Sir James Dyson, one of the UK's most successful innovative entrepreneurs, has been appointed the Conservative Party's new 'technology tsar' and has called for better support for scientists and engineers. Sir James told the Conservative conference in Manchester that scientists needed better financial support and a change in culture to encourage science and technology. He went on to say that:
"For every engineer trained in Britain, China trained 22 and Iran and the Philippines produced twice as many as Britain. Britain has 58,000 engineering vacancies but produces just 20,000 engineering graduates every year. What do we do? We close down engineering faculties - over 40 in the past decade".
Readers of this blog and my various newspaper articles will know that I have constantly and consistently called for greater support for science and technology.
It is great news that there is finally someone like Sir James Dyson who will hopefully get this message across to ministers when the next government is formed.
Readers of this blog and my various newspaper articles will know that I have constantly and consistently called for greater support for science and technology.
It is great news that there is finally someone like Sir James Dyson who will hopefully get this message across to ministers when the next government is formed.
Comments
1. Malaysia has many advantages as a manufacturing location. It offers a cheaper labour force than the UK. It is a perfect geographical distribution centre for global exporting to new markets in the Japan and the US (where sales rose by 350% last year). Many of the parts used to assemble the Dyson brand are actually produced in south-east Asia and are now cheaper to gain access to. It is also easier to get planning permission to extend the factory when required. Overall production costs have fallen by 30 per cent.
2. Despite being manufactured overseas, the product has retained its high quality specification and also its high price tag. Malaysian labour is relatively more skilled (and expensive) than in many other LEDCs. Indeed, James Dyson has controversially claimed that his Malaysian workers are better-skilled than those used in the UK until 2002. With no obvious reduction in quality, sales rising and costs falling, profits are soaring.
3. The boost in profits has, in turn, allowed Dyson to expand the research division in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, employing even more quaternary staff to think up new designs. Last year, Dyson spent £40m on research in the UK and he plans to increase this to £50m in 2005. Close to universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, this is a good site to attract key workers.
4. All of this allows for more rapid innovation and for new, improved models to appear in stores more frequently (new product lines are essential when a market is approaching saturation, and UK sales have begun to slow down since the first bag-less Dyson vacuum cleaners appeared in 1993). With so many Wiltshire employees now being paid to design fresh products, the company is set to launch a brand new design called “The Ball” on 14th March 2005. Scientists are also currently working to produce much smaller, lighter motors that may encourage existing Dyson owners to replace their current model sooner.
5. The firm has therefore created a spatial division of labour, where different phases of the production process are located in different regions, each of which has a particular comparative advantage. The Wiltshire site can attract skilled research scientists. Malaysia has cheap assembly workers and an excellent geographical site for global exporting. The giant leap in profits shows that this clever use of geography has clearly worked to the firm’s advantage. James Dyson sees a spatial division of labour as the only future for UK industries, claiming that “as a country… we have to exploit our British skills of creativity and inventiveness” (The Independent on Sunday, 27 February 2005).