering index was drawn up for the Sistine Chapel based not on eight but on 280 colors, as existing in the art works. In the preliminary tests the pigments were subjected to lighting that was 100 times more intensive than the real lighting solution in order to eliminate any chance of damage. The structural conditions of the architecture were also analyzed down to the last centimeter so that we could adapt the lighting application ideally to the chapel, because after all it's only with such complex groundwork that such good results can be achieved. And we can be sure the new lighting solution will supply these results. The chapel that until now could only really be viewed in twilight will now be illuminated ten times more brightly, and with 60% lower power consumption along with the all-important conservational care of the artworks.

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