Highlights:
- Shared product architecture enables ~30% reduction of cost and development time
- Number of parts reduced by more than 40%
- ~30% less energy to preheat oven
- Consumer star rating 4.7 on five-point scale
Innovation, efficiency and sustainability are cornerstones in Electrolux Group’s strategy to drive profitable growth. Investments in the Sao Carlos cooking facility in Brazil have resulted in a sharper product offering which is gaining market shares in attractive categories, while at the same time being produced in a more cost and resource efficient way.
Growing profitably in Latin America over the past years, Electrolux Group is further improving and expanding its mix of products with a focus on built-in ovens. Offering consumers a range of new sought-after features, these appliances are manufactured in Sao Carlos, one of the facilities included in the Group’s SEK 8bn re-engineering investment initiative. This initiative has enabled a higher degree of modularization and automation, which together with the benefits of an innovation process at Group level, have resulted in an attractive line of more efficiently produced cooking appliances, as well as reduced supply chain complexity and considerable sustainability gains.
Faster innovation and fewer components
Thanks to a shared product architecture, the cost and time it takes to develop and launch a new product can be reduced by approximately 30%. As modularized features fit in a majority of the products they can be used throughout the Group. The new line of built-in ovens produced at the Sao Carlos plant are equipped with features such as air fryer, convection, a sealed cavity, and a steam function. As these features were already included in ovens sold in Europe, the shared product architecture allowed them to be added in the ovens for the Latin American market with no further innovation efforts and only minor additional investment. With ready-to-use modules that can be swiftly inserted, modularization also enables fewer components, thus reducing the complexity of the production process. Through the re-engineering initiative, the number of parts used in Sao Carlos has been lowered by more than 40%. Fewer components and suppliers also make it easier for Electrolux as a Group to manage any supply chain constraints.
Well-received resource-efficient products
The production facility in Sao Carlos and its new line of built-in ovens entail significant steps to reduce climate footprint. For example, its new state-of-the-art process for enameling has reduced the water consumption from 6.6 liters to 1.8 liter per produced oven. For the consumer, the welded cavity means that the appliance uses around 30% less energy to preheat. At the same time, integrated features such as the air fryer and steam function also enable users to enjoy more sustainable cooking and healthy living. The built-in ovens have received high scores from the consumers, with an average star rating of 4.7 on a five-point scale.