Askon becomes first company in India to have range of ISI certified

We are proud to be become the 1st company in India to have ISI certification for hand dryers. We were also recently awarded by BIS on the world standards day for building a quality culture and ecosystem in the country as their valued partner. 

Even though this certification is not mandatory we voluntarily decided to go for it. We wanted to achieve one thing:

Certification from an independent and reputed certification body that our products live up to the highest quality standards.

Everyone says their product is of good quality and Made-in-India. But what is the proof??

The project initially started in 2014. We got some of our products tested in ERTL (West) as per applicable standard and our products did not comply with all required clauses. We came to know about the short comings in making a world class product. 

On the way to this certification we faced many challenges. To solve them, we required creativity because ready made solutions don’t exist when something is being done for the 1st time. From non-availability of raw materials, non-availability of testing equipment and understanding and ensuring compliance with all of its clauses, it required extensive time and resources. This process was not possible to delegate or outsource because such expertise did not exist.

But being an engineer at heart, I love technical challenges, R&D process and resolving issues in products to make them better. That is probably the reason I kept going even when it made no economic sense. I must have read the relevant BIS standard for hand dryers at least 50 times. We worked with testing equipment manufacturers to customize equipment for our needs. We worked with raw material suppliers to custom make or import materials which were not available in India. Many raw material suppliers in India had not heard about the parameters and tests were asking of them.

And then Covid hit. For 2 years, the ISI certification project was completely stalled. Hand dryers are used in commercial spaces and with all of them being closed or in WFH mode, demand for hand dryers crashed. Times like those you wonder if all the time and resources spent on such a project could have been spent somewhere else specially when it is not mandatory. For a small company there are no time or resources to waste.

However, as all tides eventually turn. Commercial spaces opened up, WFH relaxed and there was need of hand dryers in their washrooms. As we had done all our R&D for the certification process and setting up the test lab, we were able to apply for it in May 2024 and we received the certification in September 2024 for four hand dryers.

It has been a long journey and we learned immensely. Since our whole ecosystem and supply chain is set we are ready to scale up our product range with many new products lined up to be launched in 2025.

We will continue on the Make-in-India path and not because it is a good marketing slogan but it is the only thing we know and love doing.