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Dyeing machine from Thies eliminates creases in textured jersey

16 Jan '09

6 min read

During this interim period, Textile Jersey purchased five second-hand eco soft dyeing units in a bid to increase its cotton production. At this time Rohan Goonetilleka was to join Textured Jersey as CEO in a caretaker role for the next two years.

Although he regards the role as simply “plugging the leaks” Rohan was responsible for 'turning the company round' instilling a “culture of confidence and self responsibility.” Within this short period Pacific Textiles, as the major shareholder, recognised the company's new potential seeing the change of culture between the local workforce working with the Chinese.

“We had changed from a culture of blame to one of succeeding together,” said Rohan, continuing, “Plans were therefore put into place to give a 100% growth strategy.” Textured Jersey had been very comfortable with the Thies units and despite Pacific Textiles initial reluctance, preferring a Chinese marque dyeing range, an order was placed for 15 Luft Roto Plus dyeing units, following a period of trials and detailed evaluation – seven for Sri Lanka and eight for China.

The effect, according to Shehan Witharana, was immediate with decreased dyeing times, improved quality and the elimination of the creasing problem. “With the reduced cycle times we require less water, reduced chemicals and a significant reduction in power consumption,” he elaborated.

“We can see a continued trend to increase the elastane content ensuring more value added business for stretch fabrics with spandex and tencel, but only likely to be up to 13% in the foreseeable future; although our r+d engineers are testing with up to 20% content.”

“The Thies Airflow technology with liquor rates of 1:4 and 1:5 provides us with a competitive edge over other local manufacturers experiencing larger water consumption, increased costs and three times the quantity of chemicals, plus of course a larger effluent content.”

The company had previously worked with 180-280 gsm fabrics weights but are now able to work as low as 100 gsm. “We have also just completed trials with 90 gsm and production is scheduled within the next couple of weeks,” said Shehan Witharana.

“At these lower weights, travel through the dyeing unit is even better,” according to Thies Regional Sales Manager, Thomas Mende. For cotton, viscose, modal and elastane mixes of below 10% the older Thies Ecosoft units are still being used successfully bt Textured Jersey.

Production, as a direct result of the introduction of Thies's Airflow technology, including the latest two Luft Roto Plus units, has increased to 2.1 million m/month and is expected to rise further to 2.5 million metres by March 2009.

The company has an extensive range of recipes featuring more than 150 for black alone. “We specialise in chocolate and dark shades which are proving difficult for our competitors – ensuring we win the business,” said Shehan Witharana.

Textured Jersey, through its charismatic Managing Director Rohan Goonetilleka, is now actively pursuing two future projects. The first features rainwater harvesting. With large roof areas across its 600,000 ft2 site and particularly during the monsoon season, the company hopes to utilise up to 20% of its water consumption from rainwater.

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