OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2015. GE and Softbank Corporation (SoftBank) today announced that the two companies will work together to transform business services at LIXIL Total Service Co., Ltd (LIXIL Total Service), a subsidiary of LIXIL Corporation (LIXIL), using an Industrial Internet solution, powered by GE’s Predix platform. This announcement coincides with the anniversary of the GE-SoftBank collaboration, as its first Predix platform solution.

LIXIL, a global leader in housing and building materials, products and services, required a solution to optimize its home bathroom installation business – a process currently managed manually by LIXIL Total Service. With this agreement, LIXIL Total Service will introduce an integrated job scheduling and planning solution, powered by Predix, to LIXIL’s product value chain, from its factory to after-sales. Leveraging this technology will help LIXIL Total Service improve resource deployment, customer experience and productivity, driving better outcomes for its customers.

The new scheduling and planning solution will identify and match installers with appropriate projects automatically, allowing controllers to use their time on more value-added services and equalizing workloads assigned to installers. This will reduce costs and minimize project delays, as well as enhance customer satisfaction by improving controller productivity. The pilot will start in the Tokyo area first and will be extended to the entire nation. GE and SoftBank will explore opportunities to expand the scope to include other products including kitchens and living rooms for LIXIL.

SoftBank, the Japanese telecommunications and Internet giant, became GE’s first strategic global collaborator for the Predix platform in 2014. LIXIL is the first customer to benefit from this alliance.

According to LIXIL’s Chief Information Officer and General Manager, Information System Department, Hiroyuki Kowase, “At LIXIL we are focused on improving our IT foundation to enhance the company’s efficiency. With GE’s Predix platform, we hope to improve our service quality to our partners, the home builders, making the business process more efficient and ultimately improve our end-customer, the home owner’s satisfaction by timely delivery of projects.”

SoftBank’s Jun Shimba, Executive Vice President, commented: “By making a strategic partnership with SoftBank and GE, we are ready to provide advanced services to the customers across the industries. We will support to solve LIXIL's issue by quickly deployment of the new system with both SoftBank and GE global experience and capabilities as well as global advanced technologies.”

Harel Kodesh, VP, Predix and CTO for GE Digital, added, “The success of the Industrial Internet relies on building a collaborative ecosystem, which we are driving with Predix—we welcome LIXIL to this ecosystem through our collaboration with SoftBank. We see enormous potential for the software and analytics market in Asia and globally and will work together to help companies realize productivity and efficiency gains, continuing to drive better outcomes for our customers.”

About LIXIL

Headquartered in Tokyo, LIXIL Corporation is a global leader in housing and building materials, products and services business. The foundation of LIXIL’s success is our constant investment in technological innovation to improve people’s lives. Drawing on a heritage of over 100 years of technological innovation, LIXIL is grouped into four technology businesses, LIXIL Water Technology (brands include: LIXIL, INAX, GROHE, American Standard, and JAXSON), LIXIL Housing Technology (includes Tostem, Shinnikkei, and TOEX brands, etc.), LIXIL Building Technology (including the Permasteelisa Group) and LIXIL Kitchen Technology. LIXIL Japan Company is the fifth business of the LIXIL Corporation and operates as a customer-focused sales organization with the most comprehensive range of products and services from all four technologies to customers and business partners in Japan. LIXIL produces some of the world’s most fundamental and innovative products and services, and our solutions are an integral part of some of the world’s most iconic and cutting-edge living and working spaces LIXIL brands are present in 150 countries and our businesses employ more than 80,000 people worldwide. LIXIL brings together technology, quality, design and sustainability to enhance people’s lives around the world.