Uster to Exhibit Innovations that will Be ‘World’s First’ at ITMA
Interview: Özge Çağıl Sütcü
Wide product portfolio of Uster Technologies, which will participate in the ITMA Fair with its innovations, consists of quality management, laboratory testing, and in-line process control instruments for fibers, staple fiber, and filament yarns, fabrics and nonwovens.
As Tekstil Teknoloji magazine, we interviewed Davide Maccabruni, CEO of Uster Technologies, for our special april issue of ‘Swiss Textile Machinery Industry’.
Speaking to our magazine, Maccabruni announced that they will attend the ITMA 2023 Exhibition and exhibit various new products along with many “firsts in the world’ items: “We will have two booths and our largest exhibition area at any ITMA so far in our history. We will display many new products and value propositions, with a lot of ‘world-first’ items. But we don’t want to spoil the surprise by revealing just yet exactly what we will be showing!”
“2022 was challenging yet very satisfactory in terms of production”
Maccabruni, who started his speech by evaluating the year 2022 said, “In an overall very positive environment, 2022 was challenging yet very satisfactory in terms of production. Despite the difficulties posed by semiconductor shortages and higher costs, our production levels reached record-high figures. Order intake also followed a very good trend, with first signs of flattening towards the end of the year. From the geographical point of view, export markets were generally balanced, with a slight shift of volumes from China to other regions, we can say.”
“Business volume has returned to pre-pandemic values”
Saying that the business level is back to – and in some respects above – pre-pandemic values in 2022 and exceeded these Maccabruni continued his words as follow: “2022 was a much better year for Uster than even 2021, which was perfect.”
“Geopolitical factors influence businesses in unpredictable ways”
Explaining Uster’s expectations from 2023, Maccabruni said that; “We are seeing the first signs of market stabilization after the post-pandemic recovery. But the backlog is still at very high levels and with very high quality. This should provide a beneficial dampening effect in this phase. Several shifts of capacity are happening, while many geopolitical factors might influence the business in unpredictable ways.”
The CEO of Uster said that it is much more difficult to make predictions than usual, given the many geopolitical factors that often come together in unpredictable ways “Agility, flexibility, and the capability to adapt to changed conditions are key factors for remaining successful in this environment,” he commented.
“In the second half of the year, the sector will increase after ITMA”
Continuing his words, CEO emphasized that they expect the business to stabilize overall after the roller-coaster events of the past couple of years. Maccabrun said that the industry will be relatively quiet until the ITMA Fair and underlined that after the fair, it will possibly show an increase in the second half of the year.
“Data-based decisions and process optimization will be provided after Industry 4.0”
Maccabruni, who foresees that there will be a clear shift from the traditional, product-driven data-based decisions value and process optimization proposal for customers along the textile value chain to a more integrated, data-driven value proposition in the developments in the sector, stated that this will be successful by combining the necessary supporting technologies in smart and efficient ways.
Davide Maccabruni ended his speech as follow: “After Industry 4.0, data-driven decisions and process optimization will be ensured throughout the entire textile value chain in terms of production, automation and digitization.”
