Solving The Impossible

Arfian Fuadi’s Dtech Engineering emerges as a world-class firm after winning two global design contests.

- Shintya Felicitas

Arfian Fuadi, 31, has built from scratch Dtech Engineering, a design engineering firm with clients in more than 30 countries. He did so with only a vocational high school education (graduating in 2005), and basing his company in his hometown of Salatiga—“in the middle of nowhere”—as he puts it (located about 500 km from Jakarta).

Started in late 2009, Dtech Engineering creates 3D designs of various products, from ballpoint pens to small aircraft, for its clients. With an initial investment of just Rp 1.5 million, Arfian started the company in his father’s house. He got his first clients from Upwork, a crowdsourcing platform. “We created products that were basically nonexistent in the market. As long as we got the opportunity, we were willing to learn,” says Arfian, now working out of a two-story house in a quiet residential neighborhood.

His claim to fame came when he won first place—twice—in a global design challenge sponsored by U.S. firm General Electric. The first time was in 2013, when his brother M Arie Kurniawan, 26, led a Dtech team that designed a lightweight jet engine bracket that was 84% lighter than the original bracket at just 327 grams, yet had the same strength and performance of the original bracket. It could also be made using 3D printing and a titanium material. The Dtech team had to beat 700 other bracket designs submitted from 56 countries. It also had to withstand axial loads of up to 9,500 pounds and torsional loads of 5,000 inch-pounds.