From the Sector

• Clean Technology. Smart Factory.

Remscheid – Oerlikon invites all visitors to this year's ITMA in Barcelona on a journey into the future of manmade fiber production. From 20 to 26 June 2019, the world market leader will show all its guests its vision of a sustainable and automated manmade fiber production in a virtual 4D showroom at its 1,000 m² stand in Hall 7, A101: "Clean Technology. Smart Factory." is the motto of the future. And this is only a stone's throw away from reality at the stand. Because today Oerlikon is presenting four world premieres for efficient machine and plant concepts in a new, innovative industrial design. Together with numerous other innovations, all this forms the new DNA of the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment.

The challenges for the manmade fiber industry are manifold and Oerlikon shows its customers solutions:

1. Choosing the right business model
Price pressure on fiber and yarn manufacturers is growing due to global market consolidation. Here it is important to position oneself correctly. Are you producing polyester, nylon or polypropylene for the niche market and skimming off good margins with innovative products and ingenious material properties, or are you looking for business success through economies of scale in the volume market such as the constantly growing apparel sector? Oerlikon has the right answers for both business models. And the most important thing: the market leader supplies all solutions from a single source. See for yourself at the world premieres of the machine and system concepts of WINGS FDY PA6, BCF S8 Tricolor and the revolutionary eAFK Evo texturing machine.

2. Finding alternatives for good personnel
Finding good operators in the manmade fiber industry is becoming increasingly difficult, even in emerging industrial nations such as China, India and Turkey. The solution is obvious. What, for example, the automotive industry achieved years ago with the 3rd Industrial Revolution is now also taking its course in the textile industry. And at the same time it is even shifting up a gear. In the next step, automation in combination with digitization will lead to new, sustainable production. Oerlikon will be showing how automation and digitization interact at ITMA. Self-learning machines and systems, artificial intelligence (AI), remote services and edge computing are just a few of the key words in the digital half of the new Oerlikon Manmade Fibers DNA.

3. Guarantee quality and traceability
The qualities of the fibers and yarns must meet the highest demands and their production must be traceable throughout the textile value chain. This no longer only plays an important role in the automotive industry, where safety is of paramount importance. Other branches of industry that use fibers, yarns and nonwovens also want to know where the raw materials they produce for consumer articles come from. Legal regulations are demanding this more and more frequently. Oerlikon offers optimal solutions with its DIN ISO certified manufacturing processes. More than half of the world's manmade fiber producers are convinced every day that the qualities produced on Oerlikon Barmag, Oerlikon Neumag and Oerlikon Nonwoven equipment are right – and all visitors to ITMA can do the same on site.

4. Efficient and sustainable production
In the future, the materials produced from manmade fibers must become part of a further improved global recycling economy. The recycling of polyester – with over 80% market share the most frequently used manmade fiber in the world – has not only been on the agenda since today. Oerlikon already has solutions at hand: from PET bottles to fibers and filaments, to textiles and carpets. ITMA is the next step. With the VacuFil® Oerlikon in cooperation with the subsidiary company BBEngineering presents the world premiere No. 4 – a recycling solution within a running polyester production with a waste-free approach.

Vision becomes reality
The Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment thus demonstrates what the ITMA in Barcelona promises as the world's leading trade fair for textile machinery and plant construction: "Innovating the world of textiles – sourcing for a sustainable future". In Hall 7, A101, this is already reality.

A focus on customer service, aligned with the drive to constantly innovate, has long ensured that the member companies of TMAS – the Swedish texile machinery manufacturers’ association – stay well ahead of the curve.

“All of the Swedish textile machinery companies are doing really well in major markets such as Europe, China, India and the USA,” says TMAS Secretary General Therese Premler-Andersson. “They are now gathering forces to prepare for the most important show – ITMA 2019 in Barcelona in June. I expect to see new players and partnerships as we enter the industry 4.0 era for real. We are ready to display an even higher degree of the real time monitoring of processes, automation, flexible customisation, and the incorporation of robots into production lines.  Our customers expect a lot of in terms of knowledge and our ability to customise and offer turnkey solutions.”

The forward-looking attitude of the Swedish companies is perhaps best summed up by Reimar Westerlind, the owner, since 1961, of ACG Gruppen.
At the age of 90, Reimar still travels to his office every day to oversee the operations of the diverse companies operating under the ACG umbrella.
“Everything now is about automation and digitisation,” he says. “We have to be on that track or we will be lost – innovate or die.”

Robotics
One ACG Gruppen company moving rapidly forward with new innovations in this area is ACG Kinna, which at ITMA 2019 will be providing dramatic live demonstrations of its new robotic pillow filling system.
This has the ability to fill and finish some 3,840 pillows per eight-hour shift, which is a considerable improvement on what is currently possible with existing systems, resulting in significant savings in both labour and energy for busy home textile businesses.

At ITMA 2019, Eton will be demonstrating a complete material handling solution with advanced software providing real-time information covering every aspect of the process.
“Our systems are a natural fit with the major Industry 4.0 networked manufacturing plants that are now being constructed worldwide for sectors such as the garment and home textiles manufacturing and automotive industries,” says Eton’s Sales and Commercial Director Roger Ryrlén.

Sensors
Advanced senor developments are playing a large part in moving many areas of the textile industry forward too.
Eltex of Sweden, for example, is achieving considerable success with its yarn fault detection and tension monitoring systems across a range of sectors, including the tufting of carpets, the creeling of woven materials and even the production of woven reinforcements for the composites industry.

At successive ITMA shows, IRO AB has also consistently introduced new milestones in the field of yarn feeding technology for weaving machines, and ITMA 2019 will be no exception.
“Following significant investment in our R&D capabilities, we have been making great progress in further boosting the efficiency and performance of our expanding X3 range,” says IRO AB Managing Director and Chairman of TMAS Mikael Äremann. “I can’t remember a time since the 1980s when we had so many new innovations to unveil at an ITMA, and I’m greatly looking forward to the positive response to them we are anticipating in Barcelona this June.”

Resource savings
ITMA 2019 will meanwhile see the launch of TexCoat G4 – the next generation of Baldwin Technology’s non-contact precision application system for fabric finishing. The TexCoat G4 enables a continuously high-quality and productive textile finishing process with zero chemistry waste and minimised water and energy consumption.
The non-contact spray technology brings a range of advantages including single or double-sided application,  the elimination of Foulard bath contamination, low wet pick-up levels leading to the elimination of drying steps, zero chemistry waste in changeovers of chemistry, colour or fabric, and the possibility of batch reporting, visibility of pad loading, chemical usage etc.

Other TMAS companies exhibiting in Barcelona include Texo AB, whose wide-width weaving looms make the belts for machines on which half of the world’s paper is made, ES-Automatex, which specialises in bespoke automation concepts and Svegea, a company leading the field in a number colarette machines and cutting and slitting equipment.

“At the last ITMA in 2015 in Milan, there was much talk about Industry 4.0 technologies but certainly from the perspective of TMAS, ITMA 2019 will be the place for concrete solutions as to how data and the new tools we have available can be exploited to the full,” says Therese Premler-Andersson. “There is already much more networking between the companies, with software very much the enabler and common interfaces bringing ideas closer together. We are greatly looking forward to further exchanges of ideas when meeting with customers old and new in Barcelona.”

The brand Re.VerSo ™, representative of a zero-waste circular production system for wool and cashmere, has been selected as one of the protagonists of the Sustainable Thinking project of the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo. The Exhibition aims to provide an artistic and cultural contribution on the crucial issue of sustainability, understood as "a development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the possibility of future generations to meet their needs "(Brundtland Report, 1987).

Re.VerSo™, the advanced supply chain entered the exhibition project. Leftovers can be sourced directly by Re.VerSo™ supply chain, otherwise the Re.VerSo™ advanced technology process welcomes retailers and brands to supply their pre-consumer wool and cashmere woven and knitted off cuts, transforming them into high quality yarns and fabrics integrated for a circular economy.

The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) held its 16th Annual Meeting March 19-21 in Washington, DC.  Elected as NCTO officers for 2019 are:

• Chairman – Leib Oehmig, CEO of Glen Raven, Inc.
• Mr. Oehmig is CEO of Glen Raven, Inc., based in Glen Raven, North Carolina.  Glen Raven is an innovative leader in textile research and development, dying, spinning, weaving and finishing, and distribution and logistics.
• Vice Chairman – David Roberts, CEO of CAP Yarns, Inc.
• Mr. Roberts is CEO of CAP Yarns, Inc., based in Clover, South Carolina.  CAP Yarns is a specialty yarn manufacturer and a leader in developing unique yarns for the knitting and weaving industry.

NCTO is a Washington, DC-based trade association that represents domestic textile manufacturers.  

• U.S. employment in the textile supply chain was 594,147 in 2018.  
• The value of shipments for U.S. textiles and apparel was $76.8 billion in 2018.  
• U.S. exports of fiber, textiles and apparel were $30.1 billion in 2018.  
• Capital expenditures for textile and apparel production totaled $2.0 billion in 2017, the last year for which data is available.

ROICA™ discloses five key and influencing brands with unique outfits already available in the market, that demonstrate how ROICA™ is able to deliver and transform basic performant stretch in eco hi-tech valuable innovations interpreted in five, completely different, contemporary lifestyles!

Inspired by the need for style-conscious, sustainable garments that are versatile for every life situation, AEANCE was created as a brand that merges ready-to-wear with technical apparel. The brand`s values are timeless minimalism, substance and understated luxury. Less, but better. AEANCE is committed to creating garments with the least possible impact on the environment and has set up a supply chain focusing on eco-sustainability and ethical responsibility. The Women`s Light Padded Jacket of the look selected for ISPO is the result of a collaboration with the acclaimed industrial designer Konstantin Grcic.

Knowing the transformative power of fitness, DAQUÏNI® was founded in 2012 to help women bridge the gap between how they feel and how they think they look when they are working out. Each DAQUÏNI® item is made in the E.U. from highest quality Oeko-Tex® certified materials. The brand’s first choice in fabrics is SOFILETA (founded in 1911) with its luxurious technical fabrics with ROICA™ V550 premium stretch awarded with Cradle-to-Cradle Innovation Institute’s GOLD LEVEL material health certificate.

The New York based brand Erin Snow creates chemically safe, circularly designed, socially fair luxury performance apparel. The Teri pant is Erin Snow's most innovative and highly anticipated pant to date. Teri is made from the finest bluesign® approved Schoeller 4-way stretch fabric containing ROICA™ V550 premium stretch sustainable fiber. The pant is insulated with PrimaLoft® Gold Luxe and repels water and dirt without PFCs, thanks to Schoeller's ecorepel® Bio finishing while giving maximum freedom of movement.

The SCOTT Racing Team, the Italian Mtb Pro Rider Team born in 1988, selected the high performance for active clothing identifying Rosti, SITIP and ROICA™ as strategic partners to ensure unique and performant biking outfit composed by tights and jacket. Made with the special BEHOT fabric by SITIP, constructed with active performance materials belonging to the ROICA Feel Good™ family, it not only insulates, but generates up to 2 degrees of heat as you workout as certified by CeRism, Outdoor Sport Research Centre at Verona University. Long life stretch, superior shape retention and best breathability thanks to the Blizzard by SITIP fabric that ensures thermal comfort and easy care to the users. A valuable choice that perfectly matches the performances of an experienced team of specialists.

SITA hits the European panorama for the first time at ISPO with ROICA™ few days after the official launch in US and Saudi Arabia on January 31st. Its high-tech debut collection for Spring 2019 provides women with an all-new luxury concept of timeless foundational apparel made in New York balancing concealed performance features and style to meet womens’everyday dynamic lifestyle. The newly-created made in Italy SITATECH™ fabric includes permanent agents that neutralize odor, withstand machine wash, and exhibit superior quality. The intricately designed fabric takes on instant appeal with nanotechnology fibers and ROICA™ CF, a yarn with an active smart odor neutralizer property, then knitted in Italy by Maglificio Ripa.

At the booth, let's have a look at TINTEX exceptional, Naturally Clean® finishing process launched last September 2018. Naturally Clean® enhances the natural beauty of cotton and cellulosic fibres, takes a cost effective modern approach to eliminate aggressive treatments and optimizes clean surfaces, vivid colors, providing an exquisitely smooth handfeel. Naturally Clean® achieves this by using Novozymes technology, a company that is a world leader in biological solutions. Second, using textile chemicals Beyond Surface Technologies AG which have the lowest possible environmental impact, without compromising performance. Naturally Clean® maintains the original characteristics over an extended period of time. All materials are Oeko-Tex and can also be Bluesign® certified, which will evidence the future elimination of harmful substances.

Between the first and key adopters of TINTEX brandnew Naturally Clean finishing, shines Filippa K, a leading Nordic fashion brand with a modern, smart approach to the responsible development of their lines. Emblematic pieces for the SS 2019 main collection are the Linen Wrap Dress, the M Linen Long Sleeve Tee and the M Linen R-neck short sleeve Tee made with a TINTEX heavy stretch linen, made with ROICA Colour Perfect™ family of dyeable premium stretch yarn, enriched by the unique Naturally Clean finishing.

At this year’s Heimtextil from 8-11 January 2019 in Frankfurt, Trevira GmbH presented a new Trevira CS joint stand on an impressively huge scale under the motto “Textile Values”. Its fair stand concept, scaled up for 2019, attracted a large number of visitors. Together with 26 top Trevira CS customers, Trevira told the story of the entire textiles value chain across a 2,200+ msq site. Visitors were taken on a journey that started with the basics – fibre production and yarn manufacture – before moving on to the dyeing, weaving and warp and weft knitting stages and ultimately to the end of the journey, the textile editing.

Trevira GmbH’s CEO Klaus Holz said, “I think we have once again “upgraded” our presence at Heimtextil. If I say this I’m not only talking about size and number of participants in our stand, but rather about value. Including all kinds of Trevira CS partners from yarn producers to fabric manufacturers and textile editors, our stand was reflecting the entire textile value chain.”

The highlight of the stand was Trevira’s new trend show for the contract market, “Trends in Contract by Trevira CS”. The show gave visitors, especially (interior) designers and decorators, an opportunity to find out more about innovative textiles and colour trends on the home and contract market.

Head of Marketing Anke Vollenbröker said, “We are extremely pleased that our trend show met with such great interest, and it was fantastic to see so many interior designers participating in our trend gallery tours. The trend area proved to be a source of inspiration for numerous visitors and demonstrated the expertise of our Trevira CS partners when it comes to outstanding design.”

• Innovative BCF S8 platform technology opens up new carpet yarn industry markets for Oerlikon Neumag customers

World premiere at the DOMOTEX World Trade Fair for Carpets and Floor Coverings in Hanover: between January 11 bis 14, 2019‎, Oerlikon Neumag will be showcasing its innovative new development, the BCF S8, to a wide audience for the very first time in Hall 11, Stand B36. Whether commodities or niche products – the new BCF S8 platform technology offers manufacturers of BCF carpet yarns decisive arguments for responding to constantly rising cost pressures and the trend for greater efficiency and quality in fiercely-competitive markets. World record: the system achieves never-seen-before spinning speeds and is able to simultaneously spin up to 700 filaments and produce fine titers of up to 2.5 dpf. This superlative performance is guaranteed by numerous individual innovations in the new platform and, for the first time, also in a new human-machine interface (HMI)-based control system, which opens the door to the digital age of smart carpet yarn manufacturing wide. At the ITMA ASIA 2018, the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment had already announced that it would be presenting revolutionary solutions in 2019 – both in hardware and software. And the DOMOTEX marks only the start.

According to manufacturer information, the new BCF S8 is the most efficient Oerlikon Neumag BCF system of all times. “We have succeeded in achieving a new level of greater productivity and even broader product diversity. These allow our clientèle to better cater to changing market requirements and achieve a competitive edge in tough market conditions”, explains Martin Rademacher, Vice President Sales Oerlikon Neumag. As a pre-taste, the machine specialists from Neumünster are serving up performance figures and results from comprehensive trials conducted at their own BCF technology center as well as from two pilot systems which have been tried and tested within the market for months now.

BCF S8 performance in numbers
With up to 700 potential filaments per yarn end, the BCF S8 is raising the benchmark considerably compared to the Oerlikon Neumag S+ BCF system (400 filaments) that has dominated the global market to date. Oerlikon Neumag guarantees fine titers of up to 2.5 dpf. Furthermore, the process speed is higher than ever before – 3,700 m/min (winder speed). This permits throughputs of up to 15 percent greater compared to predecessor technologies. Overall, system efficiency is 99 percent – almost unbeatable. True to the Oerlikon Segments Manmade Fibers segment e-save philosophy, energy savings of up to 5 percent per kilogram of yarn are achievable.

BCF S8 innovations – from straight yarn paths to large cooling drums

This comprehensive progress has been achieved with numerous smart innovations. To this end, one key element above all has been optimized. The yarn path from the spinning system to the new, large cooling drum has now been almost completely straightened. This yarn path, unique to the BCF market to date, ensures that the individual filaments are subjected to minimum friction, hence once again considerably reducing yarn breaks and optimizing the overall production process. Especially noteworthy here are the, for the first time, straight yarn inlet in the texturing head – guaranteeing superior yarn quality.

And the considerably reduced distance between the heating godet duo and the texturing head also has a positive impact on the texturing process. It ensures a more even twist to the yarn and reduces the compressed air consumption. Furthermore, the texturing chambers can be removed individually, which additionally shortens servicing times. The now closed units also provide the best possible protection for the texturing jets and lamellar chambers.

The 800-mm diameter cooling drum optimally and gently cools the filaments. And this has a positive influence on the yarn quality. The new cooling drum is now equipped with a V groove for all polymers (PET, PA6 and PP) as standard.

The RoTac3 tangling unit, already established within the market, once again reduces the compressed air consumption by around 50%, while the newly-developed Witras III-37 winder achieves production process speeds of 3,700 m/min.

First intuitively-operable human-machine interface (HMI)
The new BCF S8 is the first Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment system equipped with the innovative human-machine interface (HMI) for intelligent controlling and monitoring. In this case, the interface between man and machine has been oriented on the daily requirements of users in BCF production. With its new ‘look and feel’, it supports intuitive operation and offers direct access to important information as well as actual and target values at each take-up position by means of a touch screen. A completely new ‘alarm philosophy’ also simplifies troubleshooting and malfunction analysis. “This smart HMI system is a logical step in the digitalization of our products”, explains Dr. Friedrich Lennemann, Vice President R&D Oerlikon Neumag.

PMsExciting news out of ISPO Munich, this year ROICA™ premium stretch innovations will be showcased within ISPO Brandnew, the biggest platform for sporty startups worldwide. The ROICA™ booth will have a new centralized position at ISPO Munich, with an even more centralal position, to lead the way toward responsible innovation. Make certain to visit the fantastic new collections created by ROICA™ partners that combine; function and contemporary values for the modern customer. Asahi Kasei, the leader in sustainable stretch guaranteed to wow ISPO attendees with the ROICA Eco-Smart™ family, an innovative range of the world's first responsibly made premium stretch fibers.
ROICA™ smart yarns are focused perfectly on responsible performance for the active sportswear, swimwear and athleisure categories. ROICA™ proudly presents sustainable solutions boasting impressive certifications:

• Global Recycled Standard (GRS) owned by Textile Exchange
• Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Gold Level for Material Health and Hohenstein Environment Compatibility Certificate - ROICA™ breaks down without releasing harmful substances.

ROICA™ will present The Modern Wardrobe concept in well-defined categories at ISPO:

• ROICA™ WARDROBE, fashion collections for Summer 2019 with beautiful premium stretch solutions.
• ROICA™ INNOVATION GALLERY, the latest textile performance innovations from partner mills that inspire creativityA rich fabric range that includes revolutionary ROICA Eco-Smart™ family of stretch fibers that are sustainably designed and the unique ROICA Feel Good™ family that promises a new level of well-being
• ROICA™ CLOSET: new garment designs from our experimental lab that highlight functional ROICA™ families.
• ROICA™ NOVELTIES DISPLAY, discover the latest ROICA™ innovations.

"Datacenter in a box" is the new powerful, flexible and secure IT infrastructure solution for the textile industry of the future

Remscheid/Berlin – Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment Industrie 4.0 solutions for the production of polyester, nylon and polypropylene are based on the digitalization of the production landscape and the intelligent processing of the flood of data generated in this way. In the future, the segment will offer its customers a new powerful, flexible and, above all, secure IT infrastructure. The "Datacenter in a box" was presented for the first time at the OpenStack Summit in Berlin, Germany, to a broad specialist audience. The compact datacenter works on the basis of the open operating system OpenStack, which enables virtual computing in a secure private cloud environment.

Externally, the datacenter looks unspectacular: The box contains standard hardware such as server rack, network components, batteries for reliability, monitoring sensors and a few more things. But what counts are the inner values. The Open Source software OpenStack consists of many different services and allows the virtualization of a large pool of computing, storage and network resources in a flexible, scalable private cloud. This brings two central advantages: On the one hand, virtual operation reduces costs and simplifies configuration, adaptation and expansion of the IT infrastructure today and tomorrow. On the other hand, long-cherished wishes for high data protection are fulfilled, because a private cloud maintains secure, highly encrypted data connections away from the World Wide Web.

"The functional diversity of a cloud, operation and hardware in one's own four walls at the same time – our customers immediately understood these advantages" reports Mario Arcidiacono, specialist for Business Intelligence & Data Warehouse at the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment. The IT architecture also guarantees infrastructure management without downtime, the system and virus protection are automatically kept up to date at all times. Another major advantage is the scalability of the hardware and software, which can be adapted to changing requirements.

OpenStack Summit: Project example with yarn manufacturer from Vietnam presented

With these trump cards and a project example, the Group segment confidently presented itself to a genuine specialist audience in mid-November. At this year's OpenStack Summit in Berlin, where thousands of cloud professionals met, Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment CEO Georg Stausberg presented the customer installation at Century Synthetic Fibre Corporation, which supplies many well-known sporting goods manufacturers. The Vietnamese producer of high-quality yarns not only uses the new datacenter, but also the connection to the new "Common Service Platform (CSP)" of the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment as well as an innovative new dashboard solution in prototype status. In this case, the digital instrument panel supports employee communication during shift changes in the yarn factory and introduces agile methods into the work process. The board visualizes the progress of central key figures and operating parameters from the current production process. Based on this, the employees of the successive shifts can now exchange important process and quality information and possible instructions for action within a few minutes in a structured stand-up meeting. "For the customer this means an immediate improvement of the processes, and he can significantly increase the efficiency and quality of his employees' work," assures Joerg Gross, Senior Manager in the IT-architecture team at the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment.

New IT-basis for the Plant Operation Center (POC) already successful established on the market

The fixed connection to the "Common Service Platform (CSP)" of the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment plays a pioneering role in such solutions. This enables services and software updates to be provided smoothly, quickly and automatically. In this way, service applications can transform collected data into instructions or automated commands to secure and improve processes. For example, the secure availability of management solutions such as the Plant Operation Center (POC) for process monitoring can be increased and possible errors can be rectified very quickly. The new digital solution AIM4DTY (AIM = Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing), which was unveiled at the ITMA ASIA + CITME 2018 in Shanghai, China, a few weeks ago, can also be implemented in this way. AIM4DTY uses methods of machine learning, determines probable causes of errors in texturing and helps to improve quality during production.

Launch at ITMA Barcelona 2019

The Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment offers such remote-supported services on request. Data will therefore only be transferred to the “Common Service Platform (CSP)” with the customer's consent. In addition, all data is processed in accordance with the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and all other international data protection standards. Against this backdrop, the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment plans to provide its datacenter with graded or customer-specific solutions: from complete service to provision with customer training for its own operations. After initial practical experience with several pilot customers, the segment intends to launch its offering on the market next year and officially present it to the textile industry at ITMA 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.