K-Next was a comprehensive program to redesign all the Sears Kenmore kitchen appliances. Electrolux had a significant portion of the Kenmore cooking business, and as a result, allowed me to be heavily involved in the creation of their visual brand language.
The platform we were working with was about eight years old at this point. Major appliances are immensely expensive to tool and as a result, businesses are tempted to run their products well past their market peak. Working with a large customer like Sears gave us an opportunity to inject some capital into some key fit, feel, and finish initiatives. I used this illustration to help guide the dialogue on what would be in scope.
Typical for a huge customer like Sears, once the project was approved, we had a very tight timeline to execute the industrial design in order to hit production target dates. We partnered with Priority Designs in Columbus, Ohio, to add some man power to the project. After a week-long design workshop, working primarily on the control panel, four concept families were selected.
1C and D rose to the top by closing the gap off on the sides on the control panel and staying more evolutionary of the existing design.
Once the longest tooling lead time item had been finalized it was time to focus on the rest of the product. The gas cooktop was a huge area of importance to me to improve. We were able to extend the grates further to the left and right than the previous design. This was a major engineering tooling challenge that we were able to champion and have success. The inner sump was surfaced with a soft curve rather than a hard chamfer for ease of wiping. I also added a wipe out area in the front to make the scooping of crumbs easier to accomplish. I was awarded a utility patent for that detail.
The doors and manifold had been deep drawn parts historically. As a result, the corners and edge radii were pretty washed out. This made it impossible to get a good flush fit between parts. We were able to design and convince the manufacturing team to produce a folded and toggle lock concept that allowed a much-improved fit on the product.
Along with the free-standing range, I worked on the over-the-range microwaves, slide-in ranges, cooktops, and wall ovens.
