GE Appliances’ CoCREATE Facility is a Hub for Community Innovation

For a company that believes in innovation, GE Appliances’ new Stamford, Connecticut, CoCREATE facility is taking that a step further, if that is possible.

The facility, officially opened Oct. 12 in a ceremony feature local and state dignitaries, customers, GE Appliance technicians, and students from local colleges and high schools, is bringing together the global appliance company’s FirstBuildinitiative, a makerspace that is open to the public, and a microfactory that is part of the GEA’s push to reshore manufacturing. The facility also includes a showroom, featuring kitchens dedicated to GEA’s major brands – Monogram, Profile, Café, GE, Hotpoint, and parent company Haier – to give customers a view of the appliances as they would appear inside homes.

The 67,000-square-foot facility nestled downtown in Stamford, which ranks in the top 4% of the most expensive cities in the world to live according to data from Livingcost.org. However, GE Appliances is betting that Stamford, the hometown of CEO Kevin Nolan, is the right fit for the unique space. The state of Connecticut, the University of Connecticut and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, as well as local high schools, are already engaged in the project.

“Since the inception of this incredible space, our students have been able to gain hands-on experience in this unique facility,” said CSCU Chancellor Terrance Cheng. “Kevin made sure to include students from local institutions, and specifically he wanted community college students to be in on the ground floor of the design, build-out, and ultimately the usage of CoCREATE. With thousands of jobs open today and thousands more expected to open in coming years, CoCREATE is preparing the next generation of workers from all walks of life for advanced manufacturing jobs in Connecticut, and we are thrilled to be part of it.”

Nolan provided Supply Chain Management Review a tour of the facility, and noted that he hopes it serves as both a community focal point and an innovation incubator.

“In this area, there is nothing like this, especially with all the tools, so we’re hoping it [serves the community],” he said. “We’re trying to engage with local artists.”

In that spirit, the facility was officially opened not with a ribbon cutting, but rather by pushing together two pieces of art created by a local artist. When the sections connected, the word CoCREATE were illuminated.

(Photo: GE Appliances)

The microfactory is the workhorse of the facility where GE Appliances produces products that may not have the volumes to dedicate an assembly line to, or items that require more personalization. The Monogram Hearth Oven and GE Profile Smart Mixer are among the products produced in the facility. It is a larger microfactory than the one in Louisville, Kentucky, where GE Appliances’ of FirstBuild site is located, but like Louisville, Nolan hopes the FirstBuild maker site inside CoCREATE offers inspiration to local inventors to either create their own designs, or maybe create the next great GE Appliances’ success story.

There is also a room dedicated to the history of GE Appliances and the Monogram café that is open to the public to come in, enjoy a coffee and relax or get some work done.

“To me, it wasn’t enough to just have a showroom. We wanted to show off the history of small appliances, which we just got back into a few years ago,” Nolan said.

“There is no other American appliance company that has the heritage that we have,” he added.

The Monogram Test Kitchen is a working kitchen and serves as another area where the community can engage with GE Appliances. Stamford-based Village Community Foundation, which offers a kitchen incubator program that provides mentorship and integrated sales and marketing channels to help emerging area chefs and restaurateurs succeed, has formed a partnership to utilize the Monogram Test Kitchen.

Ron Fernandez, who is leading the site, said GE Appliances will engage with local groups, from the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, to organizations and schools, to help educate the community on the career opportunities available in manufacturing and STEM, and to offer the space to drive their creativity.
Partnerships with the University of Connecticut and Connecticut State Colleges & Universities allow students to work paid, part-time shifts in the factory after classes alongside CoCREATE engineers.

Nolan noted that great ideas don’t always come from engineers, but from the community at large, and GE Appliances hopes to tap into that creativity while proving to be an engaged, community-focused employer.

“Our indoor smoker, we would never have thought about that … that’s the benefit of co-creation,” he said. “We feel there is huge opportunity working with users. As we are reshoring all this manufacturing, you have to have innovation (GE Appliances has committed $2 billion to innovation). Without innovation, that is a risky bet.”

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