The ITMF International Cooperation Award 2022 to Ekoten Tekstil and Smartex.ai
Designed to recognize achievements in the textile industry under the strictest standards of sustainability and respect for the environment, these awards focus on innovation, design, development, and production.
Turkish textiles are once again a world leader in innovative production. Izmir-based Ekoten Tekstil received the ITMF award for International Collaboration in partnership with Portugal-based technology company Smartex.
It is a great honor for Smartex and Ekoten Tekstil to have won the ITMF award for international collaboration. With projects that aim to significantly improve textile manufacturing in alignment with the values of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, this category recognizes progress made in the area of international collaboration within the textile industry. Ekoten Tekstil’s Opex Deputy General Manager, Gizem Çaliş says “These awards confirm that this technology is here to stay, and everyone should take advantage of it. Smartex is setting a new precedent for the textile industry.”
Gilberto Loureiro, Co-founder and CEO of Smartex states that “The Turkish market is a huge focus for leading the way with this modernization and Smartex will continue to hire more and more talent there because we recognize its powerful potential.”
Smartex has developed hardware-enabled, machine-vision-driven software to detect textile defects in real-time. This automated identification process reduces textile waste, CO2 emissions, energy, water, production time, and capital expenditure by automatically halting production in order to prevent the waste of materials. Defects in the textile industry tend to be compounded, meaning that when fabric travels down the supply chain with undetected defects it often leads to entire textile rolls being discarded or burned, causing enormous environmental and financial burden. Smartex empowers factories all around the world to improve their production with higher quality, higher margins, and fewer defects.
Ekoten Tekstil is a prestigious knit fabric producer in Europe and one of the major textile exporters of Türkiye. Top global brands trust Ekoten as an industry-leading solution partner to supply sustainable, fashionable, and functional fabrics. In response to the importance of innovation, Ekoten established an in-house team to develop continuous improvement projects. Driven by innovation and sustainability, Ekoten constantly adapts to the newest methodologies and technologies for all production processes.
Adding Smartex to Ekoten’s sustainable repertoire was an obvious next step toward optimizing their production. According to Serdin Çelik, the Manufacturing Execution System Manager at Ekoten Tekstil, “Smartex reduces our defective production rate while providing a transparent and 100% automatically controlled environment with a sustainable and innovative approach.
During the case study period, Ekoten prevented the waste of 10,400 Kg of fabric, which in turn prevented the waste of an estimated of 93 600 kWh of energy, over 1 million liters of water, and 23 thousand kilos of CO2 that would be used during the dyeing and finishing processes.
