By making appliances under licence we determined that we were only destined to make a more expensive version of others’ products. We couldn’t generate economies of scale so we had to find other ways of creating a point of difference in our markets. The answer lay in technology. By developing plastic liners and insulation using polyurethane foam we were the first in the world to commercialise this technology.

Another major breakthrough came in the late 1960’s when the Company saw the need to find a way of producing short runs of various models through common manufacturing machinery. The idea of being able to make every model every day, just in time, had become reality and export opportunities opened up. Learning to control flexible machinery lines during this phase had started to create another major advantage that was to come in the future.

Flexible machinery brought with it the notion of manufacturing cabinets using prepainted steel. In tandem with the Japanese steel mills appliance grade pre-painted steel was developed that enabled coiled steel to be processed through lines of machinery that could notch and pierce various sizes and shapes. The first product to incorporate this technology was the compact dryer. A ground up design conceived by our own engineers. This technology carried over into refrigerators and washing machines and is now standard across all of our appliance range.