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| Issue date:01/08/2008 |
| ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel - Aug 2008 Issue |
| Source:Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel |
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| Featured company: Picanol Group |
The 70-year-old Picanol Group, a Belgian weaving machine manufacturer, regards energy-saving properties as the most promising feature of the next-generation textile machinery, especially in China and India, reports Annie Yang.
Development in China
In the last five to seven years, China became a significant textile machine export destination and about half of the whole world's textile machinery were shipped to China.
The country also became one of the biggest buyers for Picanol, which recorded a global sales revenue of 41.3 billion euros for about 7,000 looms last year and over half of them were purchased by Chinese textile manufacturers.
Picanol was one of the pioneering manufacturers in Europe when it established a production facility in China back in 1994. "The timing and location was excellent and we were able to witness sharp growths of the domestic textile industry in the following years," said Hans De Gusseme, President (Marketing and Service) of Picanol for the China region.
"In the upcoming decade, China is expected to maintain its position as the largest textile machinery market in the world, especially in terms of sales volume. However, China's position might be under pressure as Indian market grows rapidly," said Jan Laga, Vice President of the company, who is responsible for global marketing, sales and services.
Hans De Gusseme (left) and Jan Laga |
Elsewhere, the European and global textile industry showed signs of recovery as Germany, Italy and Brazil identified new profit growth areas with more technically complicated textile products, such as industrial textiles and automobile airbag fabrics.
In these fields, according to Mr Laga, Picanol looms can meet demands for small-batch production of diversified products with their resilient weaving machines. Picanol, at its headquarters, was thus considering a further expansion in output.
Focusing on energy efficiency
Mr De Gusseme was confident with the long-term development of the Chinese textile industry, although the industry faced substantial challenges temporally, and Picanol had trimmed its sales target for this year.
"The Chinese textile industry is surely developing towards higher-end products, which will be beneficial for us. With rising global prices of raw materials and energy resulting in thinner profit margins, textile manufacturers will be more concerned with energy-saving abilities when making new purchases of machinery. We believe that China's textile machinery market will remain its growth, but buyers will be more price sensitive," he said.
Picanol Group launched its global campaign in Shanghai this May with a special contest of bicycle-driven looms to highlight the concept of saving energy |
The company therefore launched a wider range of mid-level machinery systems for the China market with a strong emphasis on saving energy consumption in machinery design. It planned to increase the output of its Suzhou production facility and introduce more new products and services in the short run.
For example, the latest GT-MAX rapier loom, designed to maximize the return of investment, offers high product quality with the shortest possible weaving time at minimum energy consumption, according to Picanol.
The green concept and the need of cost savings were prominent in China now. However, Mr Laga explained: "we noticed years ago that energy-saving properties would be an attractive characteristic. It took us two or three years to make energy efficiency an integral part of our products."
A recent example is the Sumo motor built in the latest model of Picanol's rapier and air-jet looms.
Latest GT-Max 6-R 190 loom of Picanol features energy efficiency |
Adopting an oil-cooling technology, the Sumo motor is equipped with a patented shaft direct drive and opening device. Compared with conventional devices, it is able save about a tenth of energy. If each of the 72 machines in a textile production facility saves about 0.5KW and they run at 80% capacity, the manufacturer will be able to save RMB162,864 per year (with the electricity tariff at RMB0.65/KWH). A user will earn more if the unit price of electricity in the country further increases.
Another step to save energy costs is the use of a patent-pending water-cooling system to disperse heat generated during production. New looms often work faster, performing a higher per-minute rotation rate, but generating more heat at the same time. With the water-cooling system, half of the heat generated by looms can be cooled down inside the machine. This translates into a substantial reduction in energy consumption as there is a much lower need for air-conditioning of the production floor.
"We constantly anticipate and prepare for the future needs of our clients, making us their best partner," said Mr Laga.
India attracts extensive attention
More textile manufacturers are shifting production facilities to India as labor costs rise in these couple of years.
In response to the market needs, Picanol announced the establishment of its Indian sales and services office this March.
India is a strong player in the spinning industry, according to Mr Laga.
The Indian market in general shows a large demand for shuttle looms but a small need for shuttleless looms, mainly because of the relatively small size of the often family-run enterprises. Most of them use shuttle looms and some maintain handicraft operations with manual looms.
In contrast, Chinese textile enterprises usually run in a larger scale, and they have a bigger need and more generous capital for advanced airjet looms or rapier looms.
Mr Laga added that in the high-end textile segments of China and India, the manufacturers are both smart and updated in product quality and industry knowledge. Indian businessmen are generally more market-oriented and brand-conscious, while their Chinese counterparts attach greater importance to the overall industrial structure and technical advancement.
At the moment, the market in China for Picanol was five times bigger than that in India, due to the rapid growth of the Chinese textile industry in the past decade. Against this backdrop, the potentials of India would be enormous, Mr Laga said.
Mr De Gusseme also noticed that more Chinese enterprises have started to innovate through product research, although copycats are out there. He said: "We welcome competition that makes the industry healthier. Those enterprises that copy others' technology and those staying at the low-end will eventually phase out."
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Copyright © Adsale Publishing Limited. Credit goes to Adsale Industry Portal when used.
We reserve the right to take legal action against any party who reprint any part of this article without acknowledgement. For enquiries, please contact the Editorial Department. |
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