His latest product will clean and dry hands faster, says James Dyson

Inventor James Dyson likes to make things work better. He has built his company around improving on failures in design and coming up with innovative products, from the Ballbarrow – an update on a wheelbarrow – to the bagless vacuum cleaner.

The latest product is no exception. The Airblade Tap integrates the company’s hand-dyer technology so you will be able to wash and dry your hands in one place. It’s all done in seconds, with high velocity cool air “scraping” water from the user’s hands.

“You’ve got your own space, you wash and dry your hands and out you get. So it’s just a much nicer and quicker experience in the washroom,” Dyson says.

The Airblade Tap is the result of three years of development and £40 million (€47 million) in investment. The company has been investing heavily in research and development over the past few years.

“I think the point about a downturn is that it’s not necessarily that people have less money – although that is often the case – it’s that people are much more careful with it,” says Dyson.

“So they don’t necessarily buy the cheapest thing; they buy something that they really want that does the job well and lasts a long time.

“I think the winners in a recession are the people who produce new technology that does things better, which people really want. So when the recession happened . . . the answer we thought was to develop more technology and develop it faster.”

That meant doubling the number of research engineers Dyson employed as quickly as possible. The move has increased the number of new products the firm has been able to produce to 12 last year and, according to Dyson, about 50 per cent of sales last year came from products that were introduced in the past 12 months.

“The way the world is going, it’s technology-driven,” says Dyson. “And it isn’t just driven by the old superpowers, it’s driven by the Far East and new emerging economies.”

Dyson has his priorities laid out as regards cutting costs. “I think there is a tendency to look after today and not worry about tomorrow,” he says. “But I’d cut back on advertising and put more money into research and development. That’s not necessarily a very good thing for today, but I think it’s a brilliant thing for tomorrow, the next five years.”

Research and development is a long-term game. “You’ve got to look very long term. We’re doing research projects that won’t come to fruition for 15 years but you can’t get real breakthrough technology and transformative technology unless you look long term. It’s amazing how quickly long term comes about,” he says.

“We weren’t involved in electric motors at all 15 years ago. And we started recruiting clever motor engineers about 14 years ago. Now we’re producing revolutionary electric motors that no one else in the world makes anything like.”

The Airblade Tap is the most significant new development for the firm out of this increased investment. Although the obvious application is in commercial and public premises, Dyson says they could be installed in homes too, giving the company a potential new market for the Airblade products.

“I think people have put our hand dryers into their own homes,” he says.

“And I think they’ll particularly put this in, because it’s in with the tap, so you don’t have the expense of having to use towels.

“Towels are not very hygienic, because germs get on to the towels and then transfer from one person to another. Also from an environmental point of view, this is far better than paper or natural towels and hot air hand dryers as well.”

Aside from the newer products, the other strategy for Dyson to grow its business is to look to markets farther afield.

“The obvious thing is to export, because there is a huge global marketplace and you can really take advantage of that if you have got new technology and better products, says Dyson. “The new emerging markets are consuming huge numbers, and they want the latest technology. China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong - all these countries want new technology.

“So we’ve got fantastic opportunities not only to sell to mature markets such as Europe, the US, Japan, Australia, Britain, but you can double your market size by exporting to emerging markets.”

Dyson has been exporting for some time, and has built up its business outside of the UK.

The company manufactures its products in Malaysia and Singapore, though the design is done in the UK. That can bring its own problems as Dyson has trouble getting enough engineers to keep up with its RD requirements.

“It’s what really holds us back and it’s very depressing because only 12,000 [engineers] are produced in England every year,” he says.

“There’s 2.5 million produced in China and by 2015 there’ll be 3.5 million. India produces about 1.2 million. Even Iran and the Philippines produce twice as many engineers as Britain.

“So the biggest problem for us is getting engineers in our home country, We can get them in Singapore and Malaysia, but we can’t get enough here and here is where we do all our creative stuff.”