“2022 Will Be One of the Best Years in Terrot’s History”
Germany-based developer and manufacturer of circular knitting machines, Terrot, increased its turnover by 50% in 2021 compared to the previous year, despite the difficulties experienced due to the pandemic. Terrot General Manager Robert Czajkowski said that Whereas 2020 was dominated by single jersey machines the last year was mainly characterised by high demand in the home textile, mattresses and sportswear sector, with both mechanical and electronical machines. Czajkowski made special statements to our Tekstil Teknoloji magazine.
First of all, how was 2021 for Terrot? Can you evaluate the year 2021 in figures?
The year 2021 was challenging for the Terrot GmbH, as probably for most of the companies in the textile business. After an average start in the beginning orders started increasing from Q2 on. Whereas 2020 was dominated by single jersey machines the last year was mainly characterised by high demand in the home textile, mattresses and sportswear sector, with both mechanical and electronical machines. Terrot was confronted with orders of high quantities and the demand of quick deliveries. This required a significant increase in production capacity within a short period of time for us and equally our suppliers. Problems with supply chains leading to delays, sky rocketing prices for commodities, raw materials and parts, in particular electronic like semiconductors, as well as transportation stretched us as probably many others to the breaking point. The reward was a 50% increase in turnover in comparison to the critical prior year.
“Electronic Controlled Mattress Ticking Machine Orders Increased”
In knitting, what are the developments that Terrot has seen over the years, and what advantages the systems that Terrot offers over that of its competitors Technologies?
In the knitting industry one can very often see a change in fabric preferences. Being a leading manufacturer of circular knitting machines Terrot always fulfils these demands with “state of the art” quality, performance and adaptiveness of its machinery in the respective sector. The enormous increase of orders for electronically controlled mattress ticking machines proves the ability of Terrot to answer the requirements of the market. From more standardized for serial requirements to highly customized for special structures we offer the broadest range of machine types for high quality fabrics in a great variety of gauges and realize a truly flexible customer centred approach.
In an increasingly digitised world, how are your machines keeping pace?
Terrot machines easily fit into smart factories by providing a fully interoperable “network user interface”. A remote service possibility and a newly developed trouble shooting assistance software mark our progress into the digitised era.
Could you tell us about your worldwide sales and support network and the countries you export?
Terrot is selling machines into more than 100 countries around the world. A network of over 50 qualified sales agencies guarantees the close contact to the customers and supports them by servicing the existing as well as with installations of new machines and responding to their spare part needs. Our main markets are India, Uzbekistan and of course Turkey. But we also distribute a large quantity of machines to Europe, Asia and Latin America which guarantees a well-balanced sales performance and avoids cluster risks.
“Turkish Knitters have responded well to the Pandemic Period”
The knitting industry performed very successfully in Turkey, especially during the pandemic period. How do you evaluate the performance of Turkish knitters in this process? What do you think are the reasons for success?
As you know, Covid 19 has started in China – the biggest textile producer in the world – and it seems to have triggered a lot of transformation processes. We do not know what this will mean in the end but certainly it led big garment producers to look for alternatives for production. Turkey was there with its infrastructure of experienced and global producers, transportation and service companies as well as well-trained workers, attractive loan structures and energy costs. Pandemic period and home office working style gave opportunity to people to wear comfortable clothes pushing the demand for knitted fabrics. Turkish knitters have responded well to this opportunity and are providing excellent products and services to international customers all around the world.
Can you tell us about your expectations, goals, new products and investment plans for 2022?
An exceptional order book and further attractive deals under negotiation lead us to expect this year as one of the best in Terrot’s history. New developments in the single and double jersey sector, consisting of premium high efficiency machines with outstanding performance, maintenance and operating cost KPI’s as well as general improvements on our existing equipment are on the way. With new investments in machinery, software and process optimisation in the production, Terrot will eliminate capacity bottlenecks for machine parts of new machines as well as for spare parts.
“We are very much looking forward to ITM 2022”
Could you share with us your views on the ITM Exhibition, which will bring the textile machinery industry together after such a long break?
We are very much looking forward to ITM 2022 exhibition to be able to present after this longtime our products again to a wider audience. But mostly we are curious to understand the “new order” after this pandemic period, to study new trends and to exchange views with hopefully many attending market players. We expect many new impulses and insights and are excited to meet our dear business partners as well as new customers.
Do you have new products or new technologies that you are planning to exhibit at the ITM 2022?
Terrot will exhibit some fairly new highly productive machine types for the Turkish market. We are happy to show our Pilotelli series high speed single jersey machine “JV-3.0” that combines a speed-factor of up to 1500 on selected structures with highest pattern quality, easy handling, long maintenance cycles and low needle wear-out as well as our high feeder electronically controlled mattress ticking Terrot series machine “UCC 594-M” which has lately become one of our machines of choice for many of the world’s leading mattress cover producers. Both types are produced “Made in Germany”.
Interview: Dilek HAYIRLI
