PIEK was founded in 1965 by the parents of the current two Managing Directors, Ben and Rob Walls. The parents spotted a high demand for education in the field of electronics, as e.g. applied in radios. It did not take long before the range of courses and venues was extended. In the 70s PIEK was present in many towns and cities in the Dutch provinces Limburg and Noord Brabant, providing evening courses.

When microelectronics was making itself felt in the automotive industry in the early nineties, PIEK immediately recognized this gap in the market. At the time there were hardly any courses in this field. PIOEK developed tailor-made courses for the automotive industry. It was DAF Nederland that was quick to recognize PIEK’s qualities and that asked PIEK to also develop electronics courses for lorry production. DAF Germany was soon to follow, as was the rest of Europe. Not only DAF made use of PIEK’s knowledge and experience, but also other manufacturers did, such as Skoda, Opel and Daewoo. The Netherlands then saw the cooperation emerge with INNOVAM.

In the mid-nineties PIEK started to concentrate on and specialise in courses for the electronics producing industry. These included tailor-made courses and certifications, and services to go with them. In 1995 IPC was chosen as the standard, though it was still relatively unknown in Europe. It did not take long before all PIEK instructors were all MIT certified and PIEK was authorised to provide all IPC certifications and re-certifications on IPC’s behalf.

In the new millennium PIEK has extended its activities further internationally still. Cooperation with industry organisations in Germany such as ZVEI, Vdl and EITI is now a matter of course. Apart from the IPC certifications PIEK has also marketed its own PIEK certifications, the result of 100% in-house research and development. The latter courses provide more in-depth and widened information on top of existing IPC courses, and they may be good alternatives for companies that do not strive for IPC certifications but do want to keep the knowhow of their staff up-to-date.

More and more companies want to work with PIEK, especially suppliers of soldering equipment. Currently, PIEK can make use of the soldering equipment of the best known companies, such as Almit, Ersa, Hakko, JBC, Pace, Weller, Oki/Metcal and Tooltronics.

PIEK now offers a complete service package to its customers, including IPC certifications in the fields of PCB design, PCB manufacturing, PCB assembly, PCB rework and repair, and cable and wiring techniques. Moreover, PIEK has a test centre and it has a consultancy department. Finally, PIEK has also added validation services and qualification service to its wide range of services.