Strategic Innovation
As Director of Strategic Innovation for Karcher, I focused on the future, ensuring a strong and sustainable product portfolio for North America, but in collaboration with a global development team. The following projects are a few selections I’m able to share.
Single Step Hard Floor Cleaning
A trend toward hard floors has been accelerating in North America. To defend Karcher’s position as the professional market leader, an innovative product was needed. And the market was desperate for something to reduce the steps and tools required for cleaning hard floors and leaving them shiny. The research and innovation workshops conducted with my team led to the above novel consumer and professional products. And a Red Dot design award.
Connected Control Unit Integrating a Smart Device
Role: Director of Strategic Innovation / Industrial Design, Global Team Effort
The new generation of walk-behind floor scrubbers impresses with a unique, patented control concept - a smart operating unit with smartphone integration. In conjunction with the Kärcher Machine Connect app, the needs of various users are optimally covered. Modes are switched at the flick of a wrist: In portrait format, the smartphone is used to manage and configure machines. In landscape mode, it becomes an extended machine display that shows important cleaning parameters and notifications.
Next Generation of Walk Behind Scrubbers
Walk behind scrubbers are the bread and butter of floorcare manufacturers product lines. I ran a 3 day idea synthesis workshop in Germany, overseeing the process while also representing the North American customer needs. About 30 designers, engineers, and product managers from global offices attended, each representing local needs. The ensuing developments by the Karcher development team in Germany have delivered a line of scrubbers meeting North American needs for the first time.
Hot Water Cabinet Pressure Washer
Role: Director of Strategic Innovation / Industrial Design
By acquiring different brands manufacturing similar products, you gain opportunities to improve costs through the economies of scale, which is the DNA for this project. By collaborating with product & manufacturing engineers and then diving deep into the brands, we developed strategic design plans to differentiate 3 brand’s similar machines while creating a modular platform shared by all. Karcher, Hotsy, and Landa dealers would enjoy specific machine differences which both supported and elevated their brands while truly improving user experience.
Oil & Gas Equipment Line & Brand
The demands of the oil fields are particularly extreme. I spent much time on ethnography, interviewing workers on drill sites, and with service shops who created high dollar & rugged custom fabrications. The above visualizations represent opportunities leveraging Karcher’s technical expertise, and products desperately needed in the oilfields due to unique user needs and compliance with highly regulated environmental and safety requirements.
