Whirlpool 2006 Annual Report Download - page 18

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15
INNOVATION
Innovation is vital to our strategy of building strong brands
that consumers prefer, enabling us to have an unmatched
and sustainable leadership position.
Whirlpool spent the past seven years working to embed
innovation as a core competence across the entire
organization to include ideas from everyone, everywhere.
Today our innovation activities involve a structured and
disciplined process to drive innovative concepts through
our innovation pipeline. The results of these efforts are
demonstrated as our pipeline grew to $3.5 billion in 2006.
In addition, we continue to expand the scope of our
innovation efforts into our business operations to include the
finance, accounting and sales groups, not just our product
development teams. More than 800 employees have been
formally trained as innovation mentors and, in turn, have
coached thousands of employees across the globe on how to
incorporate innovation tools into their daily work.
Whirlpool continues to make significant investments in
research and development, resulting in record reported
revenues of $1.6 billion from innovative products, up 110
percent versus 2005.
Whirlpool brand’s centralpark connector dock will allow
consumers to use and charge home electronic devices
while they are in the kitchen. Whirlpool is working to
bring the concept product to North America in 2007.