Engineer sees climate change as challenge

The man behind the bagless Dyson vacuum cleaner is in Australasia to launch his company's latest innovation - a bladeless fan.

For the British inventor less is more.

"We've always been against consumables with our products.

"I got rid of the bag [from the vacuum cleaner] because it kills suction but also because I didn't like the fact that you had to go round buying the things."

So climate change is just another challenge for an engineer. "We were running out of things to be inventive about before these issues came along."

Seriously, though, Dyson engineers take the view that "a good design is one that uses less", he says.

So it is with the Air Multiplier, the new bladeless room fan which hit the Australian market this week. It will be available in New Zealand in coming months.

The Air Multiplier takes in air through holes at its base and accelerates it to 16 times its original speed. It is claimed to deliver a more even air flow, rather than the buffeting effect of an ordinary fan.

That makes it a credible alternative to air conditioning, Dyson says.

And that means energy savings. Whereas an air-conditioning unit will use around 2500 watts of electricity, the Air Multiplier at full bore uses just 40. The new gadget is not cheap at A$400 ($490) but he believes consumers will be swayed by its safety, efficiency and health benefits compared with aircon.

Dyson Ltd spent £50 million ($110 million) on R&D last year and an ongoing project for its 300 engineers and scientists is the development of lighter and faster motors.

For example, it has reduced the weight of the motor in its hand-held vacuum cleaner by two-thirds, and yet increased the speed to 120,000 rpm (as a comparison, Formula 1 engines run at 18,000 rpm).

Higher speed means smaller, lighter and more efficient. "And of course then the product becomes smaller, lighter and much more efficient," Dyson says.

He applauds a recent European Committee for Standardisation proposal to cap the power consumption of vacuum cleaners to 1100 watts and then eventually 750. "It forces us to get efficiency using less.

"The answer I think to a lot of these things is not to ask people to use less but to develop technology that overcomes the whole problem."

The wattage of European vacuum cleaners is a small issue compared with some of the larger conundrums Sir James Dyson is currently tackling.

He has been asked by the British Conservative Party to write a white paper on how to improve the UK's technology exports, and spoke at the party's recent conference.

He is aghast at the state of the technology sector in his homeland - in the past decade more than 40 engineering and science faculties have closed at tertiary institutions, he says, and the country produces just 20,000 engineering graduates a year for 60,000 vacancies. Dyson now does a lot of its R&D work in Malaysia and Singapore because it simply can't find the people in Britain.

Dyson says he's getting involved in the political side because it genuinely interests him. "I've been given a chance, which is great. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and carping I can now at least put forward ideas that they say they'll put into practice."

Meanwhile Dyson the business appears to go from strength to strength.

As a private company still held 100 per cent by Dyson and his family it does not need to publish its annual accounts.

The last figures it made public show the company made an operating profit of £89 million in 2007 on turnover of £611 million. Dyson says turnover has since grown to £750 million.

He says he is excited by the innovative people in his team. This includes New Zealander Stephen Smith, who won the Dyson Product Design Award in 2007 with his "arctic skin" cooling vest for athletes and who is now based at the company's Malmesbury, Wiltshire research centre.

Would Dyson ever sell out? "It works very well at the moment. Making decisions is pretty simple. We don't have to worry about what other people would say or think. And that's a very privileged position to be in."