Asia is at the moment the most important market for us
Mayer & Cie (MCT), a global market leader in the field of circular knitting machines from Germany's Swabian Jura area, is the custodian of many patents and claims to have revolutionised the automated circular knitting process. With over 95 per cent of its machines exported mainly to Asia, and starting with Turkey via India and Bangladesh to Indonesia, China, America, Europe and Africa, it has lined up investments to the tune of 4 million euro for this year. In 2014, group sales were just below 90 million euro, about 5 per cent higher than the previous year. The classic family-owned business, headquartered in Albstadt and now led by the fourth generation of the Mayer family, has more than 400 employees worldwide. Wolfgang Mueller, Head-Sales & Marketing at Mayer & Cie, talks to Fibre2Fashion.com about the company's plans and strategies.
What is the size of the market for circular knitting machines? What is the pie that Mayer would like to claim for itself?
According to rough estimates it should be around 500,000 circular knitting machines. Roughly 45,000 circular knitting machines of Mayer & Cie are still in production worldwide. We shipped our 70,000th machine in May this year since the founding of the company in 1905.
What are the new innovations that can one expect from Mayer & Cie at the forthcoming ITMA?
Mayer will present a spin-knit machine, a machine which is covering parts of spinning process and the complete knitting process in one machine. A prototype of the machine was presented to the public at ITMA 2011. ITMA 2015 will now mark the product launch of the spin-knit technology. The spnitsystems starts its process with roving coming from spinning mill. This way spnitsystems does shorten the process to the knitted fabric a lot since there is no ring spinning, cleaning and winding required any more. spnitsystems is able to process a big variety of short-cut and staple fibres. Raw materials in their pure form can also be used, such as 100 percent combed cotton or other natural and synthetic fibres. Standard blends can also be used on the spinitsystems. Furthermore, Mayer will show a D4_2.2 II, a proven high performance interlock (HPI) machine, that Mayer & Cie has further developed with respect to fibre yarns are special abilities for spacer fabrics. Two Relanit machines, one single and one striper machine will be displayed too. Both machines deliver peak productivity along with a significant improvement in process reliability. The machine exhibits will be completed with a new development for the mattress ticking market. Except for the spin-knit machine all above mentioned machines are equipped with the SensoBlueRS needle oil recycling system. That means they require significantly less fresh needle oil to run perfectly than knitting machines running on conventional systems that consume about 2.5-3 litres of oil a day on the basis of a 20-hour working day. With the patent pending recycling process developed by Mayer & Cie far less new oil is required. Oil consumption can be reduced by up to 30 per cent, depending on the machine. The new SensoBlue process ensures that the right places are oiled and no oil is wasted.
Which are your top three markets?
Mayer & Cie's single-most important market is Turkey (210 machines sold there in 2014 with a total value of around 16 million euro), followed by China (2nd) and India (3rd). In India, around 190 machines with a value of around 7.5 million euro were sold in 2014.
What is the kind of R&D that Mayer invests in? What percentage of the turnover is allocated to R&D?
Our R&D is look into various aspects: higher productivity (higher speed, more feeders), higher efficiency (less downtime, less defects and less second rate quality fabric), improved sustainability (energy savings, safety issues for the machine user), new knitting technologies combining various possibilities like transfer in both directions, along with striper, plush jacquard and colour plush jacquard, etc. Therefore, our expenses on the R&D is unusually high compared to the average of the textile machinery industry adding up to more than 5 per cent annually of the turnover.
Which are the new markets that you are exploring or planning to explore in the near future?
Asia is at the moment the most important market for us. We have high quality single and double jersey machines for all kind of fabrics and applications with best product quality and high outputs at a fair price. This covers the customer requirements.
Do you manufacture components for machinery by Mayer?
No, we only manufacture parts and components for our own machine brands.
What are the top five HR practices that Mayer follows?
Employees' motivation; employees' satisfaction; employees' education; employee safety; teamwork.
What are the challenges that machinery-makers face? What are your steps to overcome those?
High production, high quality and very versatile machines at the same time and this at the lowest possible price. Based on these requirements we have redefined our machinery programme. We offer various types for the same fabric style. e.g. for single jersey depending on the focus of our customers we offer seven different machine types covering the range of expectations between highest single jersey production, most versatile single jersey and single structure production up to very economic single jersey machinery. Machine-type segmentation is the key word.
Where are your manufacturing units located?
The main manufacturing site is located in Albstadt, Germany at Mayer & Cie's headquarters. All machinery parts and most of our machine types are produced and assembled here. Further units are located in Vsetin in the Czech Republic and Shanghai, China. In both locations we do assembly of a few machine types.
Any plans to open shop in India or any other Asian country?
There is one facility already in China. No other site is planned so far for Asia.
India, industry observers says, is set to emerge as a machinery manufacturing destination? What are the five top things that this country needs to ensure success?
Please ensure less bureaucracy; stable, reliable political and economical conditions; good infrastructure; very good sourcing possibilities for parts and raw materials; incentives like tax exemptions, low ground fees.
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