www.cottoninc.com
	Cotton Incorporated

Cotton Incorporated was founded in the early l970s by the U.S. growers of upland cotton. The organization's mission is to increase the demand for and profitability of cotton through research, while building up customer demand through advertising and promotion. Over the last few decades innovations such as wrinkle-free cotton garments have held cotton in the spotlight, as does the now famous “The Fabric of Our Lives” television campaign. The Seal of Cotton, created in 1973, provides point-of-purchase brand identification and is now recognized by eight out of 10 consumers.

Cotton Incorporated is unique among the CCRC members, since it is a trade association and governed quite differently from corporations. The value of participation was clear to Cotton's leaders, however. “Over 75 percent of each washload includes cotton or cotton blends,” said Ira Livingston Cotton, Incorporated's senior vice president, consumer marketing, and CCRC board member. “Any way that we can increase our knowledge base and help the consumer be more well-informed is a benefit for our membership.”

Cotton Incorporated's world headquarters is in Cary, NC, with consumer marketing based in New York. Cotton Incorporated's trade site, www.cottoninc.com, includes The COTTONWORKS® Fabric Library for worldwide sourcing, as well as fashion trends, agricultural and textile research and industry information, importer updates, and consumer data.

The www.fabricofourlives.com site is designed for consumers, providing a broad range of information on everything from fashion and decorating to lifestyle and fabric care.

back to top

	www.geappliances.com
	GE Consumer & Industrial

General Electric’s Consumer & Industrial business was created in January of 2004 when GE Consumer Products merged with GE Industrial Systems. Led by President and CEO Lloyd Trotter, GE Consumer & Industrial is a $14 billion global business with 75,000 employees in over 150 locations. With more than a century of experience inventing cutting-edge products and services, GE Consumer & Industrial strives to make life better, more convenient and more efficient for consumers as well as commercial and industrial customers.

“At GE, we first began considering such an alliance as a way to develop a competitive advantage for our laundry business,” said Jon Jacoby, GE Consumer & Industrial's business development manager for clothing care and CCRC board member. “We wanted to better understand what other segments of the industry were doing in order to develop more leading-edge products.”

GE recently launched its new GE Profile Harmony™ clothes care system with which users select a wash setting based on what they throw into their load, not by pre-set fabric settings. The washer automatically communicates the settings to the dryer, so the user only has to enter the information once. The washer's stain inspector feature enables the consumer to treat up to 65 different stains with inputs of fabric type and color. GE established the variables for the settings from information shared among CCRC members.

GE Consumer & Industrial is based in Louisville, KY. For more information on GE's appliance business, visit www.geappliances.com.

back to top

	www.milliken.com
	Milliken & Company

A leading international manufacturer, Milliken & Company is one of the world's largest privately held textile and chemical companies. Recognized for its continuous quality improvement process, the company's progressive and innovative business strategies and reputation for customer service continue to serve as a corporate cornerstone. Headquartered in Spartanburg, S.C., the company's approximately 14,000 associates work from over 65 manufacturing facilities, originating in five southeastern states and extending to 11 countries worldwide.

Matt Richardson, director of profitable growth and strategic planning at Milliken & Company and a CCRC board member, said his company finds CCRC valuable because it enhances their knowledge of consumers. “P&G and VF are both valued customers of ours and we work closely with Cotton Incorporated,” Richardson said. “Working with companies like GE, P&G and Cotton who get direct feedback from consumers helps us get closer to that end customer.” For more information about Milliken & Company, visit www.milliken.com.

back to top

	www.pg.com
	P&G

P&G creates more new brands and categories than any other consumer goods company. The company's brand creation and product development leadership is driven by the company's enormous innovative capacity. P&G has more than 7,500 PhDs and researchers working in 20 technical centers on four continents and more than 29,000 patented technologies for products that are in the market today. The company is multiplying this capability by collaborating more extensively with external innovation partners to “connect and develop.” The vision is that 50 percent of all P&G discovery and invention will come from outside the company.

“What used to be R&D is now C&D or ‘connect and develop,'” said George Grody, director of global strategic alliances for Procter & Gamble's Fabric and Home Care Division. “That means connecting with others through alliances such as CCRC so that we create ideas and innovations that are compatible with emerging technologies.”

The $12.6 billion Fabric and Home Care business unit includes laundry detergents, fabric conditioners, bleach, care for special fabrics, dish care and household cleaners. The billion-dollar brands are Tide®, which cleans more than 32 million loads of laundry every day and Ariel® which launders more than 300 million pieces of clothing daily and Downy® which softens 85 billion garments per year. For more information, visit www.pg.com for the latest news and in-depth information about P&G and its brands. P&G is based in Cincinnati, OH.

back to top

	www.vfc.com
	VF Corporation

VF Corporation (NYSE: VFC) is the world's largest apparel company. For 102 years, VF has grown by offering consumers high-quality, high-value jeanswear, intimate apparel, outdoor apparel and equipment, children's playwear and occupational uniforms. One out of every four jeans sold in the U.S. is a VF brand and Vanity Fair is a leading intimate apparel brand in department stores.

VF is also the nation's top supplier of workwear and career apparel. VF Imagewear manages uniform programs for national accounts such as FedEx, American Airlines, BellSouth, and the U.S. Customs and Immigration and Naturalization Service. In one of its earliest experiments, CCRC investigated whether they could improve on VF Imagewear's own finely-researched uniform care recommendations. The results gave VF Imagewear exciting new information to enhance the best-practice recommendations for all of its clients, according to Jamey Cashman, VF Imagewear director of marketing, and CCRC board member. The experiment itself gave CCRC a working protocol for future studies.

VF Corporation's press releases, annual report and other information can be accessed through the company's home page, www.vfc.com.

back to top

	www.uky.edu
	University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky's Textile Testing Laboratory assists manufacturers in the development of high-quality textiles and apparel products. From evaluating a new fabric to testing a protective finish to measuring soil removal in a washing machine, new issues and innovations have kept the laboratory busy for 15 years.

CCRC experiments are conducted at the Textile Testing Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth P. Easter, director of the Textile Testing Laboratory, and a CCRC board member. Her work and that of her student assistants has helped improve fabric performance and developed better cycles for appliances while evaluating all kinds of technologies for cleaning and care.

“We could see the rapid growth of innovations, but we could also see emerging problems,” Easter said. “We sought an opportunity to conduct forward-looking research on all phases of clothes care and solve real-world problems before they reached consumers.”

The University of Kentucky is based in Lexington, KY and has approximately 18,000 undergraduate and 6,000 graduate and professional students. For more information go to www.uky.edu.

back to top

	www.northwestern.edu
	Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science

Northwestern's Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences is part of the university's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Industrial engineering is concerned with the design, analysis and implementation of any production or service system with the goal of improving its quality and productivity. The department was established in 1958 and is consistently ranked among the top 10 in the country. Dr. Bruce E. Ankenman is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, as well as a CCRC board member. Ankenman has developed simple-to-use, yet statistically powerful tools for the design and analysis of industrial experiments. Ankenman provides guidance and oversight in designing CCRC experiments, and then applies statistical testing to the experiment results.

The McCormick School's Office of Industry Relations fosters relationships between the school and industry through collaborative research projects, cooperative education links and graduate recruitment opportunities. Ira J. Uslander is the executive director of industry relations for Northwestern's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and a CCRC board member. “We found it unusual for so many major players to get together to create a long-term consumer benefit,” Uslander said. “I'm looking at the contacts we're making as potential employers and co-op employers,” Uslander said. “But our primary motivation was that Northwestern should participate in such an innovative concept. It can be replicated in other industries, and helps fulfills the university's social responsibilities.”

Northwestern University is based in Evanston, IL. For more information on the McCormick School, see www.industry.northwestern.edu.

back to top