Rieter: Giving Spinners a Reason on to Invest
At ITMA 2019, Rieter showcased innovations for all four spinning processes that are established on the market. These innovations are designed to reduce raw material, energy and labor costs, while also increasing productivity during production of the yarn Quality required in each case.
Solutions to increase the flexibility of the spinning mill are also presented. In addition, Rieter presented two solutions for the production of innovative yarns. Rieter held a press conference on the booth at ITMA to share detailed information about its products. Rieter CEO Dr. Norbert Klapper showed the attendees of the press conference a tour of the stand and explained the features of the machines one by one.
FIBER PREPARATION
The blowroom VARIOline with the new UNIClean B 15 brings significant improvements in terms of energy consumption and the cleaning result for all spinning processes. The same applies to the new high-performance card C 80, which offers an unrivaled level of productivity.
RING AND COMPACT-SPINNING PROCESS
To increase the cost effectiveness of the ring spinning and compact spinning process, Rieter reveals the new comber E 90, the new roving frame F 40, the piecing robot ROBOspin and three different compacting units that can easily be installed on and removed from a ring spinning machine: COMPACTdrum, COMPACTapron and COMPACTeasy.
ROTOR SPINNING PROCESS
The draw frame module RSB-Module 50 can be used in combination with the high-performance card C 80 and can be configured to a highly efficient direct process with the new semi-automated R 37 or the fully automated R 70.
AIR-JET SPINNING PROCESS
There are innovations for the air-jet spinning process too: The process for producing a very attractive yarn made of 100% combed cotton is presented.
Rieter, attracted great attention from its customers with its newly developed machines. We made an interview with Norbert Klapper, CEO of Rieter after the presentation. Klapper stressed that the trend of the three major markets in the textile world is not good.
How did the first six months of 2019 go for Rieter? What would you say if you were to evaluate the current situation of the textile sector?
I mean you know that we will have a difficult year as announced in March. And the reason is that the demand for the new machines is very low at the moment.
We understand that you are also seeing our numbers, that the news are running, so they consume entire parts, they consume spare parts, that’s OK. We will see whether ITMA has an impact on that, but I have to say that there is a couple of fundamental things out there, which makes me think that we will not see a huge boom. The situation in China, also the situation in India after the election, we will see what happens now. I met a İndian customer last week, who told me there will be a program of the government, which will encourage entrepreneurs to invest, but the textile market might not be included. That is the discussion we had.
Do you think there will be an improvement in the market after the exhibition?
My personal assessment would be that we will see what I’d call a normalization at ITMA and then we can carry on at our normal levels, but not a big boom. We had that. There were years after ITMA when the market really went up. So my personal view is it will come back to normal levels and continue. I mean, I have customers, to whom I talked before ITMA, and they said to me “Give me a reason to invest.” That is the reason to invest, that’s why we do that. Particularly the short route process is important for customers, who want to use cheap yarns, which is not the only one in their agenda, but for some customers cheap yarn is very important, and here the flexibility that we offer and the productivity improvement that you can have, will trigger some investments. Will it mean that we will have a record year next year? That’s the way I look at it.
You have mentioned that there are many developments for shorter fibers. Do you see recycling becoming a game changer?
Maybe it’s too early to call it a game changer but I see different trials, different ways of embracing this in different segments of the market.
Some customers go that far to get garments and tear it apart to take the short fibers in. That comes in very different flavors. So there is no clear trend at the moment, no clear direction. But I believe it’s growing step by step. It increases and finds different sources of short fibers. And there is no clear picture of what the future major sources will be, but there are different ways of approaching it.
Can we say that innovation is more on cost-efficiency and productivity than big box changes?
There is a couple of dimensions here. Cost is very important. Costs of spinning, raw material, energy and labor. This is very important. There is also customers who are differentiating through the yarn that they use produce. We have a processing place with combed cotton and when you are producing yarn, the edge of yarn with combed cotton and with this yarn, we got a great feedback out there. Because it is very soft, it is easy to print, it has the low peeling edge of yarn has, and it is very high Quality. That’s the second part of the story. Better yarn with a higer price that differentiate it in the market.
This is what we have here and we also have innovation, with SSM, who have been able to get a filament yarn and introduce the yarn as slub yarn, which is also special that you need in the market and this is the second part of the urge. And the third dimension is flexibility. Flexibility is very important and this is why we think our three compact solutions would be a success.
How do you evaluate the developments in the sector regarding air-jet spinning machines?
We still have to go way. I don’t think it will be that long. But there is still a way to go. Today Murata is the leader. You know that they have a great machine, great technology. For the last 20 years they have been on that way and improved the machine step by step. Rieter is number two.
We saw new air-jet machines now at ITMA. Sauer presented one. We expect LMW to show one. I know that this technology is not so easy to master. We will see at what level of maturity the machines are. And at the same point in time they will help to make the air-jet yarn popular. So far it has been the greatest investment we have made. Let me put it that way.
Are you satisfied with the interest of Turkish customers?
They have all come here. From my observations, their business is good. Because the European textile industry still changes. So the business of our Turkish customers is good. Even more than OK. We will see whether they will feel inspired by new offerings to make additional investments.
Interview: Dilek Hayırlı
