Ağaoğlu Textile Produces Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Products with Goller Machines

Interview: Dilek Hayırlı

Ağaoğlu Tekstil, which prefers Goller brand in continuous bleaching machines, saves half in textile finishing processes where there is extensive consumption of water, energy and chemical substances. The company exports its home textile collections created by combining traditional values with innovative ideas all over the world, especially in European countries.

Founded by Sait and Sabri Ağaoğlu in Uşak in the early 1950s, Ağaoğlu Tekstil started its operations with the production of socks, wool and yarn. Today, the company, which has an average production capacity of 100 thousand meters of woven fabric per day, continues its production in the home textile and apparel sector with a staff of 620 people.

Ağaoğlu Tekstil General Manager İsmail Ağaoğlu, who took over the business after his father, adds new ones to his successes by growing the company day by day with his honest trade and customer satisfaction-oriented service approach. The fact that the sales and marketing team follows the orders from the entrance to the enterprise to the exit, even to the shipment, and informs its customers plays a major role in Ağaoğlu Tekstil’s success today.

Ağaoğlu Tekstil, which also has the title of the first textile company to establish an R&D center in Uşak, offers home textile products prepared by following the trends to the taste of customers both at home and abroad with its own brand, ‘Home Harmony’.

At the beginning of 2023, we visited Ağaoğlu Tekstil, which moved to its new facility in Uşak Mixed Organized Industrial Zone, and had a special interview with General Manager İsmail Ağaoğlu and Board Member Sait Ağaoğlu. In our interview, we talked about the company’s production activities since its establishment, export markets, R&D studies, projects and the contributions of the world-famous German Goller machinery by Fong´s Europe to Ağaoğlu Tekstil. Afterwards, Ağaoğlu Tekstil Machinery and Energy Manager Sadık Eryiğit, Business Manager Aytekin Kökceli and Assistant Business Manager Yılmaz Sütçü showed us around the production areas of the factory. They provided detailed information about Goller machines.

‘‘In early 2023, we moved to our new facility’’

Can you please tell us about Ağaoğlu Tekstil from past to present?

İsmail Ağaoğlu: Our company was founded by my father Sait and my uncle Sabri Ağaoğlu in Uşak in the early 1950s. In the first years, our company, which produced socks, wool and yarn with a team of 50 people, started to produce cheesecloth and gauze in the field of narrow weaving after 1955. In 1980, when we established our joint stock company, we entered the field of home textiles. Our exports, which we started with 100 thousand Marks in 1990, reached 20 million dollars in 2021. We continue our production with a team of 620 people, including our weaving, printing and 150-person garment department. We also have a facility where we recycle end-of-life tires and turn them into granules. In the first months of 2023, we moved to our new factory in Uşak Mixed Organized Industrial Zone with a total area of 52 thousand m², 25 thousand m² of which is closed.

Could you briefly inform us about your product range and production volume on fabric basis?

İsmail Ağaoğlu: We can be considered a semi-integrated facility. We have a weaving department. We offer raw cloth to our customers as a finished product, including apparel. We mainly work with open width woven fabrics in our facility. We produce 100% Cotton Satin, Ranforce, Embossing, Flannel as well as bamboo, tencel and all kinds of special blended fabrics. We work on reactive printing, reactive flat printing, pigment printing, pigment flat dyeing and optical white fabrics. We also have a digital printing department, where we can print up to 3.20 widths. We have contract manufacturing for the upper garment and hotel group. We have a monthly production capacity of 3 million meters, i.e. 100 thousand meters of fabric per day.

‘‘We Renewed 70% of Our Machines’’

When we visited your production facility, we observed that you have a very large machine park. How many machines are there in your park?

Sadık Eryiğit: We have 4 machines for raw fabric unwinding and 3 machines for scorching. We use 1 of them for cold bleaching. We have 3 continuous bleaching machines, 1 of which we use for washing. We have 7 stenters, 3 printing, 1 digital printing, 3 calenders and 2 CPB reactive flat dyeing machines. We also have 1 washing, mercerizing, sanforizing, HT Jigger dyeing machine and quality control machines. 90% of our machines are of European origin. One of the reasons why our capacity is so high is that most of our machines are new or renewed. We can say that we have renewed 70% of our machines.

As Ağaoğlu Tekstil, what are the criteria you attach particular importance to in your production? Can you evaluate them under main headings such as R&D, quality, design, innovation?

İsmail Ağaoğlu: The most important issue in our production is customer satisfaction. In order to ensure continuous quality, the processes starting with the raw fabric entry are carried out with great precision until packaging. Our product quality must meet customer criteria. Since satisfaction is very important to us, we visit our customers after product deliveries and conduct surveys. If they have any problems or complaints about our products or our company, we resolve them as soon as possible.

‘‘We are the First Textile Company to Establish an R&D Center in Uşak’’

One of your priorities must be innovation, as Ağaoğlu Tekstil was the first textile company to establish an R&D center in Uşak. Could you tell us about the establishment story of your R&D center and its activities?

Sait Ağaoğlu: R&D is what will take a business 10 steps forward. Since we know the importance of this very well, we established our R&D center in 2019. We carry out our work with a team of 25 textile and chemical engineers. We have projects that we carry out in cooperation with Uşak University. In addition to finding new products, we are working on issues that will solve the problems of water saving and drought, which are the problems of every sector today. We are working to reduce the use of water in reactive dyes. We have sustainable product studies and we aim to make dyeing from natural products. We have made patent applications for these. We will launch the products we have developed for water saving in the next 1-2 years.

‘‘We Preferred Goller for Meeting All Our Needs’’

What were the factors that led you to choose the Goller brand? Can you give information about the beginning and progress of your cooperation?

Sadık Eryiğit: Goller is a world-renowned and well-established brand that manufacturers in the plant of Fong´s Europe in Germany but also in the most modern Fong´s plant in China that manufactures pre-treatment, bleaching, washing and mercerizing machines for weaving and knitting. As Ağaoğlu Tekstil, we bought our first Goller machine in 1998. This machine worked with such successful results that when we needed a second machine, we thought of no other brand than Goller. Continuous processes require serious planning and evaluation before investment. Before we bought the new Goller machine, we met with a few other companies. We even saw their machines on site.  However, it was only when we tested Goller’s machine that we had the idea that “We can work with this machine on any fabric with any parameters we want.” Another reason why we preferred Goller was that they design machines in detail according to the special needs of their customers. The Continuous Bleaching machine we use in our facility was designed to meet our needs together with the engineers of Goller. We experimented with the machine before purchasing it and subjected the most difficult fabrics to the bleaching process, during which we observed the operation of the machine. We identified the problems and shared them with the company. They made the arrangements we requested while the machine was in the manufacturing stage. Together we designed a hybrid machine, that is, a mixture of a drum machine and a roller machine. Also, this machine has a simple operating system. It provides ease of use. Our second Goller machine has been working in our facility for 1 year, and we have not encountered any problems since the day it was installed.

‘‘With Goller Continuous Bleaching Machine, We Can Work Even the Most Difficult Fabrics’’

You have mentioned that you are a semi-integrated production facility. What do you pay the most attention to when investing in machinery and technology in order to maintain your competitiveness and quality?

Aytekin Kökceli: We prioritize products with the highest quality and lowest costs in our investments to maintain our competitiveness. In our production facility, an average of 100 thousand meters of fabric is subjected to bleaching process daily. We test every batch of every fabric we make, both chemically on the instant machine and physically in the laboratory. For example, when we consider the data of 1 month in our new Goller machine, we can say that the deviation rate in quality is 0.5%. In order to maintain quality, it is also important that we make the updates we want on the machine. The software of Goller machines is up to date, and we can add the parameters we want, such as exchange factor, add-ons and chemical dosing.

What are the difficulties encountered in finishing processes? What kind of advantages did Goller machines provide you in this regard?

Yılmaz Sütçü: For woven fabric producers, striped satin is very problematic. Nobody wants to work with delicate fabrics such as striped satin in continuous bleaching machines. Because striped satin picks up a little during the bleaching process. When subjected to hot bleaching, fractures occur. For this reason, we were performing this process in other ways, which resulted in time, energy and chemical losses. With the Goller machine, we can easily work with these products.

In the finishing processes, color fastness and washing fastness criteria are certain. We achieve 95% of these criteria with Goller machines. In addition, we can get the fastnesses we get in 2 or 3 times in a single wash.

Aytekin Kökceli: One of the biggest handicaps of continuous bleaching machines is the dosing system. If the dosing and circulation system is not proper, the amount of water, chemicals and energy you spend per unit of fabric increases. The dosing system of our new Goller machine is as follows; they made a small basin into a chemical dosing unit. The chemicals are prepared outside, and you give the dosing form inside the basin. There are clamping parameters on it that you can control the machine input and output pickups. We get the chemical on the fabric at the desired rate at the desired pickup and proceed to steaming, and we can easily keep it in the steaming for up to 24 minutes. Since all parameters work well, we get a smooth surface.

When the tensions of the machine are not good, you cannot ensure the aspect stability of the fabric. This is the biggest problem in washing. Since our chemical consumption decreases with Goller’s machine, we both harm the environment less and save energy. We achieve 70% savings in chemical, energy and water consumption in satin and lycra fabrics that we work for the hotel group. When all these advantages come together, the production time is shortened, which shortens the delivery time of the product to the customer by at least 1 week.

You have an environmentally sensitive policy. Do the Goller machines comply with your environmental policy in this respect? Did your choice of this machine affect your environmental policy?

Yılmaz Sütçü: As Ağaoğlu Tekstil, we have been holding OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 and ECO-PASSPORT certificates for 20 years. One of the most important certificates recently was the Made in Green Label. For this certificate, you are required to fulfill 1500 criteria in many areas such as environmental management, chemical management, social compliance, occupational safety and health, and performance. We successfully completed all of them and received the Made in Green certificate with Level 3, which is the best level. We also have GOTS, BSCI Social Compliance Certificate and TSE Certificate. We will also start working for the INDITEX Social Compliance certificate.

As a company, environment and sustainability issues have always been our priority. At this point, Goller Continuous Bleaching Machine provided us with many advantages. For example, in the old machines, we used 15 liters of water per kg of fabric. Now we use 7 liters of water for 1 kg of fabric.

In previous machines, we had problems when we worked on wide fabrics above a certain speed. The rollers and bearings were not smooth. After a while, the machine would force us to stop. The mechanical parts of the Goller machines are very robust. With this machine, we work at an average speed of 80 meters per minute. As the efficiency increases, we also achieve a significant reduction in energy.

The machine also has a wastewater recovery system. Before giving the wastewater to the canal, it passes it through the heat exchanger system, takes the inlet water of the machine from this wastewater and fills the baths by heating it.

Could you evaluate Goller in terms of after-sales services?

Aytekin Kökceli: Goller Turkey Representative Iteks Intertekstil team is there for us when needed with all technical support. Since our machine is equipped with the latest technologies, when a problem arises, we connect with the company’s technical service staff online via the Internet. They solve the problem by intervening remotely. In addition, whoever you dealt with while buying the machine at Goller, you continue to deal with that person in the following process. This ensures that there is no break in communication. We would like to thank Goller officials for providing us with all kinds of convenience both in payments and technical terms.

Could you please give us brief information about your export markets, your targets for 2023 and your projects?

Sait Ağaoğlu: We export 40% of our production. We export to almost all European countries. Our most important export market is Germany. Switzerland and the Czech Republic are also among our important markets. We also have customers in the Balkans and Scandinavia. We do not want to limit our export market only to Europe; we aim to enter new markets such as America. In addition to our Home Harmony brand, under which we produce high-end home textiles, we will establish our new brand in 1-2 months, which will appeal to the middle segment and will be sold through e-commerce. Our investments will also continue. We installed a Solar Energy System (SPP) in our recycling facility. We made another agreement in order to build another 1 Mw SPP. It will be completed at the beginning of this summer. We are also working on a project to recycle wastewater.