Microwave masters Whirlpool Group

MICROWAVE MASTERS

A leading European white goods manufacturer and a subsidiary of the global Whirlpool Group, Whirlpool Sweden AB offers advanced technology to create built-in microwave ovens. Industry Europe spoke to the general manager, Raphael Delrue, to find out more. Emma-Jane Batey reports.

Well-known global white goods manufacturer Whirlpool Group’s Swedish subsidiary Whirlpool Sweden AB is dedicated to the development and production of built-in microwave ovens. Providing technology-driven microwaves for both the Whirlpool brand and a few select own-brand customers, Whirlpool Sweden employs around 400 people.

General manager Mr Raphael Delrue told Industry Europe how Whirlpool Sweden works with its parent company to its best advantage. He said, “We are operating within the western Europe part of the global Whirlpool Group, within the product group ‘food preparation’. We deliver our products to our sales organizations and have some direct delivery with chosen customers, most notably Ikea, for whom we design and manufacture built-in microwave ovens – our speciality. We stay close to the Whirlpool HQ in Italy and ensure that we make the most of the opportunities for investment and development that come from being part of such a successful group.”

Innovating for more than half a century

Based in the city of Norrköping, Whirlpool Sweden has more than 50 years’ experience in microwave technology and engineering, which it puts to good use in its state-of-theart development centre. This design and technology-focused development centre is central to the company’s position as a leading manufacturer of built-in microwave ovens. With more than 60 technicians and engineers working at the centre, innovative new products are regularly created as well as practical upgrades for existing products.

Mr Delrue continued, “Our development centre supports the Whirlpool corporate organisation and all the Group’s production centres for microwave ovens, which are a key ingredient in the Whirlpool brand. We are continually working on improving the basic features of our microwaves so that they are the best on the market, with the type of features that consumers actually want and use. We are dedicated to microwave ovens only here at Norrköping, so we really know our stuff!”

Whirlpool Sweden has recently been focusing its efforts on streamlining production flows and organisation in order to

maintain its competitive advantage. With the challenges of the global economic crisis impacting the overall business, Mr Delrue is clear that keeping production quality high in technology-focused microwave ovens while ensuring that costs are as competitive as products manufactured in best-cost countries is what will secure its future.

Growing and upgrading

He said, “We currently manufacture around 500,000 microwave ovens each year and we expect this to grow year on year, thanks to our continued investment in upgrading our facilities and our unrivalled commitment to developing innovative products.”

Whirlpool Sweden is a major supplier to Ikea, providing built-in microwave ovens to Ikea’s European operations. The Norrköping production centre delivers goods through Direct Delivery channel to some selected trade partners and most of its production to all the Whirlpool sales organisations across Europe. The sales organisations sell directly to big retailers, and provide all Whirlpool’s built-in microwave ovens for its designed kitchens, which are often sold through largescale kitchen design stores across Europe.

Staying ahead of trends affecting microwave ovens, such as eating habits and kitchen design trends, is imperative to Whirlpool Sweden’s continued success. Mr Delrue explained that its design and development centre pays great attention to these issues in order to implement them into its products. He said, “We are certainly finding that the macro-trend of reducing energy consumption is important in our industry, so we are working hard to ensure that our microwave ovens are as efficient as possible, while still offering powerful cooking. We have seen a growing trend in providing more design-led products too, so our range includes a number of minimalist-style microwave ovens. Perhaps the most influential trend is that of combined cooking and heating; we’ve been development more functions for cooking ‘crispy’ food like toast and roast chicken.”

Such developments have led Whirlpool Sweden to create the patented ‘Crisp’ feature – which it is calling the ‘6th Sense’ function.

Producing roast chicken with crispy skin that’s as good as in a traditional oven.

Investment in a new factory is a key aspect of Whirlpool Sweden’s 2013 plans for continued development. The company has a 65,000m2 production site in its new layout factory, still based in Norrköping, which it expects to be operational at the beginning of 2013, with four new production lines and even more facilities available to its designers and engineers.

Mr Delrue concluded, “We are in a strong position to see excellent results in 2013 and beyond. We have good opportunities within the global Whirlpool Group to deliver advanced built-in microwave ovens and we will also continue with our Ikea partnership. We expect to build on our 10 per cent growth achieved in 2012 with at least the same in 2013, particularly as we are soon to launch our new product platform ‘Phoenix’, which will allow us to target more mid- to high-range markets in the coming years.” n