To meet local consumers’ needs the Chinese colleagues developed a completely new Zeolith feature for dishwashers, called “Zeolith Storage” and optimized “Zeolith Hygiene”.
Ten years ago dishwashers were still a scarce commodity in Chinese households. Many Chinese people washed their dishes by hand, then left the dishes to dry in open air before purifying them in sterilizers. BSH has long since identified the wish of Chinese consumers to have hygienically clean dishes as an important business opportunity and not only started a campaign on the topic to make the dishwasher a standard feature of every Chinese kitchen but also opened its first Chinese dishwasher factory in Chuzhou in the beginning of 2018. Just in time for the opening, BSH launched the world’s first dishwashers whose height and equipment were optimized for a local market – an important milestone for China, which BSH intends to use to further increase its market share in the region. The customized appliance concept offers great potential and very good growth opportunities, especially with regard to built-in kitchens.
Customized innovations
“The local dealers are very enthusiastic about the new dishwasher. That’s why we decided to integrate BSH’s patented Zeolith technology into our locally produced dishwashers, too”, explains Xu Chao, the project manager in China. What’s more: to meet the consumers’ specific needs for optimal hygiene and additional storage space – the developer team utilized an existing fan of the Zeolith System and optimized the suction channel with an active valve controlled bypass that allows for a completely new feature, called “Zeolith Storage” in the added value class from Siemens. Furthermore, the team improved the so called Zeolith Hygiene feature for the local market.
Zeolith Storage
Even though the dishes are completely dry after the dishwasher program is finished, the surrounding dishwasher insides might still be slightly moist. While consumers in Europe typically unload their dishwashers within two or three hours and thus enable the moisture to evaporate, Chinese consumers would like to store their dishes longer than that. “Apartments are very expensive and thus kitchens are often small and lack storage space”, explains Xu. That’s why many consumers use the space in the dishwasher for storage – sometimes even for several days. To keep the inside dry and clean without opening the appliance, the new fan moves fresh outside air by the bypass through the dishwasher and the Zeolith system according to a specific sequence, allowing for a maximum storage time of 96 hours.
Zeolith Hygiene
Since hygiene is a very important topic for Chinese consumers, the updated Siemens dishwasher also includes a temperature optimized hygiene feature. “Zeolith Hygiene is already available in full size dishwashers in Europe, but it normally works with only 72 degrees Celsius. For China we increased the temperature to 80 degrees to meet local needs”, underlines Chao. “Another beneficial aspect: The Chinese government plans to introduce a new energy label for dishwashers and Siemens’ appliance with Zeolith will achieve grade one with the start of production in August 2019 – a major benefit, that will help us the increase BSH’s market share in the region.”
