SGS is the world's leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. This control and inspection company is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. SGS employs over 46,000 people and operates a network of more than 1,000 offices and laboratories around the world.

The project was carried out for the Consumer Testing Services (CTS) business unit of SGS in the United States. This department helps companies to reduce risks, improve efficiency and guarantee compliance with contractual or regulatory requirements throughout the entire production chain. Product Integrity Engineering (PIE) is a specific component of this specialized service.

One of the crucial tools needed for a good functioning of the PIE (Product Integrity Engineering) department is a powerful Injury Knowledge Base. Such a knowledge base allows team members to search in data with regard to injuries, deaths and other reported incidents, collected over the years by government institutions. The project's aim was threefold:

• Providing a knowledge base containing 6 million knowledge objects about incidents involving products. Performance was essential as the knowledge base grows by 1 to 2 million knowledge objects each year.
• Allowing SGS consultants to find information in the knowledge base quickly and in a user-friendly way. This is made possible thanks to dynamic views, a unique and patented feature of the TiNK platform from ICMS Group. Its use is so obvious that extensive training is not even needed.
• Making this knowledge base available online to SGS customers, as an additional service. This has been the case since January 1st, 2007.

SGS has drawn up an internal business plan about this project, which showed the project to pay for itself in less than 9 months. This is without taking into account the added benefits they want to realize with regard to marketing and exposure to customers.