Challenging times will drive better products

Western makers of washing machines, cookers and other consumer durables can maintain market leading positions despite the challenge from the Far East, provided they make efforts to meet the needs and aspirations of customers such as assisting in healthy living, are easy to use and reduce wastage of energy and materials. This was the strong message that came across from Johan Almquist, senior vice president global brand and marketing for Electrolux, and Thomas Johansson, the company's design director of major appliances. The occasion was the presentation and judging of the annual Electrolux Design Lab competition at the 100% Design event in London. There are many drivers affecting the supply of products for the bulk of the population in a changing world. "We are in the biggest demographic change in the World's history," Almquist says. "The population is getting older and people have more time. The other driver is individual decision making. The consumer is in control and manufacturers have to adapt to them." He clearly sees this as an opportunity to sell products to an ageing population with spending power, and seemed to be particularly focused on food preparation, taking advantage of the effect of television chefs and the move to more healthy eating. "Our challenge is to provide professional capabilities in a domestic space," he says. "Providing products for healthy living is the new luxury. Consumers are empowered and want to learn more. But we have the problem of how to teach them to use our products in a better way." Commenting on the design of Electrolux products his colleague, Thomas Johansson, says: "It's about appearance, sound and light. We also work with colour management as people like to own a number of products in the same colour. "But, then we have this," he says holding up one of the company's new Ultra Silencer Green models. Strangely, although having a green logo and on-off button, it is black. Johansson soon explains that the reason that it is black is because its body is made of post consumer recycled polypropylene. "Black was the only colour our suppliers could guarantee," he says. "The project challenged us internally and challenged our suppliers, but 55% of all the plastic used in the product is recycled. We tried to get recycled ABS but we couldn't find suitable supplies." With regards to future onward recyclability, he says it was 93%, well above the requirements of the latest European legislation. He adds: "Compared with its immediate Electrolux predecessor, which requires 2000W to run, it is down to 1250W and gives the same performance." According to Johansson, a normal vacuum cleaner has a working life of eight years, and 20million vacuum cleaners are sold annually in Europe. Since introducing recycled plastic, Electrolux has reduced the amount of crude oil it needs to make each product by 2litres. He argued that if everyone in Europe were to buy its new products this would result in an annual saving of 250,000 barrels of oil and 400MW of power generating capacity. In addition, he says, the company was aiming to reduce energy consumption during manufacturing by 15% by 2012. Low noise is also an important feature of the cleaner, and at 71dBA, it is one of the quietest. Johansson now heads up design work on major domestic appliances and looking forward he says: "There is lots to do. These are still products that use a lot of energy and take a lot of material to manufacture. We also want to make user interfaces much simpler and more intuitive." This is especially apt as the company is aiming to sell to consumers who are part of an ageing population. With regards to the price of green products, Johansson says: "When the volumes go up, the price will do down. But, ultimately, the green designed products should not only be cheaper, but smaller and lighter." Future domestic appliances Wishing not to end up making dinosaur products that have been superseded by new technologies, Electrolux encourages its designers with its annual Design Lab competition. Entries this year included a wall mounted double dishwasher that allows the user to put dirty dishes in one compartment and use the other as a shelf for clean dishes. Another was an idea by Purdue University student Louis Filosa for a swipe through steam cleaner for garments. Unlike a washing machine, it could clean and press garments in a just a few seconds, as well as being something you could mount on the bedroom wall next to the wardrobe.