From the Sector

Sustainable fashion brands YesAnd & Kornit Digital are teaming up with the global platform fostering innovation in the fashion industry, Fashinnovation. This month, the three like-minded companies will be unveiling a direct-to-garment printing collaboration.
 
YesAnd & Kornit Digital are (e)co-creating digital, on-demand printed certified organic blank merchandise, with graphic designs by artists, celebrities, influencers, musicians, fashion VIPs, NGO’s and more. Sharing core values of fashion & innovation & non-toxic, zero-waste production, and the fusion of technology to accelerate impact, this launch represents a cutting-edge and sustainable solution that’s accessible, traceable, customizable, and scalable. By joining forces, this collaboration will educate, engage, and activate both consumers and industry alike.
 
"We at Fashinnovation have a strong belief that the fashion industry must walk side-by-side with innovation, in order to ensure a sustainable future. We are thrilled for this collaboration with YesAnd and Kornit, as we hope to set an example when it comes to the power of unity. In our minds, it's not about a person's wins, but rather it's about our collective progress," said Jordana & Marcelo Guimaraes, Founders of Fashinnovation.
 
Debuting the first of their brand collaborations with farm-to-print organic merchandise, this collaboration will together minimize waste, water, chemical use, and energy, while celebrating climate action, manufacturing efficiencies, and sustainable innovation—representing a true and timely fashion statement. The brands will be debuting their select blank styles of digitally-printed designs from the initial capsule collection—including the YesAnd Frida Hoodie, Gloria Hoodie Tee, Dominique Tee, and the Samata Dress, with a graphic option aligning the missions of YesAnd, Fashinnovation and Kornit Digital, “Don’t Wear Clothes, Wear Change.”

A new fabric inspection technique for accurately detecting the most subtle of defects on patterned fabrics during high speed production has been developed by BTMA member Shelton Vision, of Leicester, UK.

The patent-pending system has been integrated into the company’s WebSpector platform and validated through factory trials on a purpose-built full scale in-house demonstration system with sophisticated fabric transport capabilities. As a result, a first system has already been ordered by a manufacturer of both plain and patterned fabrics, including camouflage, in Colombia. This follows the successful conclusion of a 21-month Innovate UK project in which techniques for the resolution of complex pattern deformations were developed by machine vision and computer scientists in the company, backed up by the machine vision and robotics department at Loughborough University.

Restrictions
Traditional methods for defect detection rely on human inspection which is ineffective, with detection rates under 65%, while the Shelton WebSpector machine vision system offers a sophisticated platform for automated defect detection of over 97%, but until now has been restricted to plain textiles.

While pattern matching and neural network approaches have previously been tried for patterned textiles, they have failed to provide a practical solution due to the extreme complexity associated with pattern matching on deformable substrates like textiles, as well as the time required to train a neural network for each pattern type.

Challenges
The challenge is that fabrics are not rigid and can be creased or stretched and are also subject to local distortion,” says Shelton Vision Managing Director and CEO Mark Shelton. “As a result, inspection without the technique we have developed, would lead to thousands of false positives. Our sophisticated pattern inspection software techniques ensure a clean image, allowing the detection of faults on fabrics running at speeds of up to a hundred metres a minute.”

The full system consists of:

• A camera and lighting system for optimum image capture at high speed and associated image processing hardware.
• Self-training software utilising statistical analysis to automate the system configuration for new textile products.
• An advanced suite of defect detection algorithms for the detection of all textile defect types.
• An AI-driven defect classification system which learns and automates defect naming in real time, as well as a real time defect grading capability based on client decision rules.
• A system for recording and retrieving complete roll map images for subsequent review and quality control.

The generation of textile roll maps with complete defect data allows for an optimised textile cut plan, improved downstream processing and quality assurance.

• Recypur successfully starts up a complete airlay line delivered by ANDRITZ for its mill in L’Alcúdia, Spain

The airlay line is designed for recycling of post-industrial and post-consumer foam and was developed specifically for the bedding and furniture industry, with material heights reaching 20 cm and densities of up to 120 kg/m3. Experimental tests carried out together with experts from ANDRITZ Laroche led to the conclusion that the mechanical method for recycling polyurethane is the most versatile and reliable.

With a capacity of 1.2 t/h, this airlay line enables Recypur to supply new mattresses made of industrial & post-consumer foam waste from old mattresses. This well proven process allows to reduce the environmental impact, increase self-sufficiency and eventually reduce the use of polyurethane. Such a set-up also allows multiple functional materials to be incorporated into the blend, such as flame-retardant, conductive and insulating fibers, among others. Thanks to this tailored approach, Recypur is now able to expand its diversification, innovation and reputation on the Spanish market.

The scope of supply includes a blending line with five feeders, an Exel 1500 for fine opening, an Airlay Flexiloft+ with 2.20 m working width, a recycling machine and an oven.

Airlay lines strongly support the circular economy and are part of ANDRITZ’s comprehensive product portfolio of sustainable solutions that help customers achieve their own sustainability goals in terms of climate and environmental protection.

Recypur, based in the Spanish province of Valencia, is part of DELAX, a Spanish group specialized in manufacturing and commercialization of innovative beds and mattresses. This company is the first Spanish manufacturer of recycled flexible polyurethane foam cores from post-consumer foam waste.

In comparison to HY 21 revenue went up by 26% to 1,707.3 million EUR, the profit reached 123.9 million EUR (+6%).

Machines & Technologies revenue increased by +10%. The revenue of Agro increased by +46%, Bio-valorization revenue increased by +27%, the revenue of Industrial Solutions increased by +21%, and the revenue of T-Power increased by 4%. This revenue increase could be mainly realized thanks to higher sales prices, implemented to compensate the increase of raw material, energy and transportation costs in most segments.

In the first half of 2022, revenue increased by +10% for the segment Machines & Technologies. This increase in revenue took place both in weaving machines (Picanol) and other industrial activities (Proferro, PsiControl). Picanol launched the OmniPlus-i TC Connect weaving machine into the Machines & Technologies segment in early 2022. This model, which was specifically made for weaving tire cord, has been upgraded with the latest airjet technology and equipped with the features of the new generation Connect weaving machines. However, HY22 Adjusted EBITDA decreased by 64% compared to last year due to the negative impact of rising raw material prices, transportation costs and costs of late deliveries, which could not be translated into higher selling prices, partly due to the large order book.

The group anticipates a continued high level of uncertainty in the second half of 2022, as well as in 2023, due to the current conflict in Eastern Europe, the difficult supply chain circumstances, and other challenges following the coronavirus pandemic. The development of customer demand and sales margin could therefore come under pressure. However, based on currently available information, Picanol Group expects that the 2022 Adjusted EBITDA will be higher than the 2021 Adjusted EBITDA (430.3 million EUR). This revised outlook for the 2022 financial year reflects the strong first half of the year, while the result for the second half is expected to be in line with the same period in the previous year.

• Focus on straightening technology and process control

At Indo Intertex, held from 10 to 13 August in Jakarta, visitors get to see the Mahlo-way for process control in textile production. The German machine manufacturer and its partner agency Agansa Primatama will be available to show everyone its leading straightening technology as well as energy saving concepts around the stenter frames. INDO INTERTEX is South East Asia’s largest trade show on the textile and garment industries, bringing together leaders to experience world-class manufacture, technology and solutions.

Indonesia is one of the ten biggest textile producers in the world. Especially the USA, the European Union and Japan import a majority of their requirements from the Southeast Asian Island state. In order to fulfill the increasing demands and the call for high quality goods, producers invest in machinery, equipment and technology.

At IndoIntertex, Mahlo informs about its straightening machine Orthopac RVMC-15, among other. Based on experience reaching back to over 75 years, the machine offers the latest technology for correcting distortions. The modular straightening and process control system ensures a straight-thread product before and after the drying or fixing process and optimises the processes all around the stenter. This increases quality and saves resources and energy. The process control system Optipac VMC-15 measures and controls critical parameters such as dwell time, thread density or residual moisture.

EFI™ Reggiani, the industrial textile printing business of printing technology company Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (EFI), has broken ground on a new textile campus to accommodate ongoing growth. The new 20,000-square-metre campus in Comun Nuovo, Bergamo, Italy, is expected to be completed midyear in 2023.

Sustainability and employee well-being at the centre
The new facility was designed with environmental sustainability and employee well-being in mind. That focus includes plans to install 400 kilowatts of solar panels supplying 60% of the facility’s total energy requirements. Moreover, the building will benefit from superior thermal insulation that will ensure a reduction in heating and cooling costs. Numerous skylights in the facility will provide better natural lighting and a reduction in artificial lighting usage.
 
Green space on the campus was a priority in the design process, covering an estimated 20% of the total area. For a more welcoming work environment, the campus will also feature a canteen and gymnasium for employee use.
 
A 3,000-square-metre demo centre in the new facility will be nearly twice as large as the current EFI Reggiani demo centre in Grassobbio, Italy, offering a high-end, high-tech showcase for state-of-the-art EFI Reggiani printers, as well as Mezzera pre- and post-treatment and Jaeggli yarn treatment products. The demo centre will also feature EFI Reggiani’s recently acquired portfolio of Inèdit raster image processing (RIP) and workflow software solutions.
 
Transforming the textile industry through innovation in green
Since the launch of its first analogue printer, to its newest digital solutions, EFI Reggiani has at its core a heritage and expertise that have contributed to the transformation of the textile industry worldwide. With its total commitment to providing “Innovation in Green,” EFI Reggiani’s leadership is the result of extensive research targeted at improving productivity, quality and sustainability in its customers’ operations. The company is focused on optimising the textile manufacturing process – and reducing energy use, water consumption and overall environmental impact – to ensure customers’ business growth and profitability.
 
Over the years, EFI Reggiani’s product portfolio has continued to expand, ranging from rotary and flatbed printing machines, to scanning/multi-pass digital printers, to fast digital textile printers.

• Annual assembly of ACIMIT, the Association of Italian Textile Machinery Manufacturers

• Digitalization and Sustainability Key to Resiliency for Italian Textile Machinery Sector

The objective critical issues faced by Italy as a whole throughout the course of 2021, primarily dictated by a pandemic that upset any and all pre-existing equilibriums, have not slowed or halted the Italian textile machinery sector.

Indeed, data presented during the annual assembly of ACIMIT, the Association of Italian Textile Machinery Manufacturers, held on 1 July proved decidedly positive, showing that in 2021 the sector recovered significantly compared to 2020, to the point of returning to pre-Covid levels.

Specifically, Italian textile machinery production amounted to 2.388 billion euros (+35% over 2020 and + 5% over 2019), with total exports amounting to 2.031 billion euros (+37% over 2020 and +9% over 2019).

However, these results do not cancel the obstacles that companies are still facing. Looking to the near future, expectations are for a rather uncertain outlook, as underscored by ACIMIT President Alessandro Zucchi: “2022 remains a year replete with unknown factors, starting with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, along with the persistence of the pandemic, which seriously risk delaying expected growth consolidation for businesses in the sector. Difficulties in finding raw materials and components negatively affect the completion and fulfilment of orders processed as far back as 2021. To boot, rising energy costs and inflationary trends affecting numerous commodities are depressing overall business confidence. So the outlook for the sector is not so good.”
As such, the two cornerstones through which ACIMIT aims to support the Italian textile machinery sector are digitilization and sustainability.

4.0: The textile machinery sector looks to the future
The road to digital transformation has already led numerous manufacturers to completely rethink their production processes, rendering them more efficient and l ess expensive. The digital world is moving ahead at a decisive rate in the textile machinery sector, where the buzzwords are increasingly, for instance, the Internet of Things connecting to a company’s ecosystem, machine learning algorithms applied to production, predictive maintenance, and the integrated cloud management of various production departments. It is no coincidence that ACIMIT has focused decisively on its Digital Ready project, through which Italian textile machinery that adopt a common set of data are certified, with the aim of facilitating integration with the operating systems of client companies (ERP, MES, CRM, etc.).

A green soul
Combining production efficiency and respect for the environment: a challenge ACIMIT has made its own and which it promotes among its members through the Sustainable Technologies project. Launched by the association as early as 2011, the project highlights the commitment of Italian textile machinery manufacturers in the area of sustainability. At the heart of the project is the Green Label, a form of certification specifically for Italian textile machinery which highlights its energy and environmental performance. An all-Italian seal of approval developed in collaboration with RINA, an international certification body.
The assembly held on 1 July provided an opportunity to take stock of the Sustainable Technologies project, more specifically, with the presentation of the Rina Consulting survey on the Green Label’s evolution and impact in recent years.

The results have confirmed the initiative’s extreme validity. The technological advances implemented by the association’s machinery producers participating in the project have effectively translated into benefits in terms of environmental impact (reduction of CO₂ equivalent emissions for machinery), as well as economic advantages for machinery users.

With reference to the year 2021, a total of 204,598 tons of CO₂ emissions avoided on an annual basis have been quantified, thanks to the implementation of improvements on machinery. This is a truly significant reduction which, for the sake of comparison, corresponds to the carbon dioxide emissions generated by 36,864 automobiles travelling an average of 35,000 km a year. In terms of energy savings, the use of green labeled textile machinery has provided excellent performances in allowing for a reduction of up to 84% in consumption.

A round table discussion on the Green Label’s primary purpose
The environmental and economic impact generated in production processes for Italian textile machinery through the use of Green Label technologies was the focus of the round table which concluded the ACIMIT assembly.

Moderated by Aurora Magni (professor of the Industrial Systems Sustainability course at the LIUC School of Engineering), the debate involved Gianluca Brenna (Lipomo Printing House administrator and Vice President of the Italian Fashion System for Welfare), Pietro Pin (Benetton Group consultant and President of UNI for the textile-clothing area), Giorgio Ravasio (Italy Country Manager for Vivienne Westwood), as well as ACIMIT President Alessandro Zucchi.

Called on to compare common factors in their experiences relating to environmental transition processes for their respective companies, the participants were unanimous: the future of Italian textile machinery can no longer ignore advanced technology developments capable of offering sustainable solutions with a low environmental impact while also reducing production costs. This philosophy has by now been consolidated, and has proven to lead directly to a circular economy outlook.

The upcoming ITMA 2023 exhibition
Lastly, a word on ITMA 2023, the most important international exhibition for textile machinery, to be held in Italy from 8 to 14 June 2023 at Fiera-Milano Rho. Marking the 19th edition of ITMA, this trade fair is an essential event for the entire industry worldwide, providing a global showcase for numerous innovative operational solutions on display. A marketplace that offers participants extraordinary business opportunities. The participation of Italian companies is managed by ACIMIT.

A delegation from TMAS, the Swedish textile machinery association, will participate in the forthcoming Febratex textile show which is being held in the German Village Park in Blumenau, in Santa Catarina, Brazil from August 23-26.

As the fourth largest textiles manufacturer in the world, Brazil’s annual revenues from textiles and apparel amount to an annual $48 billion and the industry employs around 1.5 million people directly.

As with the USA and many European countries, product shortages resulting directly from the Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequent supply chain difficulties, have emphasised to Brazil’s industry the attractiveness of more diversified and shorter supply chains which are closer to customers wherever possible. In the past two years, there has been less reliance on imports from Asia to Brazil, and opportunities are arising again for local manufacturing.

Svegea of Sweden has supplied many automatic collarette cutters to Brazilian companies, which are used by garment manufacturers around the world for the production of tubular apparel components such as cuff and neck tapes and other seam reinforcements.

Svegea supplies many other bespoke machines for applications in the production of both garment components and technical textiles, including rewinding, measuring, inspection and band knife machines.

Eton Systems, the inventor and world’s leading provider of automated production systems for apparel and other textile-based processes, has supplied a large amount of workstations to Brazilian companies over the years, and believes its newly-launched Opta system is good news for this market becoming more efficient and profitable.

Automation is also high on the agenda of ACG Kinna Automatic, which specialises in automation solutions for filled products such as quilts, pillows and mattresses and also has extensive knowledge in areas such as bed linen and textile filters.

Given Brazil’s extensive forestry sector, the country is a key market for Texo AB, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of weaving machines for the production of paper machine clothing (PMC).

All paper manufacturing machines require a regular supply of PMC, which as large continuous engineered fabrics, carry the paper stock through each stage of the paper production process. With technologically sophisticated designs, they employ fibres and other polymeric materials in complex structures and each paper machine has an average of ten separate fabrics installed on it. Although the PMC business represents just a small proportion of the total cost of manufacturing paper, it can have a significant impact on the quality of the paper, the efficiency of a machine and machine production rates.

Fiery®, the digital front end (DFE) and workflow business of EFI, announced that it has acquired CADlink® Technology Corp., a software company that delivers solutions for the high growth areas of digital direct-to-garment (DTG) and direct-to-film (DTF) printing; digital cutting and engraving; digital wide-format print; and vehicle wraps. CADlink’s products address increasingly important customer needs for customization and personalization, and for reducing the time spent moving work from design to production.

CADlink is a global software company that serves markets that require unique workflows involving different types of production devices. CADlink’s products are recognized leaders in design, RIP and workflow technology, and are sold globally to customers through OEM partners and an extensive network of resellers. CADlink’s products, partners and channels are a natural complement to what the Fiery business delivers for its global commercial, display graphics and industrial printing customer base.  

The CADlink software portfolio includes proven, advanced solutions that support the development and growth of e-commerce for custom-manufactured products.

“Becoming part of the EFI Fiery business will extend the geographic reach for our products and enhance our ability to support and drive greater value to customers and partners worldwide,” said CADlink Co-founder and CEO Gordon Reynen.

International technology group ANDRITZ has established a new inline Wetlace™ CP pilot line with an original design at its center of competence in Montbonnot, France. The line combines both spunlace and wetlaid technologies.

From now on, partners will be able to conduct trials and test all options available for wipes production – from carded staple fibers to pulp and various combinations thereof. The combination of both spunlace and wetlaid technologies offers to move forward to more sustainable options while maintaining a high level of product quality, in particular by achieving high CD strength and good linting properties.

Over the past few decades, ANDRITZ has continued to innovate with various nonwoven processes, like spunlace, WetlaceTM and Wetlace™ CP, with the aim of optimizing the use of raw materials and focusing on sustainability by reducing the synthetic fiber content. Facing the growing demand for bio-wipes in parallel with enforcement of the EU’s single-use plastics directive last year, ANDRITZ has decided to support its customers making their investment decisions.

The Montbonnot pilot line has been rebuilt to integrate the new headbox inside the spunlace line. Pulp can be fed in directly and entangled with carded staple fibers to produce unique nonwoven fabrics designed for end uses as bio-wipes.