Conventional warm air hand dryers slowly evaporate water off your hands, whereas “the Airblade creates a high speed sheet of air, which gently squeegees your hands dry” (BBC News, 2006), using air at room temperature. It claims to be up to 80% more energy efficient than warm air dryers.

The majority of the environmental impact of a hand dryer comes from the amount of electricity required to operate them. The amount of energy consumed in the manufacture of metal parts is negligible, compared to the hardware’s total energy consumption in its lifetime, usually 7 – 10 years (Koerner, 2008). A typical warm air dryer uses around 2300 watts when switched on, plus 2 watts in standby mode. If you dry your hands for 30 seconds you’re using around 17.25 watts of power. Doing that 100 times a day annually leads to power consumption of 633.02 kWh, costing around £56.97, causing a carbon footprint of 342 kg/CO2 (Dyson Ltd). Compare this to the Airblade, which uses 1600 watts when switched on, plus 1 watt when in standby mode. Drying your hands only takes 10 seconds, due to the design, consumes 4.44 watts of power. For the same case as above, the annual power consumption is 170.88 kWh, costing around £15.38 and leaving a carbon footprint of 92 kg/CO2 (Dyson Ltd.). The Airblade is therefore 3.7 times more cost and carbon efficient and 73% more energy efficient. Surely if this energy efficiency is so easy to achieve, why are there not more products like this out on the market? It would not only help make the world a cleaner place but also annually save organizations money that could be invested to help meet their own environmental objectives.

Undertaking a modular design approach has helped the Airblade’s impact on the environment. Firstly the Airblade doesn’t rely on warm air to dry your hands so therefore does not need a power hungry heating element like conventional warm air dryers (Dyson Ltd., (n.d.)). Secondly the product is just a big motor that forces air through two apertures, creating sheets of air to scrape the water off your hands. The motor is a Dyson Digital Motor (DDM) that doesn’t rely on the carbon brushes or commutators used in conventional electric motors, creating a lighter motor that can rotate at 100,000rpm, generating the high velocity of air needed to dry hands in such a short time (Shelley, 2006).

Dyson Ltd. began by designing and manufacturing all of its products at its UK base but in February 2002 they decided to transferred the manufacturing of their vacuum cleaners to the far east where many of it’s suppliers are based and where it claims production cost is more effective, enabling Dyson Ltd to continue to grow, invest in new technologies and launch more products faster (Dyson transfers, 2002). This included the manufacture of the Airblade as it uses DDM technology found in their vacuum cleaners (Dyson uses, 2006). If like automobile manufacturer Toyota, Dyson Ltd. localized production and the supply base it could have further lowered the environmental impact of the Airblade’s production. Effectively Dyson Ltd. would be buffering variability in the supply chain by the combination of inventory, capacity and time. Toyota has begun to manufacture and source the parts for automobiles in the country for which they are being sold (Hannon, 2008). By taking this approach less resources and energy are spent on shipping products around the world. When extra inventory is needed in a specific country, only the resources and energy for that production and supply base are needed, such that a strain would not be put on the overall supply chain.

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References

BBC News. (2006, October 3). Dyson unveils faster hand dryer. Retrieved May 13, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5402024.stm.
Dyson Ltd. (n.d.). Case studies: EDF Energy. Retrieved May 22, 2009 from http://www.dysonairblade.co.uk/news/
Dyson Ltd. (n.d.). dyson airblade: Calculate your savings. Retrieved May 13, 2009 from http://www.dysonairblade.co.uk/specification/calculator.asp?Operation=Calculate&DryerID=1&Usage=100&Units=1&x=35&y=10
Dyson Ltd. (n.d.). Dyson Airblade Brochure. Retrieved May 15, 2009 from http://www.ecobuy.org.au/uploads/documents/Dyson%20Airblade%20eBrochure.pdf
Dyson transfers manufacturing to Far East. (2002, February 5). Telegraph. Retrieved May 15, 2009 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1383807/Dyson-transfers-manufacturing-to-Far-East.html
Dyson uses 'air knives' for fast hand dryer launch. (2006, October 5). Design Week. Retrieved May 15, 2009 from the Nexis UK database.
Hannon, D. (2008, August 14). Shorter is better for Toyota's supply chain: Automaker aims to localize production and supply base. Retrieved May 22, 2009, from http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6584642.html
Koerner, B. (2008, June 17). Electric Hand Dryers vs. Paper Towels [Electronic version]. Slate Magazine.
Shelley, T. (2006, November 16). Air jet dries hands at 400mph. Retrieved May 15, 2009 from http://www.eurekamagazine.co.uk/article/8027/Air-jet-dries-hands-at-400mph.aspx