David Calkins | Product Manager Our Product Management & Engineering Team continues to execute its 5 Year Plan & Innovation Initiative to develop new ideas that build the next generation of hot water solutions, as well as to enhance and refresh current product lines. We are also working to develop processes for introducing innovative new products at an even faster pace than before. We are excited to be in the final stages of the Eemax LavAdvantage product launch, which is scheduled for July. LavAdvantage will take our thermostatic hand washing offering to a new level, and is a first step toward refreshing our hand washing product line in more than 10 years. As part of the larger strategy across Rheem to increase and improve the product development pipeline, Eemax has launched its Innovation Initiative; keeping a keen focus on what Eemax does best—engineering new “point of use” tankless hot water products. The first part of this plan consists of adding to the current product management and engineering teams. The addition of these new hires will enable Eemax to increase the number of new products we can launch per year. Another step toward moving the effort ahead has been the initiation of the design planning process through the Innovation Hackathon conducted on May 16-17. This event combined teaching ideation methods and how to apply them to actual product initiatives we are working on at Eemax. It was a busy 1½ days for participants from the cross-functional Eemax teams: digging deep to work through the ideation sprints, prototyping, and actual customer interviews. This process provided the tools that will allow the team to compile an improved VOC (voice of the customer) and understand product requirements. Customer insights and consumer feedback is vital information that will ensure we are developing the right product to meet our customer’s needs in the various segments that we play.