When it comes to hair dryers, bladeless fans and vacuum cleaners, there is no brand as aspirational as Dyson. They make really awesome stuff because of the technology behind it. While it is true that their products don’t come cheap, seeing their factory and how their devices are made gave me a deeper appreciation for it. While I still can’t afford most of them, I now understand why they are priced as such.
And yes, the British company produces some of their tech in Laguna, Philippines.
For the first time ever, Dyson showed off their factory to local and Southeast Asian media. The first thing I noticed when our bus entered the gate was the size of the place. The factory is a one-hectare facility that’s home to 400 employees and 300 robots, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
When we stepped out of the bus, they made us wear shoe covers to make sure that the factory stays spic and span. After a quick launch of their latest product, the Dyson V10 (see the link to the article below), a tour of the factory followed.
Entering the production area felt like time traveling to the future. Instead of people manufacturing the engines, they were made by machines – 300 of them. The process if fully automated, leaving no room for mistakes and should there be any problems, there are still human engineers and employees to go and fix it.
The factory runs 24/7 and can produce as much as 300 engine units every hour. Once done and the quality has been checked, the machines are shipped to another local Dyson facility and another one in Malaysia to be assembled. The final products are then delivered to Dyson retailers worldwide. The Laguna plant produces engines for the Dyson V6, V7, V9 and the newest one of the bunch, the V10.
While most companies think of a product and then come up with the technology for it after, Dyson has a different principle. For them, it’s technology before product and that thought process has definitely paid off.
Right now, all I have is a piece of that technology. I can’t help but hope that sometime in the (near) future, I’ll have my very own Dyson vacuum cleaner to keep my home pristine and dust-free.
