–Access to consumer trends. KB Home has exclusive access to Whirlpool’s in-depth consumer insights. “We’re constantly working with them on merchandising, product assortment reviews and jobsite efficiencies so we can make new investments to further develop the value we are offering KB’s homeowners,” says Garwood, now Whirlpool’s director of strategy and operations for national contract sales.
KB Home's Double Zero House 2.0 features water-recycling technology from KitchenAid's dishwasher, which uses 33% less water than other highly-efficient dishwashers by saving water from the last rinse cycle for use in the first pre-rinse cycle of the next load.
–Sustainable practices. KB’s focus on resource-efficient building, especially in the western U.S., led in part to the design and creation of KitchenAid’s water-conserving Architect Series II dishwasher. The commitment by Whirlpool to developing cutting-edge products has helped KB Home stay ahead of the curve, says Bridleman. Thanks in part to the partnership, all homes sold by the builder now earn Energy Star certification.
–Streamlined supply chain. Of the thousands of homes built and sold since the two firms’ partnership began in 1993, Bridleman says there was never a time when the builder missed a closing because the appliances weren’t delivered and installed on time.
“Our process certainly helps in streamlining KB Home’s system supply chain,” says Bob Johnson, Whirlpool’s senior sales manager for national accounts. “They have one vendor for appliances that also provides installation, which means they’re not dealing with multiple vendors or multiple installation crews across their market. They also have one provider of delivery services, and that really helps streamline their procurement functions as well as their internal operational processes.”
–Logistics. Since 1993, KB has expanded from 6,800 annual deliveries in West Coast markets to more than 32,000 nationwide by 2006. To handle such growth the company created new ways of sharing information to help maintain the consistency, reliability, and predictability of the product procurement, delivery, and installation processes. Whirlpool Corporation IT specialists played a key role in helping develop those new electronic data-sharing platforms.
“Think about the delivery schedule for doing 32,000 houses a
year,” Bridleman says. “When we got that large, we had to figure out how we
could share data and delivery instructions electronically, how we could better
maximize Whirlpool’s distribution system. To me that was a huge deal. For
Whirlpool Corporation to be able to do something very specific like that for us
was big.”
