Turkish Customers Central to the Monforts Global Network

Interview: Tuğba Karademir

Monforts is recognized as one of the most respected and innovative brands in the textile industry with a history spanning more than 140 years. Since its foundation, Monforts has continuously renewed itself to meet technological developments and customer needs at the highest level and has established a significant global footprint.

The company reinforces its leadership in the industry by offering advanced technology solutions that will ensure the future success of textile manufacturers. Monforts’ technologies range from denim to home textiles, from technical materials to innovative finishing technologies. The structure of its technologies is shaped by investments in digitalization and is further enhanced by developments based on quality control and energy monitoring systems.

We spoke to Thomas Päffgen, Monforts Regional Manager, about Monforts’ 140-year successful journey, how it has maintained its leadership in the industry, how it adds value to its customers and its vision for the future. Päffgen explained Monforts’ technological innovations, environmentally friendly solutions, durable machines and strategic priorities in the technical textile sector, the company’s strong collaborations in Turkey and how it continues to make an impact in the global market to Tekstil Teknoloji magazine.

Monforts has a history of 140 years. The company’s global impact has been steadily increasing. How do you evaluate your major successes and milestones during this long journey? Which factors do you think were crucial in achieving this global success?

Building on our rich history, we remain 100% dedicated to the development of technologies that will ensure the future success of our textile manufacturing customers for a diverse range of end-use applications – from denim and home textiles to advanced technical materials.

Our machinery portfolio range has been continuously expanded based on decades of accumulated know-how and a dominant position in fabric finishing technologies has been established. We have moved over these many decades through mechanical technologies to the first mass production lines, then to electronic drives and special machine construction and highly modular machines.  Now we are truly in the digital age, and we are committed to investing in the digitalization of our technology, with concepts which assure an overall quality control and energy monitoring.

Monforts was also early in recognising the future significance of global communication with customers, having first introduced our teleservices from Germany back in the 1990s. At the same time, our global network of partners is of great importance of course, and in Türkiye we are very strongly supported by Neotek for service, installation and commissioning, providing specialised and rapid help to all our customers.

“ATC is used as an invaluable resource for customers looking to achieve new standards in fabric finishing”

As Monforts, how do you support the success of your customers? What role do facilities like the ATC (Advanced Technology Center) play in this context?

Since its opening in 2013 the ATC has proved an invaluable resource to customers for achieving new standards in fabric finishing. As such, it is now pivotal to our operations. Over an area of 1,200 square metres, it houses two full MONTEX finishing lines, engineered to accommodate an extremely diverse range of processes, in addition to a THERMEX range for the continuous dyeing of denim and other woven fabrics, a full colour kitchen and a number of lab-scale systems for smaller batch trials.

The ATC allows our customers to test their own technical fabrics under fully confidential, industrial production conditions. Using the results from these trials, we are also able to make recommendations for improving many fabric finishes.

In the latest development, we have just installed a Baldwin TexCoat digital spray unit on one of the ATC stenter frames, as part of a three-way partnership with its developer BW Converting and Archroma, the manufacturer of advanced chemistries for dyeing and finishing.

Together, we will support dyeing and finishing manufacturers in their development projects, aiming to boost the quality and performance of their finished products, while at the same time maximising the productivity and resource utilisation of the finishing application processes.

Monforts places great importance on offering environmentally friendly and energy-efficient machines. What developments have you made in this area, and what are your future goals?

We are constantly updating and improving our machines and 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.

For our existing customers, we are also prioritising modernisation and upgrades that can make a significant impact in terms of efficiency. 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. This is especially the case in achieving further energy savings.

The Monforts universal Energy Tower, for example, is a flexible, free-standing air/air heat exchanger for recovering the heat from the exhaust air flow of thermal processes. It can result in a reduction of up to 30% in the energy consumed by a line, depending on the exhaust air volume and operating temperature.

The Monforts Eco Booster, which can be completely integrated into the chamber design of a MONTEX stenter, is another retrofitting option. As a single state-of-the-art heat recovery system with automatic cleaning, it can be added to existing ranges. For ranges of up to eight chambers, only one module is necessary to achieve very significant energy savings. The Eco Booster consumes only minimal amounts of water during the cleaning cycle and the entire process is controlled and monitored automatically.  There are also considerable benefits to be gained from bringing a machine’s HMI up to date, as well as with new frequency converter options.

“There are currently so many Monforts machines in operation worldwide and some of them were first installed over 30 years ago.”

Monforts machines are known for their long service life and durability. What stages in your production processes do you pay special attention to when it comes to quality control and durability?

Our machines are built to last and known for their robustness and long service life and textile companies making major capital investments in new manufacturing lines rely on durability from our production ranges. It’s for this reason that there are currently so many Monforts machines in operation worldwide and some of them were first installed over 30 years ago.

It would not have been possible for us to have thrived for 140 years without successfully and rapidly responding to industry changes and this continues today.

For over 40 years, Monforts finishing machines have been manufactured at Montex Maschinenfabrik based in St. Stefan, Austria, and while there is standardisation in our series-produced machines, we are increasingly called upon to construct bespoke machines with unique designs, according to the special needs of customers in technical textile or special textiles.

Monforts Maintains Leadership in Technical Textiles Sector

How does Monforts demonstrate leadership in the field of textile finishing and coating technologies in the technical textiles sector? How do you assess the competition in this area?

With an eye on the technical textiles market, we have recently introduced the MontexCoat, a multifunctional coating line which offers versatility with knife coating, magnet roller coating, rotary screen printing and other applications. As a fully automatic machine, it fully caters to customers who require flexibility. For clients only using knife coating, Monforts has launched the more cost-effective coaTTex coating line. There has been a lot of interest in these units from manufacturers in Türkiye where there is now great potential to capitalise on opportunities in technical textiles, as traditional manufacturing moves to lower-cost regions. We also offer machines specially designed for producing technical textiles including a high temperature stenter that can operate at up to 320°C and an explosion-proof module for handling volatile materials, as well as stenters up to seven metres in width for products such as geotextiles and advanced filter media.

How do you foresee Monforts’ role in fields like new energy storage technologies and advanced materials?

Right now, we are leading the WasserSTOFF project with the aim of developing a hydrogen-heated stenter frame that in the future will enable the carbon-neutral finishing of textiles. It’s well known that the usual operation of stenter frames with natural gas currently leads to considerable CO2 emissions worldwide and emissions can be significantly reduced by the alternative use of hydrogen converted through the use of electrical energy from renewable sources such as wind or solar – so-called green hydrogen. The project is investigating the effects of using hydrogen or hydrogen/natural gas mixtures instead of natural gas alone, as fuels for textile drying and fixation. The government support the project has received underscores its importance to the industry and manufacturing in general, but the widespread adoption of hydrogen technology very much depends on its availability and cost. Infrastructure and government policies will play a crucial role in making hydrogen viable for industrial use.