The Whirlpool Global Manufacturing Council Meeting was held in Hefei, China from April 9 to 10. A total of 22 participants from Whirlpool Headquarters, North America, Europe, Brazil and India, including James Keppler, Vice President of North American Integrated Supply Chain & Quality, and Byron Green, Vice President of North American Operations/Production, conducted in-depth conversations on the implementation process of Whirlpool Global Manufacturing 2020 Strategy and the future vision in 2025.

Samuel Wu, President of Whirlpool Asia and Chairman of Whirlpool China, Jason Ai, President of Whirlpool China, Vikas Singhal, Vice President of Whirlpool Asia Manufacturing & Supply Chain, Wei Gang, Vice President of Whirlpool China Manufacturing, and other senior executives of Whirlpool China extended a warm welcome to the visitors.

The Whirlpool Global Manufacturing Council Meeting held every year in different regions since 2010, and 2019 witnessed the meeting held in China for the first time.

Focusing on Whirlpool Global Manufacturing 2020 Strategy, six key topics were discussed at the conference: First, the application of world-class manufacturing (WCM) technology for Whirlpool Production System upgrades; second, the application of industry 4.0 technology that drives security, productivity and product quality improvement; third, regional globalization organizations and capacity development; fourth, establishing a list of core and non-core components to optimize the manufacturing strategies; fifth, the introduction and application of Whirlpool Product Development processes; sixth, the establishment of global manufacturing networks. In addition, the participants also discussed about the status of global EHS, focusing on a regional overview of the application of world-class manufacturing for the upgrade of Whirlpool's production system. The world-class manufacturing system is currently being applied across all Whirlpool's centers and will be officially introduced to Whirlpool China in the second half of 2019 at its manufacturing base in Hefei. Furthermore, the participants also talked about the integration of Whirlpool product development and manufacturing system design, while jointly developing a continuous extension plan for Whirlpool Global Manufacturing 2020 Strategy.

During the two days, 22 participants visited the front-load washing machine factory, the program controller factory and the Jupiter production line.