Itema Launched the Loom of the Future: Itema Discovery
Itema, the Italian global leading provider of best-in-class weaving solutions, participates at ITMA with the goal to established and confirm once again its technological leadership in the industry. Seven are the machines displayed – along with special products highlights – in the Itema booth including two absolute new market launches.
Itema, held a press conference during ITMA 2019 introducing to worldwide media representatives the core strategy behind the latest Company updates and the weaving innovations on show.
Carlo Rogora, Itema Group CEO and Christian Straubhaar, Itema Group Sales & Marketing Director, went through the last key stages of the Itema history, such as the acquisition of majority stakes in Lamiflex in 2017 and the establishment of Itematech, the new Itema technical textiles division, launched in April 2019.
With the clear target to build a stronger Group, the Company carried out a series of strategic operations aimed at broadening its spectrum of activities, both through vertical and horizontal integrations and diversifications.
The acquisition of Lamiflex, leading producer of advanced composites materials, allowed Itema to create high added value sinergies to further enhance innovative in-house solutions for the Itema core business: weaving machines manufacturing.
Itema, that recently launched Itematech – the new division dedicated to technical textiles born as a result of the agreement signed with PTMT (ex Panter) – will feature 3 stands and 11 weaving machines, plus more in partner’s booths.
Straubhaar also gave some insights about the weaving machine market, pointing out that – despite the negative market trend due to particular financial and commercial critical situations – Itema manages to maintain stable and positive results thanks to a healthy and solid structure. Straubhaar underlined that Itema takes advantage from a unique competitive advantage in the market: the ability to provide the ideal machines portfolio to meet the requirements of mills that need to maximize their investment by choosing advanced equipment guaranteeing money saving and maximum return of investment.
In Rogora words “Feel the Future is not only our motto, is our promise to the market. Innovation, customer centricity, tangible concrete solutions. These are the core added values that we provide to our Customers. We are structured and organized to provide a flexible, real-time support to our worldwide Customers, through our branches and our agencies networks.
ITEMA UNVEILS THE LOOM OF THE FUTURE
ITMA 2019 was the absolute world-premiere of what Itema named a while back “The Loom of the Future”. The brand-new Itema Discovery, developed by Itemalab™, comes to the world to demonstrate Itema’s mission to tirelessly work to innovate the weaving industry. Introduced at ITMA as a concept, Discovery completely redefines weaving foundations by basing its operations on mechatronic principles and not anymore, as it happens on current weaving machines, on mechanical drives. The Second Generation of the Itema Airjet machine, the A9500-2, was on show providing further increased speed, reliability and textile efficiency, including a machine version exclusively dedicated to bed sheeting weavers, the A9500-2bedsheeting, featuring one of the latest Itema in-house developments the SKYFRAME head frames.
The Itema denim dedicated rapier machine R9500-2denim that, since market launch at ITM 2018 in Istanbul has become a real market success, equipped with iSAVER™ – the Itemalab™ latest mechatronic marvel which completely eliminates the weft and warp waste on the left-hand side of the fabric.
ITMA was the official stage for the R9500-2, the Second Generation of the Itema rapier, now providing significant energy consumption reduction and new valuable features to make weavers life even more easy.
Always working on improving Itema Customers’ benefits and to make weavers’ life easier, Itema focused in implementing on the Itema R95002 key advancements that now make this machine the most energy efficient rapier weaving machine on the market while ensuring best-in-class textile performances and fabric Quality.
Monitoring the Itema weaving machines efficiency and performances has never been so easy. Thanks to the brand-new Itema plant management software iMANAGER, the plant manager can easily control and access machines data and statistics from computer or portable devices. iMANAGER is available for all the Itema machine models.
Two R9500-2 exhibited, the first equipped with top fancy beam and weaving a high-end shirting fabric and a wide Jacquard loom weaving a complex fancy furnishing style, field where Itema is traditionally recognized as best-in-class. Three more R9500-2 machines were show at ITMA in Stäubli, Bonas and MEI booths.
Treasuring digitalization and Industry 4.0 principles, Itema exhibited never-before-seen preventive maintenance solutions, such as iBOOSTER and iCARE.
