James Dyson
You know the feeling when some everyday product lets you down. "I could have designed this better myself", you think. But how many of us turn our thoughts into actions? James Dyson does. He is a man who likes to make things work better. With his research team he has developed products that have achieved sales of over £3 billion worldwide.
Early products by James Dyson
James Dyson's first product, the Sea Truck, was launched in 1970 while he was studying at the Royal College of Art. A few years later came the award-winning Ballbarrow that can go where no wheelbarrow has ever been before. Then there was the Wheelboat and the Trolleyball. Even the integral hose, seen on most upright vacuum cleaners, is a Dyson invention.
A new idea
In 1978, James Dyson noticed how the air filter in the Ballbarrow spray-finishing room was constantly clogging with powder particles (just like a vacuum cleaner bag clogs with dust). So he designed and built an industrial cyclone tower, which removed the powder particles by exerting centrifugal forces greater than 100,000 times those of gravity. Could the same principle work in a vacuum cleaner? James Dyson set to work. 5 years and 5,127 prototypes later, the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner from Dyson arrived.
The $2,000 vacuum cleaner
It may sound like taking coals to Newcastle, but James Dyson's bagless vacuum cleaner was first sold in Japan, the home of high-tech products. Known as the "G Force", it won the 1991 International Design Fair prize in Japan. The Japanese were so impressed by its performance that the G Force became a status symbol, selling for $2,000 a piece!
The first Dyson
Using income from the Japanese licence, James Dyson decided to manufacture a new model under his own name in Britain. In June 1993 he opened his research centre and factory in Wiltshire, not far from his home, and developed a machine that collected even finer particles of dust (microscopic particles as small as cigarette smoke). The result was the DCO1, the first in a range of cleaners to give constant suction.
Dyson Dual Cyclone™
The Dual Cyclone™ system is the first breakthrough in technology since the invention of the vacuum cleaner in 1901.
The traditional bag has been replaced by two cyclone chambers which cannot clog with dust. After the Dyson's outer cyclone has spun out the larger dust and dirt particles, the inner cyclone accelerates the air still further to remove the minute health-threatening particles.
James Dyson has proved a better product can be made at a price people can afford. As a result the Dyson Dual Cyclone™ became the fastest selling vacuum cleaner ever to be made in the UK.
Root 8Cyclone™
Dyson scientists were determined to create vacuum cleaners with even higher suction. So they set to work developing an entirely new type of cyclone system. They discovered that a smaller diameter cyclone gives greater centrifugal force. So they developed a way of getting 45% more suction than a Dual Cyclone and removing more dust, by dividing the air into 8 smaller cyclones, hence the name Root 8Cyclone™
Another problem to solve
"I like your vacuum cleaners but when will you make one you don't have to push around?" This casual remark set James Dyson's mind working. Producing something that bounced aimlessly off the furniture and picked up very little dust would have been easy, but James Dyson insisted the Dyson DC06 robot should not only clean properly but should also guide itself more logically than a human would. It took 3 on-board computers, 50 sensory devices, and 60,000 hours of research to create efficient, methodical robot cleaning.
Battling for design
To Dyson, "design" means how something works, not how it looks - the design should evolve from the function. That's why the people at Dyson who design products are called "engineers". Sadly, most education systems still encourage children towards academic subjects and away from "getting their hands dirty making things". (Strange from the country that started the Industrial Revolution). It may take time, but Dyson hopes to change that.
The Dyson washing machine
Dyson engineers constantly re-examine products of all types. One of the things they looked at was the washing machine. They found that its wash action doesn't flex the fabric very much. That's why it takes a long time to release dirt. In fact, washing by hand gave better results than a single drum machine. So Dyson set about replicating a hand washing action to manipulate and flex the fabric to release dirt more quickly. In 2000, the Contrarotator™ was created - the world's first washing machine with two drums. Suddenly you could wash faster, with better wash results and larger loads.
The patent nightmare
The Dual Cyclone™ was nearly never made due to patent and legal costs. Unlike a songwriter who owns the song he writes, an inventor has to pay substantial fees to renew his patents each year. During the development years when James Dyson had no income, this nearly bankrupted him. He risked everything, and fortunately the risk paid off. Then in 1999, Hoover tried to imitate a Dyson and James Dyson was forced back to court to protect his invention. After 18 months Dyson finally won a victory against Hoover for patent infringement.
Unusual stockists
Considering it took James Dyson over 14 years to get his first product into a shop, it's heartening to know that you can now buy Dyson products in 48 countries worldwide. You can also see them in many other places: Science Museums, Victoria & Albert Museum in London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne; Zurich Design Museum; Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris; Design Museum in Lisbon and Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, to name a few.
Clean home, clean hands
When you discover how other hand dryers work, you could be forgiven for never using one again. All they do is suck in filthy washroom air, heat it up and then blow it onto your clean hands. If being unhygienic isn't bad enough, they also take too long to dry hands and use too much energy in the process.
Dyson engineers and scientists took 3 years to create an entirely new type of hand dryer. Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer blows clean, unheated air through an aperture the width of an eyelash at over 400mph (640kmph) to hygienically wipe hands dry in just 10 seconds. That's twice as fast as most hand dryers and four times faster than some. It also uses up to 80% less energy too, so it's better for the environment. Another problem solved.
