Whirlpool Corporation, headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan, is a global home appliance manufacturer with approximately $19 billion in annual sales, 55 manufacturing and research centers, and 59,000 employees. Whirlpool’s mission is to improve satisfaction and engagement with their home appliances.

Kitchen appliance technology has advanced significantly over the last decade. However, the consumer experience and interaction has stayed relatively stagnant. The responsibility and effort to prepare a meal at home falls entirely on a home cook, often with very little assistance.

Our Cooking GPS alleviates the mental stress involved with meal coordination. The mobile application enables users to choose from pre-curated meals or incorporate singular recipes into a customized meal. When the user is ready to start the cooking process, the software compiles all preparation steps into a single easy-to-follow instruction list that accounts for time and efficiency.

Once meal preparation begins, the user is taken to a screen that displays all cooking steps ordered by start time. The current step is highlighted, displaying specific preparation instructions and necessary ingredients. In addition, a progress bar and estimated completion time is shown to communicate preparation progress. Once a step is completed, the user dismisses it. Completed steps are available to view by scrolling up on the meal preparation screen.

The Cooking GPS system is fully integrated into Whirlpool appliances, displaying steps in progress with relevant information such as timers, oven cycles, and stovetop burner temperatures.

The front ends for the Cooking GPS mobile application and smart appliance application are built using the Flutter framework. The back end consists of a Flask server connected to our job-shop algorithm and a WebSocket server to facilitate communication between the mobile application and appliance application.