“Mahlo Has Built a Strong Reputation Over the Past Decades in the Field of Textile”
Mahlo carries out weft straightening, process control and quality measurement activities in more than 100 countries around the world. Mahlo Head of Sales Thomas Höpfl, whom we interviewed for the March special issue of Tekstil Teknoloji magazine, “German Textile Machinery Industry”, made evaluations about the figures for 2022 and the textile industry.
“2022 was again a successful year for Mahlo”
How was the year 2022 for your company? Can you evaluate it in terms of your production volume, orders and export markets?
2022 was again a successful year for Mahlo. We finished it with a total turnover that was very close to best year in history which was 2021. The rising energy prices worldwide forced manufacturing companies to increase their production’s flexibility and efficiency and to minimize manufacturing costs by reducing the input of resources. Online process & quality control in textile production became more important than ever before. Especially in this field, Mahlo has built a strong reputation over the past decades and is now considered synonymous with process control in the textile industry. This combined with a skilled and experienced sales and application network was the base for the success in past years and will be in the ones to come.
An additional booster for Mahlo’s success in recent years was the fact that many textile buyers from Europe and USA had to look for alternative supply sources outside of China. Due to the vulnerable supply chains in China, many orders were shifted from there to the well-established textile industries in Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and to a certain extend to India. To accept all the incoming orders, many textile producers were forced to expand their production capacities. We have benefited from this to a great extent.
As you know, the lack of qualified personnel in the world is also present in Germany. Do you also encounter this problem? If so, what solutions do you provide?
Our company is located in a high-tech industrial environment in the south of Germany. So we are used to competing with large technology groups for employees. That is why we have been training our own junior staff in the company for decades. Currently, we have 30 apprentices in various fields. More than half of the trainees normally decide to stay with us after their training. Another part decides to go on to higher education and later rejoin the company with university degrees. This ensures that we always have highly trained and motivated young people.
“We Optimize Cost Increases As Much As Possible”
The global energy crisis also affects German textile companies. Is your company affected by the crisis? If so, what precautions do you take? What are the products and solutions for this problem?
The rising energy costs make all the preliminary products we need, such as steel or electrical components, more expensive. Same goes for transport costs. Since we cannot pass on the cost increases one-to-one to the customers, we also have to monitor our internal processes and optimize them where possible. We also rely to a large extent on digitalizing and automating certain processes. We see the ongoing digitalization of production processes as a great opportunity. The topic of automation, process control and digitalization I4.0 was built into our company’s DNA from the very beginning. With a broad portfolio of intelligent sensors and machines, we record and control product and process parameters online, such as weft distortion, fabric density, basis weight, thickness, moisture content, web temperature, air permeability etc. The measured data are simultaneously stored in customized data management systems with interfaces to customer systems such as ERP, MES, SCADA etc. The same we do internally.
“We combine economic efficiency with sustainability”
You adopt an environmentally friendly and sustainable product approach. Do you have any new product projects or investments that you will announce soon? If yes, can you give us information about the process?
We all want to hand over an intact world with a more livable environment to the next generation. In future, it will no longer be just a question of what and how quickly a factory delivers, but also how it produces. Customers and markets today also decide according to criteria such as: Use of green energies, degree of CO₂ neutrality, scope of resource-saving processes and recycling concepts. With the proper process control equipment it is possible to produce ecologically, while saving costs and resources and thus act more economically. We are able to combine economic efficiency and sustainability.
“2023 will be a successful year with growth rates”
What are your expectations about the World Textile sector and especially the textile machinery sector in 2023? Do you think there will be growth or contraction in the sector? What are your predictions?
The question is so far the most difficult one. Never it was so difficult to predict what the next year will bring. The textile industry and with it also the textile machinery industry depends very much on the mood and behavior of consumers in Europe, the USA and China. We hope that the current energy crisis and the accompanying galloping inflation can be contained. Then consumers will have more money at their disposal again and 2023 will be another successful year with acceptable growth rates. The pandemic is more or less over and there will be a catch-up effect in the economy. This is especially true for China. There, too, the situation around COVID will stabilize during the first half of the year. With the accompanying easing, the aforementioned catch-up effect in consumption will also lead to investments in textile machinery.
“We will Introduce Our the Latest Generation Weft Straighteners at ITMA”
Do you have any topics or opinions you would like to add or talk about?
We like to invite all customers to visit us at the forthcoming ITMA in Milano. As Mahlo will show the latest generation of high-end weft straighteners, our quality & process control systems and our data management systems. Besides this we are so happy that after a long dry spell we are once again able to welcome our guests personally in large numbers. The already legendary Bavarian hospitality awaits all visitors. Our customers will certainly not regret taking the time to have a good chat with friends at the Mahlo stand and at the same time absorb inspiration and new ideas. We are already looking forward to welcoming as many customers as possible.
Interviwew: Özge Çağıl Sütcü
