First impression: Dubai is really, really hot, windy and dusty.
As I explained in my last post, I took a lightning trip to the Middle East in June, landing in Dubai in the middle of the afternoon. The gleaming airport terminals had a thick layer of dust on them, somewhat spoiling the futuristic effect. The trademark downtown buildings were invisible in a wall of dusty haze. But the airport itself was efficiently run, and I was met by a friendly man from my hotel, holding up a sign with my name. This was typical of the service I received - seamless, competent, and a good value. Hotels in Dubai are locked in a luxury arms race with each other, so I was able to get a nice room with access to the business lounge - free food, booze, and Wi-Fi - for less than $300.
I didn't sleep much the first night, as I was almost half a day out of sync. But plenty of coffee at breakfast kept me humming. I met the Dubai commercial officer in the hotel lobby and off we went to the first meeting. It was with the purchasing manager for a local office-furniture company. When I had completed my pitch - a PowerPoint showing our biggest, coolest tables - the purchasing manager said, “This is very interesting. I think we have a project that would work for you. We are fitting out the offices of†- he named an extremely large multinational company - “and they need a custom boardroom table. I'd like to put you in touch with the project manager.â€
A phone call and a short walk down the hall and I presented again. The project manager liked what he saw, and he asked whether I could make a meeting with the client that afternoon to discuss the table. My schedule was open, so I happily agreed. I hadn't expected anything like this, honestly. The trip was intended to be an introduction. Getting a chance to work on a real project was a bonus.
I showed up at the appointed time and pl ace and met with the client, the architect, the audiovisual contractor and the interior designer. Also attending was the manager of my potential partner's custom woodworking facility. He was there for the same reason I was - to present ideas about how he would make the table. (Because he's an important part of this story, I'll refer to him as the Manager.) I was introduced to everyone around the room as a potential vendor for the table. I showed my PowerPoint and also a nifty three-dimensional model of a table we made for the World Bank. I waxed eloquent on our advanced engineering capabilities. I brought up technical issues involved in the project. The schedule was discussed - a potential problem, given that the table would be needed in late August and it was already the first week of June. (Shipping from America to Dubai takes about 30 days.)
It was the same kind of spiel I've given a thousand times at home. And it was well received. The meeting adjourned with the un derstanding that I would prepare a complete design after I got back to home. The Manager sat quietly through all of this, and was never asked to present his ideas. But after the meeting I went up to him, introduced myself, and apologized for taking the limelight. He was very gracious about it and told me that he was quite impressed with my work. We talked a bit about his operation - it's a separate division of my potential partner's company, dedicated to custom furniture and millwork production. We would be direct competitors for this job.
With nothing to lose and a few hours to kill before my flight to Kuwait, I asked the Manager whether he would be willing to show me his factory. I half expected him to say no, since a tour would reveal the strengths and weaknesses of his work - information that I could put to use when I presented my own designs. But he was pleased to be asked, and we got in the car and drove out there.
His factory was located about an hour from the center of Dubai, in an area devoted to industrial production. Like every other part of Dubai that isn't devoted to tourists, the landscape was dust and sand, scattered with large metal warehouse structures. The area had a lot of half-finished buildings, and the road network was still being built. Gangs of laborers, with their heads wrapped in towels to keep the dust out, were busy building roads and buildings. It was blazing hot - at least 105 degrees in the shade, with a stiff breeze blowing sand along the ground. Those guys spent all day working in the sun, and they appeared to be working hard. It made me wonder what life was like back where they came from.
We pulled up to the Manager's factory, parked the car, and scurried inside - in Dubai, every second spent without air-conditioning is torture. The building had two stories, but about two-thirds of the floor space was only one story, with a high ceiling. I made an eyeball estimate of the size and it looked to be a little bit larger than my own shop. I later checked it on Google Earth and it scaled out to about 15 percent larger, or about 40,000 square feet. (My shop is 33,000.)
I love touring factories, particularly woodworking shops where I really know what I'm looking at. Everything is interesting: the layout, the materials, the machinery that's there and the machinery that's not there, what the workers are doing, and what's being made. This factory was, at first glance, very much like mine. But there were some real differences as well â€" I'll talk about that in my next post.
Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside of Philadelphia.
