“We Are Happy to See Signs for Recovery in the Textile Industry”

Ersoy Buran, Managing Director, Saurer Tekstil A.Ş.

We interviewed with Ersoy Buran, Managing Director, Saurer Tekstil A.Ş. for the ‘German Special Section’ of our Tekstil Teknoloji magazine. Buran, who we talked about the measures taken by Saurer company during the pandemic process, and the changes in the sector and customer demands, said following regarding the Turkey market: “It remains to be seen how much the ongoing discussion about on- and near shoring will influence coming investments. For me, Turkey has an excellent position as a key supplier for Europe and the region.”

 “We focus on supporting our customers throughout the crisis and beyond”

How was the year 2020 in terms of your company?  How was your company’s reaction to Pandemic?

Our aftersales teams were supporting customers during the lockdowns and re-start of the plants, while ensuring availability of spare parts in all locations in due time. We have done our utmost to supply parts and machinery to the factories investing and producing and have shown flexibility where customers due to Covid-19 measures requested shipment delays. Saurer is very proud that, despite all these challenges, our German factories were running throughout the year.

For Saurer, like most companies, Covid-19 also changed the way we communicate, adding a digital dimension to internal meetings and customer calls, bringing with it webinars and virtual exhibitions. Still, digital media are not a substitute for the weight and importance of a personal visit to a customer or a face-to-face meeting at an exhibition.

 “Turkey has an excellent position as a key supplier for Europe and the region”

What do you think about the textile machinery industry situation globally in this hard time and what is your prediction for post Coronavirus period?

Last year was difficult for a large part of the textile industry, while at the same time, companies in the medical textile sector experienced growth. The first half of last year pointed out some bottlenecks and weaknesses in the textile value chain and it remains to be seen how much the ongoing discussion about on- and near shoring will influence coming investments. For me, Turkey has an excellent position as a key supplier for Europe and the region. One of the upcoming trends is recycling and I see great opportunities for several of our customer to grow their businesses further.

As Saurer, what kind of preparations do you make for the post-pandemic period? Will there be a variety in your company’s products or changes in your production models?

Saurer’s unique strength is a global network of best-in-class production facilities along with local our organizations in all major textile areas. During the lockdowns, this helped us to stock part before flights became scarce and ensured flexibility in production. Although it is not realistic to cover every possible crisis scenario, the fact that our German factory was able to produce throughout the whole year shows that we have planned well ahead.

We took last year’s events as chance once again to review our supplier base critically and accessed additional material sources worldwide in order to increase our flexibility and resilience. This was also to guard against similar events in future, although of course we hope that these precautions will not be necessary. In terms of our product offering, we developed new aftersales offerings for our customers, to restart their yarn production fast and efficiently after a period of downtime and to use downtimes efficiently for maintenance and upgrades. Last but not least, the pandemic gave rise to several initiatives for digitalization of our business processes. We implemented new models of collaborating internally and with our suppliers and customers.

What popular requests do you receive from customers these days regarding their machinery?

We can see a few main trends in the current requests, some of the resulting from challenges our customers are facing on a daily basis.

Flexibility in production is becoming more and more important: Smaller lot sizes, fast lot changes and a diversity of materials including recycled material are challenges that our customers face today.

Our Autocoro rotor-spinning machine is probably one of the most flexible machines available today with the highest productivity. Multilot, seamless lot change, SynchroPiecing 36 and TurboStart allow for flexible production.

For those in ring spinning, ZI/ZR 72XL offers intelligent speed maximization with OptiSpeed, adapting spinning speed to roving quality and spinning environment. Based on pre-set yarn-break limits and monitored by individual spindle monitoring the speed is optimized resulting in increased productivity. In addition, the weighting arm PK 2630 from our Texparts product line offers flexibility in settings.

The second challenge our customers face today is lack of labor. Automation is no longer a luxury – it is now a necessity in the modern mill.

At Saurer we have been pioneering in transportation automation from roving to ring and winding, still being the only company who can offer the whole process from one source. Today we have a dedicated business line – Saurer Automation Solutions – supporting both staple fiber and filament automation. Can transportation, palletizing and bobbin transport automation are becoming key elements.

Degree of automation along with intelligence is also constantly increasing inside the machines. The self-regulation of speed, higher piecing and doffing capacities along with light features for operator guidance, all create contribute to savings for the customer.

The most recent trend that we see is processing of re-generated fibers. Especially mechanically recycled fibers with a high share of short fibers pose a challenge for the spinning process. Today majority of recycling fibers are processes on rotor-spinning machines due to their higher capability of absorbing short fibers. Saurer offers a portfolio with several features adapted especially for short fiber processing.

The effects of the pandemic seem to continue in the first months of 2021. As Saurer, what are your expectations from 2021? Do you have new product and investment plans?

We look forward to 2021 and are seeing that the investments planned for 2020 are now being realized. The first signs of recovery are visible both in new machinery investments as well as in mill utilization. We had introduces a multitude of innovations in Barcelona and are looking forward to introduce these in 2021 in detail to our customers as customer days and exhibitions were mostly cancelled in 2020.  We also have new features coming up in 2021 so we hope you will follow us on all media channels.

Interview: Dilek HAYIRLI