Whirlpool’s expansion into emerging markets poses not only exciting growth opportunity but also new challenges and supply and demand chain complexities. So the company has tapped into a “trading partner network” to consolidate the exchange of order, shipment and inventory data across continents. Perhaps a major underwear maker could benefit from such a “trading grid.”

Whirlpool Corp. recently announced that it is making a series of “changes” to some of its North American manufacturing facilities. In fact, the company plans on firing 1,200 while hiring 1,100 as part of a restructuring of the company’s regional manufacturing facilities, supply base, product platforms and technology resources, according to Manufacturing.net.

To be fair, Whirlpool is a pretty big company. Its home appliances rake in some $13 billion each year. And with 50 manufacturing and technology centers around the globe, product sales in more than 170 countries and more than 1,200 trading partners, we suppose a little workforce tweaking here and there from time to time is necessary. Not only that, the company has to invest lots of money on souped-up IT tools, as Supply & Demand Chain Executive points out.

The company has tapped a B2B connectivity solution to support global trading partner transactions and to link with its supply chain community in emerging markets. Whirlpool hopes this new “trading partner network” will consolidate the exchange of order, shipment and inventory data with its primary distributor and multiple retailers in China, as well as with other trading partners in Europe and America.

“While our expansion into emerging markets is an exciting growth opportunity for Whirlpool, it also brings with it new challenges and increases the complexity of our supply and demand chain,” said James Morrison, e-business infrastructure manager at Whirlpool. “Additionally, with the analytics and reporting for our trading partner network, available through the Trading Grid, we can better anticipate timeframes for shipment and payment and help eliminate invoice/purchase order discrepancies.”

On a related note, PR Newswire reported last month that KTNET, Korea’s largest B2B trading community is using the same trading grid that Whirlpool just deployed. Turns out, this trading grid is used by more than 40,000 trading partners each day to exchange goods and services.

Anyhow, back to this whole notion of making “changes” to the workforce. Tighty-whities maker Hanes also has a few changes up its sleeve, according to ERE Media. By the end of November, 260 Hanesbrands, Inc. employees at the company’s Lumberton, North Carolina, textile facility will cease producing fabric for sport shirts and outerwear. Another 145 employees will halt production of sheer hosiery at the company’s Marion, South Carolina, plant by February 2007. In addition to those cuts, the company said it will close another plant in Mexico, eliminating 1,700 jobs there.

Is Hanes doing the right thing, or is the company giving its workers a power-wedgie from hell? Could the company benefit from a fancy trading grid like Whirlpool?