The Bottom Line: Innovation isn't just for Google. How Kimberly-Clark gave birth to a lucrative new product

摘要

In a windowless room at Kimberly-Clark's research offices in Neenah, Wis., a mother hoists her baby girl onto a table painted on its side to look like a school bus. Photos of puppies and kittens decorate the walls, and a mobile with Sesame Street characters hangs overhead. A nurse takes out a measuring tape. "This is Caleine - C-A-L-E-I-N-E," says Terri Berghuis, the nurse, as a woman in a blue lab coat standing to the side takes notes. "Her waist is... 460 [millimeters]. And her right pant line is ... 320." Caleine is wearing a pair of size four Huggies Supreme Natural Fit diapers, Kimberly-Clark's most technically advanced disposable diaper ever - except that this particular pair is a bust. It's leaking.