This month, LG CEO Cho visited the company’s key production bases in Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, directly looking into key factors of operational advancement strategies, such as quality enhancement, supply chain, cost structure improvement, safety and productivity of vehicle components, home appliances and TVs. Ultimately, the company aims to strengthen competitiveness and growth in key business areas and global markets.
“Let’s further strengthen our market dominance and solidify the foundation for sustainable growth by upgrading our locally-optimized operation methods and providing world-class quality, cost competitiveness and reliable delivery to our customers,” said CEO Cho. “We should look to pioneer future markets with our unmatched innovation and ability to overcome challenges, while holding firm to the belief that opportunities come from delivering exceptional customer experiences.”
The CEO began his Asian tour in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he was joined by the heads of LG’s Asian subsidiaries for a management meeting. There, he was briefed on the company’s regional performance and discussed the status of individual markets including Vietnam, which serves as a global production base for LG’s electronic devices and home appliances. He also had in-depth talks with the subsidiary heads on a variety of business matters, such as improving production efficiency, verifying mass production processes for new products, enhancing quality control and boosting growth through mutually beneficial partnerships.Departing Vietnam, CEO Cho headed to Thailand to visit the Rayong factory and its home appliance production lines. Next, he traveled to Jakarta, Indonesia to inspect LG’s Cibitung plant, which has become a major TV production base for the company’s premium product lineups, including LG OLED TVs. After Jakarta, the CEO made a stop in the city of Tangerang, meeting staff and looking over facilities at the local LG plant, which focuses primarily on refrigerator production.
“Our Vietnam and Indonesia subsidiaries now form a complete business structure, having recently added a local R&D subsidiary to the production and sales corporations already in place,” noted CEO Cho, who also called on all subsidiaries in the Asia region to accelerate their business management by implementing active localization strategiesLast year, the company achieved sales of more than KRW 7.8 trillion in the Asian market, continuously increasing sales by about KRW 1 trillion yearly with double-digit growth over the past two years.This year alone, the CEO has already spent more than 150 hours in the air visiting nine countries across North America, Europe, Asia and Central and South America – participating in major events, including CES 2023 and AHR Expo in the U.S.A. and ISE 2023 in Spain, and touring various LG facilities in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Australia
Category Archives: Manufacturing
Electrolux Group seeks alternative buyer to Memphis factory
The divestment of the Electrolux Group manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, will not be completed as expected since the intended buyer has failed to proceed to closing. Electrolux Group will now seek an alternative buyer.
As earlier communicated, completion of the divestment of the facility was contingent on various factors. The intended buyer has defaulted on its obligations and the agreement is therefore terminated.
In the now terminated contract, communicated on October 12 and December 19, 2022, Electrolux Group had agreed to divest the Memphis facility for a cash consideration of USD 82.5m (approx. SEK 930m). Production in Memphis stopped on June 30, 2022, and the operations have been transferred to the new facility in Springfield, Tennessee.
Iran’s rise in exports
The export of home appliances from Iran rose 24 percent in the past Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20), the director-general of the Home Appliances Office of the Ministry of Industry, Mining, and Trade announced.
Speaking in a TV program, Mohsen Shokrollahi said cooling and heating appliances including evaporative coolers, heaters, and water heaters with a growth of 30 percent, accounted for the lion’s share of the export in the previous year.
“With 30 million dollars value of export, we had also a growth of 82 percent in the export of refrigerators and freezers in the past year”, he added.
The home appliance industry is one of the industries that faced significant production growth in the past year, so it can be said that Iranian manufacturers were able to take a significant share of the market in the production of refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, evaporative coolers, and TV sets, and even in small household appliances, the production status is outstanding.
The official announced that about 600 home appliance production units are active in the country.
Over the past few years, the Iranian government has been following a new strategy for supporting domestic production to neutralize the impacts of the U.S. sanctions while reducing the reliance of the economy on oil revenues.
The home appliances sector has been one of the pioneers in this regard and like many other areas, the production of home appliances has witnessed a significant rise in the past six years.
Electrolux Delivering sustainable business strategy
Jonas Samuelson, Electrolux Group CEO, and Vanessa Butani, VP Group Sustainability, talk about achieving the Electrolux Group science-based climate target three years ahead of schedule, and how the company managed challenges in 2022 to continue work toward its For the Better 2030 goals. This interview is published in the Electrolux Group Sustainability Report 2022. https://www.electroluxgroup.com/en/delivering-on-our-sustainable-business-strategy-35311/
LG Electronics estimates to log second-highest Q1 profit of W1.5tr
LG Electronics said Friday it predicted its first-quarter operating earnings at 1.5 trillion won ($1.14 billion), which will likely be the company’s second-highest profit for the January-March period, outpacing Samsung Electronics’ financial result for the first time in more than a decade.Details on each business sector’s estimated figures were not available in Friday’s earnings guidance, but market watchers expect that LG’s key business divisions for home appliances, TVs and vehicle components put up solid results in the January-March period.
Hisense Europe special day
5th April was special day for Hisense Europe. Not only that on that exact day Gorenje brand celebrated its birthday, but on same day They had special visit from Slovenian Nordic national team – top ski jumpers, cross-country skiers and nordic combined, at our European headquarters in Velenje (Slovenia). This year’s visit was a double celebration – the medals that our Nordics won in Planica, and on the very day of their visit, Gorenje brand also celebrated its 73rd birthday, which as the proud sponsor of the Slovenian Nordic national teams has been for more than 30 years.
Although they are “old acquaintances”, this year we were also able to show the Nordics something new – the Hisense R&D Center, where they were welcomed by Dr. Boštjan Pečnik, Hisense Europe Executive Vice-President, responsible for Research and Development who presented the R&D Center, and Alenka Potočnik Anžič, Hisense Europe Marketing Director. “I am happy that we have been a long-standing partner of the Nordic national team, for more than 30 years and we are proud of it. It is about a kind of sustainable responsibility towards the environment in which we operate in Slovenia. We proudly support you and sincerely wish you both sporting and personal success in the future,” said Alenka Potočnik Anžič.
The Nordics team also got to know our design team, which made design for a ski jumping helmet for this year, which symbolizes an eagle. “We couldn’t have chosen a better sponsorship,” said Matevž Popič, head of Product Design at Hisense Europe. “We are all already like a family and we are happy to follow your successes and we will continue to cheer you on your way.”
After visiting every corner of our huge company in Velenje, Slovenian Nordic team stopped to visit local Handball Club Gorenje Velenje, which Gorenje brand is sponsoring for over 30 years as well.
Miele subsidiary Agrilution ends business with automated greenhouses
Daily freshly harvested salads and herbs from an automatically controlled greenhouse (‘Plantcube’) – with this concept, the Munich-based start-up Agrilution wanted to bring the idea of vertical farming into the home. Since the end of 2019, this has been happening under the umbrella of the Miele Group. Now, the Gütersloh-based household appliance company has announced that it will no longer be continuing the business with the Plantcubes due to a lack of economic prospects. This affects almost 40 salaried as well as additional student employees, who have been given notice of termination due to the closure of the business on June 30, 2023. The approximately 650 users, who also purchased their seeds (‘Seedbars’) through Agrilution, will soon receive an offer to buy back their equipment.
Experts understand ‘vertical farming’ as the space-saving supply of fresh food via large, multi-storey greenhouses. Agrilution itself was founded in 2013, but then had to file for insolvency proceedings in 2019 after a financing round could not be realised as planned. After the opening of insolvency proceedings, Miele took over the brand, the know-how and almost all employees in a so-called asset deal and transferred them to the newly founded 100% subsidiary Agrilution Systems GmbH.
Over the past few years, with intensive financial and technical support from Miele, work has been done to guide the business model, product portfolio and workforce into a sustainable marketable future. ‘Unfortunately, however, it has since become apparent that demand has fallen far short of expectations,’ says Gernot Trettenbrein, Senior Vice President New Growth Factory, amongst others responsible for new business areas at Miele. In addition, this product was marketed at over 3,000 euros due to its technical complexity.
In order to make the Plantcube attractive to broader target groups, an additional series was to be launched at a significantly lower entry price. However, this could no longer be realised due to the skyrocketing costs of materials, energy and logistics. As a result, after careful consideration of all available options, the decision was made not to pursue the plantcube business any further. In conjunction with this, Agrilution’s business operations will cease on June 30, 2023. Miele would like to thank the Agrilution team for their dedicated service and wishes all employees the success they deserve in their future careers.
The dealers who marketed Agrilution’s Plantcube as resellers have already been informed separately by Agrilution, as have all end customers and other users. Furthermore, the company has announced that it will buy back all Plantcubes that are in use or still in stock. Detailed offers will follow within the next few weeks
Greaidea OEM gas hob manufacturer
Established in 2000, the past over 20 years witnessed great chances of our product, R&D, quality level, and service as well. From now on, Greaidea has its own two production bases with over 500 employees, covering 100,000㎡. In order to meet the growing marketing needs, we have equipped with 6 assembly lines for gas hob and rang Greaidea has over 20 year’s experience in manufacturing high quality gas hob and range hood. Our factory locates in Nantou town, Zhongshan city. In our R&D department, 16 engineers are employed to guarantee our R&D advantage and continuous improvement. Every year, 3% of revenue will be invested to R&D . With excellent manufacturing team & QC team, we can realize the annual output 800,000pcs gas hob and 300,000pcs range hood product with optimal quality.
Gas hob: 800,000 pcs / year
Range hood: 300,000 pcs
Collaboration agreement between Copreci and Ikerlan
The Ikerlan technology centre and Copreci (design and manufacture of components and systems for household appliances) have signed a technological collaboration agreement for the next four years that will allow the development of innovations in electronics, providing robustness, efficiency and maintainability requirements to the basic functionality. In addition, the products developed will integrate cybersecurity and artificial intelligence technologies that will result in products with greater added value, which are more resilient and user-friendly. “The agreement – Copreci explains – will enable technological development in the household appliance sector and includes the development of technology in the areas of electromagnetism, electrical machines and power electronics, for the design and integral development of small electric drives, motor control strategies, contactless charging systems for household appliances (Inductive Coupling Power Transfer) or induction heating systems for household appliances, among others”. This new alliance between Copreci and Ikerlan strengthens the close relationship that both entities have maintained for more than 45 years. Ikerlan has extensive experience in the development of cutting-edge technologies in electromagnetism and power electronics. It has also participated in various European research projects such as: the UltimateGaN project (based on gallium nitride semiconductors), Reaction (based on silicon carbide semiconductors for energy technologies) or InductIce (application for de-icing aircraft wings by means of induction heating).
Electrolux invests 110 million in Susegana
If the unions accept measures aimed at increasing productivity, the Treviso plant could become the European hub in the production of mid-range built-in refrigerators with an annual production of 1.1 million pieces Electrolux is considering investing 110 million euros in the period 2024-2026 to produce built-in refrigerators by expanding the Susegana plant. As reported by Il Sole 24 Ore on 29 November, the announcement of the Susegana option came after Electrolux last year, bet 102 million euros on the dishwasher factory in Solaro (Milan)
Electrolux had announced,,the closure of the Hungarian factory in Nyíregyháza, the largest in Europe dedicated to the production of refrigerators.
In return, however, the Swedish company has asked the unions to improve productivity. In a meeting with the union representatives (Fiom, Fim and Uilm), the company explained the project to make Susegana a reference point for the production of built-in refrigerators.
In the high-end range, products with retail prices above a thousand euros, the new products of the Genesi platform are producing results in line with the multinational’s expectations. Now Electrolux wants to reduce costs in productions aimed at the mid-market segment.110 million euros of investments will go to a new Genesi line, which would be the third, and then to redo and modernize the technological departments, optimizing logistics and supply flows.
Electrolux has explained to the unions that it will be necessary to reach by 2027 the production of 1.1 million pieces per year through a significant number of permanent hirings.
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