“ITM 2022 is A Huge Opportunity to Meet the Textile Markets”
Ralph von Arx, Retech Managing Director
Switzerland-based company Retech is now the leading manufacturer of heated godets for almost most OEMs who do not manufacture the godets themselves or rely on quality products. Expressing that they are very satisfied with the orders for 2021, Ralph von Arx, “The year 2022 has started very promisingly and it looks like it will be an excellent year.” used the phrases.
Retech Managing Director Ralph von Arx, with whom we interviewed for our Tekstil Teknoloji magazine, shared information about the products they will exhibit at the ITM Exhibition.
First of all, how was 2021 for Retech ? Can you evaluate the year 2021 in figures?
2021 has been a positive year and we had been pleased with the outcome. Order intake as well as turnover was higher than in 2020 which was an avarage year and reached almost 2018 / 2019 level. 2022 has started very promisingly and looks like it will be an excellent year.
During the pandemic process, companies focused on R&D and new product development. What are your new products and technologies that you have developed as Retech in the last two years?
On one side our R&D department was challenged by customer requests during the last two years. It was noticed that customers are increasingly aiming for new opportunities to create additional value to their products and are using the the pandemic as an opportunity to develop new products. Therefore we have been challenged indirectly by our customers. On the other side our R&D department is working towards ITMA 2023 in Milano to introduce new and optimised products in the field of heated godets to draw the fibres to perfection. To give a brief insight: we are working on topics such as preventive maintenance and protecting our high speed heated godets from damage and are offering additional data and information to our customers in this respect. There is a great demand in this direction from customers which will help them to reduce maintenance costs and machine down time enormously.
Which countries are you exporting to? What is the importance of the Turkish market for your company? Do you have any projects for the Turkish market?
We are exporting to countries all over the world. Main market is still Europe due to our close cooperation with machine manufacturers (OEM). In addition, the USA and China are currently our main markets. Not in the area of commodities but in the area of specialities and high performance fibers. Especially in this field there is a lot of interest from Asian customers, not only from China, but for example also from South Korea. Furthermore we notice a big movement into this direction from R&D institutes and it is extremly positive and interesting to see on what topics they are working.
Turkey of course is an important market as well. Mainly through OEM business but more and more also in respect of specialities and upgrading projects. However, we feel that the potential for Turkish producers to attend the speciality market and to give more added value to their products is much bigger as they are currently approaching. Encourage them to invest in adding value to their products will be one of our main goals ahead.
The ITM, which was postponed due to the pandemic, will be held after 4 years. Could you share with us your views on the ITM Exhibition, which will bring the textile machinery industry together after such a long break?
ITM is most important at this very moment and we are glad that it will finally take place. For the Turkish and Middle East market it is a huge opportunity to meet again. We are looking forward to participate at ITM in June 2022.
Do you have new products or new technologies that you are planning to exhibit at the ITM 2022?
We will mainly show our improvements on heated godets in the field of energy saving which is becoming more an more important – specially at this time. We had been working on this topic already before ITMA Barcelona and are improving and optimising our products continuously. ITM is a good occasion to make the visitors aware of these new products and optimisations which will benefit them in the long term.
Interview: Dilek Hayırlı
