Search the IBA site

Chronological Listing of Updates

High Tech Toilets

April 4 2005

In the last decade, toilets have undergone fundamental changes in design and function.  These innovations are generating significant new revenue growth for the toilet business.

Consider Toto, the global leader.  Toto employs 1500 R&D engineers and spends $100 million annually on new product development.  For the last five years, the 85-year-old company has grown sales at a 30% annual rate. 

Both Kohler and American Standard, two competitors to Toto, have recently announced major new flushing systems.  In 2002, American Standard Corporation had no Ph.Ds in its research labs.  By early 2005, the company had seven.  According to a recent issue of Wired Magazine, Kohler has two former aerospace engineers doing toilet research.

            Thanks to changes in US regulations, these rocket scientists are designing flushing systems that work better, with less water.    

A bit of history

            For a century, innovations in toilets focused on fashion – a new form or new colors were overlaid on a flushing technology that was basically unchanged.   The toilet installed in a new home in 1950, for example, would have been very similar to the one installed in 1990, although the porcelain color or toilet shape might have been different. 

But changes in regulations and the ubiquitous progress of semiconductor and sensor technology have contributed to create significant new innovation in toilets over the last 13 years.

Changes in Regulation.  In 1992, the US Congress passed legislation that required new toilets to reduce the amount of water used per flush from the then-standard 3.5 gallons to 1.6 gallons. 

Because they were coming from a period with very low rates of technical innovation, the major American toilet manufacturers did not realize that this change in water usage would require a redesign of the entire flushing system.  As a result, the “low-flow” toilets manufactured in the mid-1990s did not perform very well. 

Customers noticed, and complained.  In response, manufacturers have begun using computer models and sophisticated math to create toilets that flush cleaner, faster and quieter.   This is what the Ph.D’s and aeronautical engineers are doing in research labs at companies like American Standard and Kohler.

Advances in semiconductor and sensing technology.  As new technology becomes less expensive, its range of applicability increases.  It turns out that semiconductor technology can play an important role in toilet functioning. 

Consider the Toto Neorest 600, pictured below.  Its seat can be raised by a wireless remote, and when the seat is raised, the toilet assumes it can save water with a smaller flush.

Toto’s Neorest 600 toilet

(note the backlighting)

            These re-engineered toilets cost significantly more than the classic toilet – American Standard’s new Champion line starts at $250, about double the price of a traditional commode.  The Neorest 600 costs $5,000, pioneering the new market segment of luxury toilets.   While the price seems extraordinarily high (almost matching  those $6,000 shower curtains), Toto has sold more than 250,000 Neorest units in Japan since the product was launched in 2002. 

            Innovation often comes to mature industries as the result of changes imposed from outside the industry.  In this case, new regulations and the ability to apply new semiconductor technologies affected everyone in the industry at the same time. This has resulted in a flurry of activity and investment in new technical innovation.

For toilets, these innovative activities have raised prices and revenues.  Some of this may have also translated into improved profit and stock price performance.  For example, American Standard’s stock price has risen from around $10 a share in 1996 to a recent price of $47.  (The company is a conglomerate, with only about a quarter of its sales coming from bath and kitchen products, so we shouldn’t make too much of a linkage between new toilets and improved company performance.) 

Once innovation capabilities have been developed, they tend to keep getting used.  For toilets, we can expect to see additional product innovations such as heated seats and antimicrobial agents baked into toilet china to reduce germs.  In Japan, Toto’s “Well U II” toilet analyzes urine to help diabetics track their blood sugar levels. 

The increased pace of new products incorporating significant new features at higher prices demonstrates how innovation can revitalize a very old industry. 

More information:

1.                            This update was inspired by an article on toilet technology in the March 2005 issue of Wired Magazine.  Here’s a link: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/toilet.html?pg=1

2.                            A comprehensive review of the market for toilets, in late 2003:  http://www.supplyht.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,5333,107103,00.html

3.                            The American sanitary plumbing museum: http://www.wbur.org/special/strangemuseums/plumbing.asp

4.                            Toto’s Neorest has its own website.  Here’s a link: http://www.totoneorest.com/features.html

All content on this site licensed under a Creative Commons License.