KARACHI: Dawlance is the leading manufacturer of home appliances in Pakistan and a wholly owned subsidiary of Arcelik – the second-largest technology producer of Europe. Dawlance has recently completed a Design Export project to provide Research and development services to Singer – the market leader of home appliances in Bangladesh, which is also a subsidiary of Arcelik.
Since Bangladesh and Pakistan have similar industrial and economic conditions, this project will play a vital role in the mutual cooperation and growth of the two countries. As Dawlance aimed to provide the designs of four different refrigerators to Singer in Bangladesh, each model is enriched with different technologies like; Low Voltage Stabilization (LVS), Soft Door-Closing, Odor Filter, Nutrilock (Enhance Vitamins inside Crisper box), Freshology (Keeping Fruits & Vegetable fresh for 20 Days), Inverter Technology, and Quick-Cool Technology.
This project has been assessed at a substantial value of 2.6 million US Dollars, yielding an impressive revenue of 186,000 US Dollars for Dawlance Pakistan. The project’s duration was 80 weeks, with 7,465 Man-hours. Dawlance was selected to design products for Bangladesh because it has great expertise in static refrigerator design. Dawlance products are trusted to meet the specific needs of customers in South Asia and show robust performance in harsh weather conditions while conserving electricity in this energy-starved region. Dawlance has been granted more projects of a similar nature in future because it is considered as a technological hub for static-type refrigerators in the South Asia region.
A team of Dawlance managers and engineers visited the Singer factory in Bangladesh to participate in the launch ceremony. The spokesperson of Dawlance stated that: “Dawlance’s design contributions to another subsidiary, Singer, in Bangladesh, stands as a resounding testament to the triumph of design export, exemplifying the seamless integration of expertise, innovation, and cross-border cooperation, leading to remarkable success in enhancing global collaboration and diversification. These products have been well appreciated in the market because of the Health features like Nutrilock, Freshology and Odor filter, along with Quick Cooling, and modern design. Through this project, Dawlance is also generating valuable foreign exchange for Pakistan.”
Arcelik has already established 80 subsidiaries in 52 countries, along with 30 production facilities, while it also operates 29 R&D and Design Centers across the world. In Pakistan, Dawlance was acquired by Arcelik in the year 2016, with an investment of 258 million US Dollars. To foster innovations in Pakistan, Arcelik has made another special investment in Pakistan to establish the ‘Arcelik Global Research & Development (R&D) Center’, at the National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), in Islamabad.
In 2017, Dawlance achieved its transition to low GWP refrigerant design (R600a) and later in the year 2019 its first platform Project URIL REF was set up in collaboration with local and Turkish engineers, to enable technology transfer for Pakistan’s self-reliance in refrigerator design. In 2020, the REF Platform design project was undertaken, solely by Dawlance engineers in Pakistan.
The Singer manufacturing facilities in Bangladesh were acquired by Arcelik in the year 2019, with an investment of 75 million US Dollars. This venture aimed to replace the Chinese-imported CKD products in Bangladesh with locally-produced home appliances. The first platform refrigerator was designed by Turkish Engineers in the year 2020. After that, Dawlance was taken on board for further platform Products.