Developer of Compact Dishwasher Prepares to Try the Market
It cleans six settings of food-caked dishes in three minutes, uses just four gallons of water and you don’t have to plug it in--or feed it.
“It’s a marvel, don’tcha think?” said Jack Elliott of the energy-saving, water-powered dishwasher he has been developing for four years.
Now ready to begin marketing the device, Elliott, chairman and founder of tiny Hart Industries Inc. in Lake Forest, has announced a 15-year distribution agreement with a company that has promised to sell 60,000 of the Ecotech dishwashers each year.
It sounds like a success story, but so far Hart’s has been a tale of woe. “Entrepreneur With Idea, Needs Cash and Marketing Pro” could have been the headline.
And the future is less than rosy.
While Hart has a distribution agreement, the company--Southland Distributing Corp. in Mobile, Ala.--is a small one that owner and president Kenneth Hays says he runs “mostly by myself.”
And while the promise of 60,000 sales a year was dangled in front of Elliott, Hays said his marketing plan so far has been limited to considering renting space in stores to see how the dishwasher is received.
“I don’t want to have an order for 5,000 dishwashers and not be able to have them manufactured,” he said.
But whether he could get an order for 5,000, or even five, is as big an uncertainty as Hart Industries’ financial future.
Elliott views the Ecotech primarily as a second dishwasher for in-home use with small loads or for dishes that must be washed quickly.
Skepticism Expressed
“I don’t see most homes buying second dishwashers,” said Patricia Mapes, an associate buyer of dishwashers at Montgomery Ward & Co. in Chicago.
Cornelius Sewell, an appliances industry analyst at New York-based Argus Research, said, “I’ve never seen too many problems with the dishwasher I have now.”
Whirlpool Corp., a washer manufacturer, said the idea for a water-powered dishwasher isn’t a new one. Carol Sizer, a spokeswoman for the company, said she didn’t know why Whirlpool hadn’t developed a dishwasher similar to the Ecotech, but she said that typically new product development stops when the product isn’t economically feasible, energy efficient or wanted by the market.
Development costs and soured manufacturing deals so far have meant staggering losses for Hart.
But even though no retailing agreements have been reached, Elliott is convinced that success is “around the corner” and said consumers across the country soon will have his dishwasher on their countertops as a companion to conventional dishwashers.
He said three models of the Ecotech, capable of washing four place settings, six place settings or just glasses, will retail from $199 to $249 each, and will be handy for quick jobs in homes, small restaurants and bars.
The three models will be on a limited number of store shelves by the end of the year, he predicted, and will be available nationally sometime next year.
Water Provides Force
The washer, about the size of a microwave oven, connects to a sink spigot with a flexible rubber hose. Water runs through the hose into the washer, where it mixes with liquid detergent, and then sprays onto the dishes. The dishes are on a two-level carrousel that spins with the force of water hitting plastic paddles at the bottom of the carrousel.
The normal soap cycle runs about 60 seconds and rinsing lasts an additional two or three minutes. A manually operated timer allows the user to set a maximum wash and rinse cycle of about five minutes for really dirty dishes.
A typical wash uses about 4 gallons of water, compared to 25 gallons for a conventional dish washer.
And the dry cycle is the least complicated part--the dishes dry “naturally” as hot water evaporates.
“There’s nothing that could go wrong with it,” said Elliott, who said he believes a regular user of the Ecotech could save about $100 a year in water and electricity costs. The 50-year-old inventor added that he will back up his confidence with a three-year guarantee.
Plans Ran Into Snags
Elliott said he expected to begin manufacturing the dishwasher eight months after Hart purchased it from a South African inventor in 1983. Deals were struck with Chinese and British manufacturers, but both ran into snags.
Elliott said the China plan fell through because the government wouldn’t give him extra time to develop the product. Elliott said he lost a $500,000 advance payment, which he took as a personal loss in exchange for shares in the company.
In 1985, Elliott, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, entered the Ecotech in the annual British Ideal Home Exhibition in London. His advertising flyer now features a photo of Princess Diana viewing the Ecotech after it was awarded the grand prize at the show.
And, Elliott says, in a country where only one home in 10 has an automatic dishwasher, more than 5,000 people signed cards at the show indicating their interest in purchasing an Ecotech.
So Elliott set up a manufacturing facility in England only to discover, after turning out about just 3,500 units, that the timer shut-off valve was faulty.
So it was back to the shop in Orange County for more tinkering. And now, while he believes the interest still is there, Great Britain has taken a back seat as Elliott tries to develop a market in the United States--which so far hasn’t had any exposure to the Ecotech.
‘Overworked, Underpaid’
But finding a domestic market is critical because, Elliott said, “we have a lot of time and $3 million of tools tied up. We’re overworked and underpaid.”
“The dishwasher has been his life,” said Elliott’s wife, Janet, Hart’s secretary-treasurer, who runs the office.
The Elliotts own about 24% of the 33 million shares outstanding. Hart Industries’ stock trades over the counter, recently at about 30 cents per share.
Since incorporation in 1982, Hart has lost about $1.6 million, including $908,494 in 1986. The company has come close to shutting down, and its accounting firm qualified Hart’s 1986 financial statement by saying, “These factors, among others, may indicate that the Company will be unable to operate as a going concern.”
Elliott said he has only been able to tell shareholders to be patient. “They like to know you’re making money. I can’t tell them that.”
But next year will be the year for Hart, Elliott said.
And no matter how successful it becomes, the dishwasher won’t be Hart’s biggest product, Elliott said enthusiastically, for the moment forgetting his marketing and cash-flow problems.
A water-powered garbage disposer will be an even bigger seller than the dish washer, and a warning device on gas and oil tanks will be just as successful, he said. “The dishwasher is small potatoes compared to what we’re developing now.”
