How Signify are transforming lighting innovation across manufacturing and Formula One

Back in August, Molly Cooper flew to Amsterdam’s Grand Prix track in Zandvoort to witness first-hand the growing partnership between Signify and the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. While there she spoke with Harsh Chitale, CEO at Signify Professional Business, about the partnership and future of lighting in manufacturing.

Key takeaways

Signify and Mercedes F1 are partnering to advance connected, sustainable lighting technologies across Formula One.
Connected lighting delivers real-time data, from occupancy to equipment movement, improving efficiency and layout planning.
Employee wellbeing and productivity benefit significantly from human-centric lighting, including NatureConnect solutions.
Circular lighting and 3D-printed components drastically reduce carbon emissions and support corporate sustainability goals.
Manufacturers are increasingly adopting Lighting-as-a-Service, reducing capex and linking investment directly to energy savings.

FAQ’s

How does connected lighting improve manufacturing efficiency?
What role does lighting play in employee wellbeing and performance?

A new partnership driving sustainable innovation

In July 2024, Signify and the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team announced their new partnership. The purpose was to drive responsible innovation and enhance sustainability and wellbeing for the team and its fans.

Signify are a lighting manufacturer, formally Phillips Lighting, which is moving beyond traditional lighting to connected, data-driven and energy-efficient solutions, including 3D-printed modular lights, human-centric wellness lighting and solar powered systems.

Working with Mercedes F1

The partnership with Mercedes F1 has given Signify a global platform to demonstrate these technologies, which go beyond the track.

Performance and Wellbeing

Performance and wellbeing: Working with drivers when they travel to create ambient atmospheres and counter jet lag. Formula one driver for Mercades, George Russell, has previously cited the impact the NatureConnect light from Signify had on his body.

Track Visualisation

Track visualisation: Signify lighting is featured on night circuits such as Singapore and Las Vegas, ensuring the broadcasting and fan experience is enhanced.

Aesthetic and Fan Experience

Aesthetics: Signify lighting also features in clubs and VIP areas at the Grand Prix events across hospitality areas, bars, corridors and entertainment zones.

Commenting on the partnership, Ton Borsboom, Head of Design at Signify said: “It’s not sponsorship, it’s partnership. It is about shared values, a common interest in innovation, performance and sustainability.

“Bringing Signify and Mercedes F1 together allows us to exchange best practices, support human performance and showcase cutting-edge technology, both at the track and in our facilities. It’s a partnership in action, helping the team to perform at its very best.”

Bradley Lord, Team Representative, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team added: “Looking after the wellbeing of our people and ensuring they can perform at their optimum is so important. That’s where Signify offers a real scope of opportunity for us. Its solutions have been integrated into our working environments and are crucial contributions to making sure our personnel operate at their very best during critical performance moments on track.”

Harsh Chitale, Signify CEO Professional Business

Working with manufacturers

Although the current partnership is picking up speed in the racing world, the manufacturing sector is a large segment where Signify operates and its products feature across factory plants and head offices.

“You have many types of areas within manufacturing. You have actual manufacturing plant locations and the offices associated with it. Then, depending on the product being manufactured, there may be showrooms, warehouses, factories and distribution centres,” explained Harsh Chitale, CEO at Signify Professional Business.

Connected lighting in industrial environments

Signify begins by breaking a manufacturing company into different application spaces and for each of those it has built an offering.

Energy efficiency and data insights

“Starting at the assembly plant, we can implement our connected lighting to enable a high level of energy efficiency. These lights are also connected to sensors which the business can get data from,” said Harsh.

This data ranges from occupancy of an area at a particular time, to AGV or forklift movement.

Glass for automotive and building manufacturer, Pilkington, uses a lot of data that is curated through Signify’s Interact IoT platform. This collects insights from LED lighting, embedded sensors and IoT devices to make more effective decisions and actions. “The platform can process the data and then it can be used in daily activities allowing for route optimisation for the vehicles to the lines they are being supplied to,” said Harsh.

Safety and emergency lighting

A top KPI for all manufacturing managers is safety and it’s only becoming a bigger focus as employee wellbeing is also being increasingly highlighted.

Emergency lighting in an office or production environment is vital but testing it can be difficult. “In a factory setting you can’t have disturbances and ask a working production line to shut down because you want to test the batteries; that won’t work. Businesses can’t afford productivity loss,” explains Harsh.

However, when you have emergency lighting that’s connected to the rest of the factory’s connected lighting, you can simulate a power outage in an instant. The lights go off and emergency lights come on. “You can test whether the battery health is good at a touch of a button and receive a full report. This is a government mandated regulation which requires factories to comply with emergency light standards which our connected system can achieve,” he added.

Employee wellbeing and productivity

There has been research on assembly operations, where workers perform the same task repeatedly, which has shown that lighting can make a measurable difference in productivity. A university led study found that using task-focused lighting in repetitive assembly work improved productivity by nine per cent.

“This research highlights the importance of ensuring that lighting is both properly designed and consistently maintained. Over time, lighting naturally dims or shifts, which can reduce its effectiveness. With connected lighting systems, these changes can be monitored and adjusted dynamically. This allows lighting levels to be maintained at their optimal state, ensuring sustained productivity gains over the long term,” explained Harsh.

Real world examples of this are in office spaces where Signify’s NatureConnect light was installed to simulate natural daylight and sky views and to enhance the work environment for employees in a windowless environment. The ‘natural’ lighting has been proven to boost mood, contribute to a positive atmosphere and due to changes within the lighting mimicking the outside world, it regulates employee’s circadian rhythm that could otherwise be disturbed.

Error reduction and warehouse lighting

Moving beyond the manufacturing area to the warehouse, lighting can play a crucial role in reducing errors during order picking. “When lighting is directed vertically onto the picking area, it ensures that workers can clearly see what they are selecting. Without this, scanners may register incorrect items, leading to picking errors,” said Harsh.

By designing lighting that is glare-free on both surfaces and shelves, errors can be minimised. This approach is known as vertical asymmetric distribution and ensures that light falls exactly where it is needed. Implementing this type of lighting in warehouses supports accuracy, efficiency and overall reliability in the picking process.

“Warehouses also have the biggest area for energy saving. Unlike a production area, warehouses do not typically have people in them constantly, therefore energy saving automated lights can be implemented. This means only lighting areas when they are in use,” explained Harsh.

Office and outdoor lighting innovation

Each factory also has its office spaces. “In the entire office environment, scanning, energy monitoring, people counting and space optimisation of lighting can help. In Europe, it’s becoming mandatory to monitor these elements for energy performance building directives.

“If your company has an initiative to one day get to net zero, businesses need to make their buildings far more efficient than they currently are. That also includes the outside surrounding areas,” explained Harsh.

Solar lighting for industrial complexes

In manufacturing and industrial complexes, periphery lighting is often required to illuminate outdoor areas for safety and security. Unlike production areas, these spaces are not in constant use, making continuous wired lighting an unnecessary expense due to the high cost of cabling and energy.

Solar lighting offers effective solutions for this as during the day, it can charge and when required in the evenings, it will be illuminated. “With our advanced technology such as integrated dimming, sensing and intelligent charging, modern solar lighting can deliver up to 48 hours of autonomy without sunlight. This makes it suitable even in regions like Northern Europe, where extended sunless periods are more common,” he added.

Coca-Cola Manufacturing site in Russia with Signify's connected lighting — Manufacturing site in Russia with Signify’s connected lighting

Sustainable and circular lighting models

Connected lighting is the way forward and at Signify, this goes hand-in-hand with sustainability. “We are now seeing circularity within manufacturing because companies are under pressure to showcase their sustainability credentials,” said Harsh.

Circularity in manufacturing lighting

Signify has created a way in which they are able to refurbish old lighting equipment without having to remove them. “We partnered with Rolls-Royce in the UK which had over 20 facilities where they had old factory lighting. We were able to remove those and replace them, while refurbishing the old ones and replacing them in another facility. This creates a circularity of taking one lot of lighting, refurbishing it and placing it in a second location, and so on,” he explained.

This allows lighting to stay working and functioning while refurbishment is taking place, and ensures the factory is not left without lighting. “During the process we are able to reuse almost 60% of the existing lighting because the only part that has changed with time, efficiency and speed is the electronics,” explained Harsh.

There are over half a billion light points in the world and if they are required to keep changing, it will only add to the growing e-waste issue the world currently has. Coming up with the capability where Signify can retain what can be used and upgrade where needed is vital.

The highest carbon emissions in the production chain of lighting comes from creating its mechanical body. Most of the impact occurs during the extraction of minerals and their conversion into usable materials, such as producing plastic and refining metals, where the raw resources are transformed into their final forms.

Emission reduction through reuse and efficiency

“Now, if there is a way in which I can keep reusing the same thing repeatedly, I’m able to eliminate 70-80% of carbon emissions because I’m using the same materials. That’s where circularity comes in. Signify breaks down the product into granules and it is then reused in the 3D printing of a new light.” said Harsh.

“We are moving to a point where we will be able to create all our products to be serviceable and upgradeable, so nothing is wasted. Most of a light’s carbon emissions – around 90% – comes from the energy it consumes over its lifetime. By making a light 50–60% more energy efficient than others, it can significantly reduce its carbon footprint during use, which is what manufacturers are now looking for,” he added.

Lighting-as-a-Service and future trends

When manufacturers approach Signify for solutions, the first step is to do a walkthrough of applications in the facility, along with a lighting design team, to work out what optimal design looks like and what is required to get there.

“In many cases, customers ask us to provide detailed calculations on the payback they can expect from a lighting upgrade. Some go further, challenging us to link our compensation directly to the savings achieved, essentially proving the value by sharing in the results,” said Harsh.

This approach has given rise to models such as Lighting-as-a-Service, where instead of purchasing the system outright, manufacturers pay over time based on the energy and cost savings generated. For many industrial clients, this provides a low risk, performance-driven path to upgrading lighting infrastructure.

Future of Signify

For Harsh and Signify, connected lighting is where the business expects the most growth because it drives value beyond just giving illumination and is growing faster than the traditional lighting route.

“Right now, more businesses are shifting to connected lighting – around 30% – whereas a decade ago, it didn’t exist. In the future, we see a world of lighting which is connected and goes beyond mere illumination, with more value per light point and a greater focus on sustainability,” said Harsh.

This is where the investment in Signify has grown, and now reflects the more broader values of the business. “Although our previous brand was strongly associated with great lighting, our vision has expanded to cover much more connectivity, sustainability, intelligence and service,” he added.

How Signify is transforming lighting innovation across manufacturing and Formula One