Monforts to Meet Business Partners at ITM 2024 on 140th Anniversary
Interview: Özge Çağıl Sütcü
Thomas Paeffgen said, “Monforts is marking its 140th anniversary in 2024, having been founded back in 1884, so ITM 2024 Exhibition 4-8,June. will provide us with the ideal opportunity to celebrate with colleagues and customers all together in one location.”
As Tekstil Teknoloji we interviewed with Thomas Paeffgen, Monforts Regional Sales Manager. Paeffgen talked about relaxation dryers, Thermex dyeing ranges, Monfortex compressive shrinking ranges and Montex®Coat coating units, that will exhibit at ITM Exhibition.
Highlights from the interview are as follows:
“Although 2023 was Generally a Challenging Year, We Realized Important New Line Installations in Various Fields”
2023 was generally a challenging year for everyone, due to geopolitical and logistical reasons beyond the control of the textile industry. However, we still realised a significant number of new line installations, especially in the field of woven fabrics for the denim and home textiles markets as well as knitted fabrics for fashion and sportswear. Turkey remains a major market for us, and we are very pleased, for example, to have the majority of the country’s well-known denim manufacturers as our valued customers. In addition, we have also been involved in several significant projects in Turkmenistan.
“We Establish Strong Connections with Local Universities and Investing in ongoing Training”
One of our top priorities is finding well-qualified and dedicated staff. We have addressed this through establishing strong connections with local universities and investing in ongoing training. We continue, for example, to support the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences which is also located in Mönchengladbach – the home to our company – and have backed its German Scholarship Programme since 2010. Membership of the Association of German Textile Experts (VDTF) reinforces our strong links with a number of other universities.
ITM is Always One of The Most Important Exhibitions for Monforts
Monforts is marking its 140th anniversary in 2024, having been founded back in 1884, so ITM will provide us with the ideal opportunity to celebrate with colleagues and customers all together in one location. İstanbul’s centralised position makes it accessible to the majority of the major textile manufacturing hubs. ITM is always one of the most important exhibitions for Monforts, especially for meeting customers from Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
We will display a Montex stenter chamber and accompanying PLC control panel to demonstrate the full potential of the line at the exhibition. Monforts Montex stenters – for processes such as drying, stretching, heat-setting and coating – are the industry standard for the fabric finishing industry, particularly in the sectors of denim and home textiles, providing a number of advantages in terms of production throughput and especially in energy efficiency and savings. The other key technologies in our range include relaxation dryers, Thermex dyeing ranges, Monfortex compressive shrinking ranges and Montex®Coat coating units.
Investment in new technology and capacity expansions are very important to many of our Turkish customers, in order to stay ahead in terms of sustainable, high quality production. We find that they carefully assess the benefits of each advanced new technology in order to thrive in a sector that is constantly changing and as a result, have adopted ongoing strategies of continuous investment.
“Neotek, Our Solution Partner on the Ground for Service, Installation and Commissioning”
In Turkey we are very strongly supported by our representative Neotek, our solution partner on the ground for service, installation and commissioning, providing specialised and rapid help to all of our customers.
In terms of special services, I should mention the range of modular upgrades we have developed for existing finishing lines already in production.
Our machines are known for their robustness and long service life, but the retrofitting of specific modules with new control and drive technology – going far beyond the basic replacement of spare parts – can have a significant impact on the performance of an existing line.
“As a Technology Leader We are also Rising to The Challenge of Exploring Alternative Heating”
We are constantly updating and improving our machines. With the latest Montex stenters, for example, overall energy savings of up to 40% can now be achieved compared to a conventional stenter with no heat recovery or energy optimisation measures.
Another example is with the ongoing development of the Thermex universal hotflue line for continuous dyeing, curing and thermosolation, which achieves unrivalled reliability for manufacturers of denim and home textiles.
The Thermex provides exceptional cost-effectiveness when dyeing both large and small batches of woven fabrics due to a quick and economical one-pass pad-dry and wash off process.
In addition, Monforts is also currently leading a consortium of industrial partners and universities in the three-year WasserSTOFF project to explore all aspects of green hydrogen as a fast-rising new industrial energy option.
The target of the government-funded project is to establish to what extent hydrogen can be used in the future as an alternative heating source for textile finishing processes. This will first involve tests on laboratory equipment together with associated partners and the results will then be transferred to a stenter frame at the Monforts Advanced Technology Centre (ATC) in Germany.
Green hydrogen’s potential as a clean fuel source is tremendous, but there is much we need to explore when considering its use in the textile finishing processes carried out globally on our stenter dryers and other machines. Everybody knows that textile finishing is a high energy consuming process and to make the processes more efficient, we already offer several solutions, but as a technology leader we are also rising to the challenge of exploring alternative heating options to be ready for the future.