From the Sector

During an expansive, three-day Electronics For Imaging, Inc. open house this month at the company’s EFI™ Reggiani industrial textile printer facility, textile and apparel manufacturers witnessed first-hand the market-leading innovations that provide users with new opportunities. The December open house, which drew more than 70 attendees from over 23 different European, South American, and Middle Eastern countries, featured informative sessions with product experts on a diverse range of topics, covering new and trending market applications for textile manufacturers.

Attendees witnessed live demonstrations of eight advanced digital printers during the open house, including the new EFI Reggiani HYPER, EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver scanning/multi-pass printer, and EFI Reggiani BLAZE as well as the EFI Reggiani BOLT – the award-winning single-pass offering that is the one of the fastest digital textile printers.

EFI Reggiani HYPER – a fast scanning digital printer
The new EFI Reggiani HYPER is a scanning printer available in 1.8-metre, 2.4-metre or 3.4-metre widths. The Reggiani HYPER model targets the industrial high-speed segment of the multi-pass textile printing sector.

With an up to eight-colour configuration, it prints at speeds up to 13 linear metres per minute in two-pass production mode. The new printer is suitable for high-quality production on knitted or woven fabrics and is designed with smart technology that enables it to be integrated into Industry 4.0 projects.

Sustainable direct-to-textile printing with the EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver
The new-version TERRA Silver printer is part of EFI’s complete TERRA line-up of pigment ink printer solutions. It allows print service providers to enter the world of industrial textile with a short, smart and green production process.
The printer also features:

• A new recirculating ink system for superior reliability and minimum maintenance
• Several printing modes to ensure maximum flexibility in terms of design capability
• New, real-time image processing that eliminates time spent in image pre-calculations
• A user friendly, intuitive interface
• A more-efficient polymerisation process that takes place as printed textile goes through the printer’s on-board dryer.

EFI Reggiani BLAZE, an ideal entry solution for industrial textile printing
The EFI Reggiani BLAZE printer is designed to give textile companies the opportunity to enter the digital textile printing market with a compact solution. The new, 1.8-metre-wide printer offers an innovative, low-maintenance, continuous recirculation ink system equipped with a level sensor and degassing as well as a print head crash protective system for longer printhead life and superior uptime.

The upgraded EFI Reggiani BOLT – one of the fastest digital textile printers
In 2021, the EFI Reggiani BOLT received a combination of hardware and software enhancements that minimise artifacts, compensating for missing nozzles that may occur over time and enhancing uniformity to deliver smoother solid colours. The upgrade also delivers improved quality and smoother gradients, plus it enables faster printhead replacement and drastically increases file processing speed by up to 200% for large, complex files.

Iluna Group and Maglificio Ripa announce a strategic collaboration, each maintaining its own identity and independence, based on the complementarity of the proposal and the convergence of intentions for a new and more functional way of partnership.

Iluna Group, a leader in the production of smart lace, and Maglificio Ripa, internationally recognized for the production of premium and responsible jersey, both established in common sectors - from underwear to beachwear and sportswear - formally launched this collaboration during the MarediModa show in Cannes with a joint double stand where visitors could discover the latest collections of the two companies and also imagine new designs and solutions for sustainable fashion.

"We are living in a moment of strong change, from the wave of sustainability that is finally sweeping the fashion world to new market scenarios. And we are convinced that collaboration is the key to face these new challenges. In Maglificio Ripa we saw a complementary and unique partner with whom we can reach partners, customers and suppliers in a more complete way." comments Furio Annovazzi, CEO of Iluna Group. "Ours is not a union between companies but a new model of partnership, a sort of strategic symbiosis aimed at developing together new paths that can lead the both of us both to growth. Our collections, presented in the same context, can nurture the creativity of customers at a time when the stylistic contaminations are increasingly pronounced," adds Luca Bianco, CEO of Maglificio Ripa.
 
Furthermore, Iluna Group and Maglificio Ripa jointly created their new campaign with a photo shoot and video clip as well as jointly developed a trend scenario that allowed both companies to better embrace the evolving market by sharing information, perspectives and ideas.

As the demand for recycled plastics grows, so does the size of the machines. This applies to the processing of polyolefins as well as to PET recycling. With its unique dimensions and production capacity, this new size of plant features a screw diameter of 280 mm, implemented for the first time in a VACUREMA® Basic 2628 T large-scale project for producing rPET pellets. EREMA has just shipped the plant to a customer in Brazil.

Up to 40,000 tonnes per year of rPET meeting the highest quality standards can now be produced. "For this purpose, we installed a screw with a length of ten meters, a diameter of 280 millimetres and a weight of 3.5 tonnes, which is the largest ever used in one of our recycling machines," explains Managing Director Michael Heitzinger. The screw was manufactured by 3S, a subsidiary of EREMA GmbH. No less impressive is the reactor of this recycling system, which, with a height of around 10 metres, is also unique and almost reaches the roof of the new production hall. 500 tonnes of input material were recycled during the test phase, which was subject to strict quality control. "The entire project was a great team effort," Heitzinger said, thanking everyone involved.

EREMA as a partner for large-scale projects
Just four years ago, the largest extrusion line supplied by EREMA was designed for a throughput of 15,000 tonnes per year. This size of plant was ordered by customers once or twice a year. In the meantime, machines like this leave the production site in Ansfelden every month. As early as 2020, EREMA proved to be a pioneer and reliable partner for implementing unique large-scale projects. That was when the food and beverage packaging manufacturer Envases Universales Mexico commissioned two VACUREMA® Basic 2625 T machines, each with a screw diameter of 250 mm and a capacity of 30,000 tonnes per year.

Fully integrated production lines from single source suppliers have increasingly become the norm in the textile industry and make complete sense in meeting today’s complex supply chain needs, according to TMAS – the Swedish Textile Machinery Association.

“Over the past few decades, textile mills have transitioned from consisting of collections of individual machines serviced and maintained largely by in-house mechanics as well as separate supplier companies for each part of the production line,” says TMAS Secretary General Therese Premler-Andersson. “Those in-house engineering service teams have diminished over the years, while the introduction of electronic drive systems in the 1980s and 90s also put an increased emphasis on the need for third party electrical engineers, operating separately to the machine builders.

“Subsequently, mechanical machines and electronic drive systems became much more integrated, and more recently, with the advent of digitalisation, entire production lines are becoming centrally controlled with remote, instantaneous connections to their suppliers for service and maintenance.

“In this context, the integration of machinery and automation specialists as single-source suppliers makes perfect sense, while partnerships between machine builders and their customers have never been more important.”

The recent acquisition of Nowo textile machinery from its previous owner, Brandstones Ab Oy, by TMAS member ACG Kinna, she adds, is a good example of this general trend.

Nowo, headquartered in Turku, Finland, designs, manufactures and exports high-end textile production machinery mainly for the fibre processing industry. At the end of the 1980s it introduced the highly successful Nowo Vac pillow filling system, which has been its best-selling system, alongside the Noworoll ball fibre machine, introduced in the 1990s.

Nowo’s machine range covers the entire production process from bale opening to weighing and filling, and complete production lines are tailored to the specific needs of customers. The company can also deliver individual machines such as bale openers, cards, cross-lappers, pickers, mixing devices, material silos, sucking devices, anti-static units etc. Seven patents cover the company’s technologies.

Founded in 1977, ACG Kinna Automatic, based in Skene in Sweden, specialises in customised and cost-efficient solutions for the production of pillows and quilts. All of its design, manufacturing and final line testing is carried out in Sweden and the reliability and longevity of its machines has earned it the trust of the world’s largest furniture and home decoration retailers and Europe’s largest manufacturer of pillows and duvets, among many customers.

imm cologne will not take place on the planned dates in January 2022 in Cologne. The executive board of Koelnmesse reached this decision in close consultation with the Association of the German Furniture Industry (VDM) and in agreement with other well-known industry representatives at the international level. "This step is restricted exclusively to imm cologne and its specific requirements for trade fair operations. We are principally planning, as before, to carry out our spring events in 2022. The political guidelines allow for this, and, following the excellent and safe course of the past autumn trade fairs, this must remain our mission in the interests of the participating industries“, says COO Oliver Frese.

The VDM, as the industry sponsor of the event, and against the background of the current pandemic situation, sees the economic success of the event and thus the successful restart of imm cologne in January as extremely endangered. "Following consultation with numerous exhibitors, industry representatives and trading partners, there is either no question of participation on the part of German exhibitors or exhibitors from the German-speaking region, or this is very much in doubt", according to Jan Kurth, CEO of the VDM.  Similar feedback also came from many European countries.

"The current special basic conditions in the interior design industry make the practicability of imm cologne almost impossible", according to Oliver Frese. "We didn't make this very bitter decision easy for ourselves, but consider it to be our obligation to take this step now in close consultation with the industry. In this way we provide clarity and planning security in the interests of our exhibitors. In our shared perspective, an imm cologne with its claim as a leading trade fair for the interior design industry is not realisable in the current situation", the COO continues. "We are currently working actively on options for also still being able to offer exhibitors of imm cologne an attractive trade fair presence at the international level. Here, both spoga+gafa and ORGATEC present excellent alternatives in the interior design portfolio of Koelnmesse".

The cancellation is restricted to imm cologne and expressly does not include other B2B events planned for spring 2022 in Cologne. In autumn, the Cologne art fairs and the nutrition fair Anuga, among others, demonstrated that trade fairs are also once again possible at the international level and can be carried out safely for everyone. It is currently quite clear how differently individual industries are reacting to the present situation. "We have determined a heterogeneous estimation among the exhibiting companies in the face of the enduring pandemic situation in Germany", according to Oliver Frese, COO of Koelnmesse. The assessments vary in degree specific to different industries, "sometimes with a greater impact on the respective trade fair and sometimes hardly palpable", the COO continues. "In the interests of cooperation in a spirit of trust, we are of course communicating closely with our industries and customers, in order to be able to reach just these kinds of industry-specific decisions," according to Frese.

The hygiene and safety concept of Koelnmesse, which remains entirely in keeping with the decisions of the Minister-President Conference and the Corona Protection Ordinance of NRW, stands for safe processes.

A positive picture was still taking shape for imm cologne as a whole with the end of the term for cancellation without penalties in mid-October: with 600 exhibitors from more than 50 countries, the event would still have been the largest and most relevant forum for the interiors industry, hosted in Europe’s biggest furniture market, even in this smaller form in terms of numbers.

The professional exchange and the networking between internationally active companies and highly qualified trade visitors provide the basis at every imm cologne for future-oriented innovations and the development of new business models. In this way, imm cologne ensures important business impulses for the industry. Koelnmesse, together with the VDM and the exhibiting industry, will therefore do everything possible to get a powerful and innovative imm cologne 2023 on its feet.        

• JEC Group announces theme for JEC World 2022 and reaffirms global leadership in composites innovation, business and networking

JEC World, the leading global trade show dedicated to composite materials, their manufacturing technologies and application markets, will take place in Paris from March 8-10, 2022, under the theme Composites for a Sustainable World. JEC World 2022 will be the industry’s most awaited international face to face event after the long pandemic period. Exhibition space is already 98% booked, a clear demonstration of the industry’s commitment to meet and resume business. Those unable to join in person will be able to experience the show via the JEC World Connect digital platform.

“We are looking forward to welcoming our exhibitors, partners and visitors back to Paris to resume business and promote innovation,” comments Thomas Lepretre, VP Events, Sales and Operations of JEC Group. “JEC World will bring the composites industry together to showcase the sustainability benefits of composite materials to a global audience, and to provide a stimulating meeting-place for the industry to pursue its sustainability ambitions by exchanging knowledge, forging collaborations, and imagining new concepts to protect our environment.”

• JEC World a unique get-together on sustainability throughout the product lifecycle
• JEC World a real composites “think tank”
• JEC World 2022 will demonstrate how sustainable thinking is at the heart of the innovative designs, technologies and business models driving the development of the next generation of composites applications.

Four conferences will be held over the three days, focusing on:

• Sustainability of Raw Materials for Composites: Fueling the Circular Revolution
• Rethinking Composite Materials Production: The Path to Sustainable Manufacturing
• Design for Circular Composite Products: Turning Waste, Recycling & Reuse into Opportunities
• Applications of Composite Materials for Circularity: Towards a Net-Zero World

Innovation is in JEC World’s DNA
One of JEC World’s objective’s is to promote the composites sector’s most innovative projects. More than 600 product launches are expected to be announced over the three days of the show, which will also feature JEC’s high-regarded innovation challenges and awards ceremonies :

• The JEC Composites Innovation Awards celebrate innovative global composite projects, as well as fruitful collaborations between different players in the value chain. Over more than 15 years, the JEC Composites Innovation Awards have highlighted collaborations between some 1,900 companies and recognized 203 creative projects. The winners will be announced on March 7th during a dedicated ceremony and their successful technologies will be on display throughout the show.

• The JEC Composites Startup Booster is the leading startup competition in the world of composites. In 2022, this competition will celebrate its fifth anniversary, with a special event to be organized onsite and the launch of a new “sustainability” award. And, with 20 finalists for 2022, it will recognize innovations with the greatest potential market impact and promote them to an influential audience of decision-makers. The finalists’ innovations will be displayed at JEC World’s “Startup Village.”

• For the first time, JEC World will host the 3rd edition of the SMC BMC Design Award organized by the European Alliance for SMC BMC. This international competition recognizes and promotes design excellence in the use of SMC and BMC materials. The theme of this edition is Sustainable Living, and the award is opento design students and young design professionals (less than 3 years of experience) living in Europe.

The 2022 Spring Edition of Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles is set to return to the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) from 9 – 11 March 2022. The fair, once again held concurrently with Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Spring Edition, Yarn Expo Spring, CHIC and PH Value, will continue to offer a one-stop trading platform for businesses during the traditional peak sourcing season of the Chinese home textile industry.

The fair provides an opportunity for suppliers to tap into the fast growing Chinese home textiles market and allows prospective buyers to meet their sourcing needs. Following the success of the 2021 edition, which attracted 18,951 trade buyers and 216 exhibitors to participate in this leading industry event, the upcoming spring fair will once more focus on finished products. Nevertheless, a wide range of items are also on offer including bedding & towelling, rugs, table & kitchen linen, home textile technologies, textile design and more.

The Home Textile Products for Campus & School Zone, as well as the Feather & Down Product Zone, will roll out again in the spring show after they were launched in the last edition. The Campus & School Zone was introduced to fulfil the rising market demand for domestic student bedding: “The current demand in China for student bedding is high. There are around 8 million new university students and 16 million secondary school students each year, and nearly all university students and 70% of secondary school students need bedding, equating to over 19.2 million sets needed each year,” Mr Shi Xiangyu, Department Manager at Yantai Pacific Home Fashion Co Ltd, a 2021 exhibitor, outlined.  

Helping businesses to reach their target buyers
Ms Weiqing Peng, Trade Department Supervisor of Wujiang City Yunjie Textiles Co Ltd commented on how the 2021 fair has helped them during the challenging times caused by the pandemic: “We treasure this opportunity to communicate with customers face to face. Buyers usually need to touch the fabrics in person. Many domestic companies are enthusiastic about exhibiting here, and we’ve been really busy as many new and old customers came to our booth. This fair is very popular with the whole industry supply chain.” Mr Leo Chen from Yantai Pacific Home Fashion Co Ltd also applauded the fair for helping them to “reach some big brands in China and explore more cooperation opportunities.” 

Maruti Printing transformed its business as the first printer in India to adopt the latest LED-UV curing technology from AMS Spectral UV, a Baldwin Technology Company. The hybrid system, which includes traditional UV modules, has been in production for nearly two years and has significantly expanded the offset printer’s capabilities for its customers, including adding the ability to print on all types of plastic substrates.

Not only does Maruti have the distinction of being an LED-UV trailblazer in India, but it also is first in the market to upgrade a high-speed, high-performance Heidelberg Speed Master 72F+L six-color printer with coating tower—which prints up to 15,000 sheets per hour—with AMS Spectral UV’s high-power AMS XP9-I Series LED-UV and P3 Smart UV curing modules.

Established in 1986 and headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Maruti serves customers throughout India, providing offset printing of scratch cards, banners, booklets, brochures, calendars, danglers, pamphlets, posters, stickers and envelopes.

In January 2020, Maruti took delivery of two AMS XP9-I Series LED-UV modules to cure colors in the interdecks. The modules are ideal for the highest-speed curing situations that require consistent peak intensity to the substrate, which is the case for Maruti’s offset printing standard of perfection with every cure.

To cure ink, as well as a growing variety of LED coatings, Baldwin’s AMS Spectral UV modules can be located after print units, or in the press delivery after the coater. When inks and coatings are cured with LED-UV, they become instantly dry via photopolymerization, allowing for printing on any substrate, including plastics and metallized stocks. Plus, work can be immediately finished and sent to the bindery once it comes off the press, without the need for heat, spray powder or drying time.

In addition, Maruti took delivery of two P3 Smart UV curing modules for installation at the end of the press to cure any type of UV coating and expand the company’s scope of coating compatibility to general UV coatings in order to offer its customers the widest range of UV printed choices in the Indian market.

The P3 Smart UV housings are completely liquid-cooled to ensure safe, consistent performance and increased uptime, and modules feature a universal design, so that any unit can fit any print unit location. P3 modules can be changed, inspected and cleaned quickly and easily, without tools, and lamps slide and lock into place smoothly and securely.

The durability of the equipment and its chipset was a critical deciding factor in India’s climate. The latest-generation power-and-control cabinets are dust- and moisture-resistant, allowing them to withstand extreme heat and humidity, as well as powder and airborne contaminants, making the equipment ideal for operation in stressful conditions anywhere in the world. AMS Spectral UV’s latest generation of LED chips, designed for the highest-intensity curing applications, enable the curing of LED inks and coatings at record-setting speeds. They are built with resilient components, and the semi-conductor components are sealed, which allows the chips to work in a variety of rugged environments. Additionally, integrated circuits incorporated into the design electronically protect the LEDs and the entire system.

•  14 million for the Rhenish coal region

Shaping economic change in the Rhenish textile and coal region together with artificial intelligence (AI) - this is the goal of the WIRKsam competence centre launched at the beginning of November. The joint project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is researching innovative forms of work to secure employment, create attractive jobs and strengthen regional companies.
 

With a focus on the strengths of the Rhenish mining area, WIRKsam is to establish itself as a central point of contact and align various scientific institutions and their research specifically to the challenges of the regional working world. Funded by the BMBF with 14 million euros over five years, the project is fundamentally about transferring scientific findings into company practice and into the wider society. After the funding phase, the centre of excellence will continue to work independently.

Prospects: Attractive jobs in the lignite mining region
The region on the left bank of the Rhine is not only a lignite mining area, but also a historically grown textile region where technical textiles are produced today, for example for medical technology or plant and vehicle construction. This offers valuable future prospects for the employees affected by the lignite phase-out.

Against this background, the aim of the WIRKsam centre of excellence is to research the extensive possibilities of artificial intelligence for shaping the future world of work and to transfer them to companies. AI applications are used to develop innovative work and process flows to create attractive workplaces and increase the competitiveness of local companies.

Together: business and science
The special feature: research institutions and companies from the Rhenish textile industry and related sectors work together in the centre of excellence. Research partners are the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) of RWTH Aachen University and the Institute for Mobile Autonomous Systems and Cognitive Robotics (MASCOR) of FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences, headed by ifaa - Institut für angewandte Arbeitswissenschaft e.V. (Institute for Applied Work Science).

Nine regional companies are involved so far; more will join. AI applications are being developed and exemplarily implemented for their respective needs. In this way, the diverse potentials of AI for work design are being tested and qualification requirements derived. These results will not only increase the global competitiveness of the textile industry and other sectors; they will also secure jobs and make an important contribution to overcoming structural change in the Rhenish lignite mining area.

WIRKsam is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the funding measure "Regional Competence Centres for Labour Research" and is supervised by the Karlsruhe Project Management Agency (PTKA) (funding code: 02L19C600). The WIRKsam competence centre will be based in Hürth, Germany, on the edge of the Rhenish mining area as soon as the conversion work on the former TV studios on the Euronova campus is completed.

Avgol, an Indorama Ventures company and manufacturer of high-performance nonwoven fabric solutions, will be showcasing its latest work in biotransformation technology for polyolefin fibers and nonwoven fabrics at this year’s Hygienix™ event.

Nick Carter, Vice President, Nonwovens Marketing at Avgol, will be a guest speaker at the event, giving a presentation alongside Dr. DeeAnn Nelson, R&D and Innovation Manager with Avgol in North America, on ‘Biotransformation Technology in Polyolefin Fibers and Nonwoven Fabrics, Focus on Fugitive Used Articles’. “Today, the word “sustainability” does not have a unified meaning in the industries we serve,” said Nick. “Perform a regional analysis on any given customer or consumer, delve into a legislative body or advocacy group’s positioning and you will find each are likely to use the word ‘sustainable’ with varying interpretations, implementations, and implications.

The Avgol presentation, part of the Product & Process Innovation in AHPs series, will take place at 2pm on Tuesday, November 16.

From their base at the tabletop event, Nick and the Avgol team will be discussing the global challenge of eliminating incineration, chemical treatment, landfill, dumping and, in particular, fugitive material pollution from non-woven products.

“Following our recent success at Index 20, we will be sharing insight to our research and development strategy with Hygienix attendees, addressing the degradation performance of our products and the path forward for the industry in terms of the use of new bio-colorants, biosurfactants and new technologies. Of course, we will also be demonstrating our latest Forward Innovative Thinking (FITTM) range of hygiene materials too, including natureFITTM”, says Nick Carter.

natureFIT™ is the newest innovation in the Avgol™ technology platform, designed to imbue nonwoven fabrics with additional qualities and benefits that anticipate the shifting demands of the consumer-led retail space. The suite of fabric solutions is focused on replacing elements of spun melt fabric design, where possible, with natural alternatives. The advanced technology affords product designers a significant reduction in polymer consumption to reduce environmental impact while simultaneously enhancing softness and conformability.

Hygienix™ runs from 15 – 18 November 2021 at the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA.