Sir James Dyson (born Cromer, Norfolk,
England, 2 May 1947) is a
British industrial designer.
He is best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic
separation. His net worth is said to be just over £1 billion [1].
Biography
Dyson is one of three children, whose father Alec Dyson died of liver cancer
in 1956. Dyson was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, from 1956 to 1965, where he excelled in long distance
running: " I was quite good at it, not because I was physically good, but because I had more determination. I learned
determination from it."[2]. He then spent one year
(1965-1966) at the Byam Shaw School of Art (now the Central
Saint Martins College of Art and Design), and then studied furniture and
interior design at the Royal College of
Art (1966-1970) before moving into engineering.
Dyson married Deirdre Hindmarsh in 1968. Her salary as an art teacher partly supported him while he developed his vacuum
cleaner. The couple have three children: Emily, Jacob and Sam[3].
Dyson paid £15 million for Dodington Park, a 300-acre Georgian estate in Gloucestershire, close to
Chipping Sodbury. He and his wife also have a £3 million chateau in France, and a town house in Chelsea, London[4]. The
Sunday Times Rich List 2005 estimated his fortune at £1,050M.
Dyson was chair of the board of trustees of the Design Museum, "the first in the world
to showcase design of the manufactured object", until suddenly resigning in September 2004 [5] The museum at Butler's Wharf on the
south bank of the Thames in central London had
"become a style showcase" instead of "upholding its mission to encourage serious design of the manufactured object", in his
words. [6] The other trustees included Sir Terence Conran, the museum's founder and Lord
Palumbo, the former Arts Council chairman. [7]
Dyson was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the New Year's Honours December 2006.
Early inventions
The Sea Truck, Dyson's first product, was launched in 1970 whilst he was at the Royal College
of Art. Sales of the Sea Truck amount to $500 million. His next product, the Ballbarrow, was
a modified version of a wheelbarrow using a ball to replace the wheel. Dyson remained with
the idea of a ball, inventing the Trolleyball, a trolley that launched boats. He then designed
the Wheelboat which could travel at speeds of 64 km/h on both land and water.
Vacuum cleaners
DC07 Dyson vacuum cleaner
In the late 1970s Dyson had the idea of using cyclonic separation to create a
vacuum cleaner that wouldn't lose suction as it picked up dirt. He became frustrated with
his Hoover Junior’s diminishing performance: dust kept clogging the bag and so it lost
suction. The idea of the cyclones came from the spray-finishing room's air filter in his Ballbarrow factory. While partly
supported by his art teacher wife's salary, and after five years and 5,127 prototypes, Dyson launched the 'G-Force' cleaner in
1983, the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, no manufacturer or related distributor would launch his product in
the UK as it would disturb the valuable cleaner-bag market, so Dyson launched it in Japan through
catalogue sales.[8] Initially manufactured in bright pink,
the G-Force had a selling price of £2,000 (British Equivalent). It won the 1991 International Design Fair prize in Japan. He
finally obtained his first U.S. patent on the idea in 1986 (U.S. Patent
).
After failing to sell his invention to the major manufacturers, Dyson set up his own manufacturing company. In June 1993 he
opened his research centre and factory in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. The product now outsells those of some of the companies that rejected his idea and has become one
of the most popular brands in the United Kingdom. In early 2005 it was reported that
Dyson cleaners had become the market leaders in the United States by value (though not by
number of units sold). Note that the US was introduced to dyson when Root Cyclone was implemented, so in the US there were no
sales of the DC01 = DC05 Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaners. The Dyson Dual Cyclone™ became the fastest selling vacuum cleaner ever to
be made in the UK.
Dyson scientists were determined to create vacuum cleaners with even higher suction. It was discovered that a smaller diameter
cyclone gave greater centrifugal force. This led to 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™. Dyson's
breakthrough in the UK market, more than 10 years after the initial idea, was through a TV advertising campaign that emphasized
that, unlike its rivals, it did not require the continuing purchase of replacement bags. At that time, the UK market for
disposable cleaner bags was £100m. The slogan of 'say goodbye to the bag' proved more attractive to the buying public than a
previous emphasis on the suction efficiency that its technology delivers. Ironically, the previous step change in domestic vacuum
cleaner design had been the introduction of the disposable bag - users being prepared to pay extra for the convenience of
dustless emptying.
Following his success the other major manufacturers began to market their own bagless vacuum cleaners. Dyson sued
Hoover UK for patent infringement and won around $5
million in damages. His manufacturing plant moved from England to Malaysia, for economic reasons and because of difficulty acquiring land for expansion. The company's
headquarters and research facilities remain in Malmesbury. Dyson later stated that because of the cost savings from transferring
production to Malaysia he was able to invest in R&D at Malmesbury. Dyson
employs more people in the UK than he did before the transfer of manufacturing to Malaysia.
In 2005 Dyson added the wheel ball from his Ballbarrow into a vacuum cleaner.
Further inventions and creations
In 2002 Dyson created a realisation of the optical illusions depicted in the
lithographs of Dutch artist M.C. Escher. Engineer Derek Phillips was able to accomplish the task after a year of work, creating a
water sculpture in which the water appears to flow up to the tops of four ramps arranged in a
square, before cascading to the bottom of the next ramp. The creation titled Wrong Garden,
was displayed at the Chelsea Flower Show in the spring of 2003[9]. The illusion is accomplished with water containing air bubbles pumped
through a chamber underneath the transparent glass ramps to a slit at the top from which the bulk of the water cascades down.
This makes it appear that the water is flowing up, when actually a small amount of water diverted from the slit at the top flows
back down the ramps in a thin layer.
In October 2006 Dyson launched the Dyson Airblade™, a fast hygienic hand dryer. The Dyson
Digital Motor (DDM) produces an air stream flowing at 400mph. This unheated air is channeled through a 0.3 millimetre gap, no
thicker than an eyelash. A sheet of air acts like an invisible windscreen wiper to wipe
moisture from hands leaving them completely dry. Dyson Airblade™ dries hands completely in just ten seconds. It is 83% more
energy efficient than conventional hand dryers on the market.
Quotations
- "I just want things to work properly."
- "Enjoy failure and learn from it. You can never learn from success."
- "After the idea, there is plenty of time to learn the technology."
Autobiography
In 1997 Dyson wrote Against The Odds: An Autobiography, co-authored by Giles
Coren, ISBN 0-7528-0981-4.
See also
References
- ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist/person/0,,37777,00.html
- ^ http://www.forbes.com/ceonetwork/2006/08/01/leadership-facetime-dyson-cx_hc_0801dyson.html
- ^ [http://www.nndb.com/people/812/000109485/ Dyson at nndb.com
- ^ http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=322783&in_page_id=2
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ http://www.forbes.com/ceonetwork/2006/08/01/leadership-facetime-dyson-cx_hc_0801dyson.html
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3046791.stm
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
