Year 2008: Textile Machinery in Reverse Gear

By : Fibre2fashion.com

• New ISO standard introduced for safer dry-cleaning machines: ISO published a new International Standard, providing safety requirements for dry-cleaning machines. Laundry and dry laundry cleaning frequently use perchloroethylene or combustible solvent which are potentially dangerous to health. ISO 8230:2008, Safety requirements for dry-cleaning machines, will help manufacturers and designers to eliminate or reduce risk associated with these substances. The standard has 3 parts. Part 1 of ISO 8230, Common safety requirements, deals with all significant hazards arising from the use of dry-cleaning machine, both intended use and foreseeable abnormal situations, and includes commissioning, use and maintenance. Part 2, Machines using perchloroethylene, deals with the hazards specific to the use of perchloroethylene (PERC), the most commonly used dry-cleaning solvent, including inhalation of vapours, to perc contact with the skin or eyes of the machine operator and those of other personnel and members of the public, as well as to water and ground contamination. Part 3, Machines using combustible solvents, deals with all significant hazards related to dry-cleaning machines and which require specific action by the designer or manufacturer to eliminate or reduce the risk.

• Govt of India allocated Rs.14 Bn to steer clear backlog in TUF Scheme: The Government of India has been concerned about the impact of the global financial crisis on the Indian economy and a number of steps have been taken to deal with this problem. Considering already dwindling demand in textile industry, Government in its new relief package announced an additional allocation of Rs.1400 crore to clear the entire backlog in TUF Scheme.

• Oerlikon Schlafhorst consolidated German production plants: The Business Unit Oerlikon Schlafhorst has reorganised its three locations, Mnchengladbach, bach-Palenberg and Ebersbach, within the scope of the current restructuring program "Simplify Oerlikon Textile". The entire production of the three locations will be concentrated in bach-Palenberg. Mnchengladbach will focus on marketing functions; Ebersbach will retain its central research and development tasks.

• LMW announced to set up green field machine manufacturing facility, China: Lakshmi Machine Works Ltd this year announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on May 19, 2008, inter alia, has approved the proposal for the establishment of a green field project for the manufacture of Textile Spinning Machinery in China through a wholly owned subsidiary Company.

• Changes at SSM HACOBA Textile Machinery: SSM implemented a number of changes at SSM Textile Machinery and its subsidiary SSM HACOBA in Wuppertal. This encompassed relocation and integration of business activities of Hacoba in Wuppertal, Germany, into the existing operational organization at SSM Textile Machinery's headquarters in Horgen, Switzerland in order to bring smooth integration into the current work processes at SSM Schrer Schweiter Mettler AG in Horgen.

• Fleissner expanded its Management Team: Dr. Dieter Zenker (42) was appointed General Manager of Fleissner GmbH in Egelsbach near Frankfurt/Main on 1^st July 2008.

• Fritz Mayer appointed as new chairman of VDMA: Fritz P. Mayer, Managing Partner of Karl Mayer Textilmaschinenfabrik GmbH, has been elected Chairman of the Textile Machinery Association within VDMA on June 6 in Berlin. Mayer succeeds to the office Johann Philipp Dilo, who has led the Association since 2005.

• LMW bagged Prestigious Palladium Balanced Scorecard Award: Lakshmi Machine Works Limited one the world's leading textile equipment manufacturer with sales of $504 million and 3,500 employees, has been awarded the prestigious Palladium Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame for Executing Strategy by Palladium Group Inc, the global market leader in helping organizations execute strategies.

• Dr. Geoffrey Scott, Uster Technologies, received Entrepreneur of the Year award: Ernst & Young, on October 24^th- 2008, announced the winners of its eleventh Entrepreneur of the Year award. In the Industry category, the winner was Dr Geoffrey Scott, CEO of Uster Technologies AG. The jury was impressed by Dr Geoffrey Scott's managerial skills; his entrepreneurial influence on the company's working culture, and the high motivation of the staff and their ability to identify with the company.

• Karl Mayer acquired weaving preparatory division of Benninger: On 1^st December 2008, KARL MAYER Textilmaschinenfabrik GmbH, Obertshausen, signed the contract to take over the Weaving Preparation Division of Benninger AG in Uzwil. In the future, it will operate under the name of KARL MAYER Textilmaschinen AG. With this strategic acquisition, KARL MAYER takes over Benninger's current product portfolio, together with the service/components operations, which will remain in Uzwil. KARL MAYER will continue to produce machines for the Weaving Preparation Division in Uzwil. After the takeover, 110 employees will join the Weaving Preparation Division of KARL MAYER.

• Karl Mayer bought all technology & market rights of Ira L.Griffin: KARL MAYER acquired all technology and market rights of the Ira L. Griffin Sons company, the Charlotte, USA based leading manufacturer of sizing units as well as ball warpers and long chain beamers for the denim industry. With this acquisition KARL MAYER will increase its market presence in beaming and sizing, and especially strengthen its position and capability to provide complete system solutions in the denim industry, where Griffin products have an excellent reputation. The Griffin business will be integrated into KARL MAYER's warp preparation division that already includes a wide range of direct, sectional and sample wrappers, the Rotal sizing products and the recently acquired Sucker products.

• Acquisition of BarcoVision by Itema finally got green signal from European Commission: The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of BarcoVision of Belgium by the Italian company Itema. After an in-depth examination, launched in April 2008 (see IP/08/571), the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it. This whole procedure started in July 2007 with Barco signing an agreement for the acquisition of its division BarcoVision by Itema group from Bergamo, Italy, pending the approval of antitrust authorities. The antitrust commissions of China, Turkey and Brazil already approved the transaction. The antitrust commission of the European Union communicated that it will initiate a phase 2 investigation during which it wants Itema to further clarify certain aspects of the transaction. Itema produces textile machinery while BarcoVision manufactures sensors and other inputs for the textiles industry.

• Eastman Machine buys Saber, fabric spreading machines maker: Eastman Machine Company, a 120 year-old manufacturing company specializing in cutting equipment, announced that it has acquired privately-held, Nashville, Tennessee-based Saber Industries LLC. Saber Industries LLC, a manufacturer of fabric spreading machines since the 1930's, will relocate operations to Eastman's downtown Buffalo, NY location by the end of March. The acquisition further enhances Eastmans position as an equipment supplier to fabricators that utilize flexible material goods (apparel; upholstered furniture; composite materials; technical textiles) and complements its line of existing cutting room technologies.

• Global recession engulfed Indian textile machinery industry: Indian textile machinery went through a slow down of 15 to 20 percent and experts opined that such situation is expected to continue for another six to eight months. Global recession and lower demand have affected the machinery industry quite badly. This slowdown in textile machinery during 2007-08 has also perturbed the growth in the textile engineering industry that has plunged from 26 percent to a petty 7 percent and further it is anticipated to register a negative growth for 2008-09 fiscal.

India incorporation also witnesses slowdown in textile machinery export growth rate. Exports this fiscal are expected to fetch Rs.4, 850 million against Rs.4, 890 million recorded last year.

• Major machinery manufacturers reported decline in demand for machinery

SSM Textile Machinery:

In a difficult sector environment, SSM Textile Machinery's order intake was 9% lower than the previous year. Sales declined by 15%. While the order intake from the Indian subcontinent and Latin America increased, Asia remained at the same level as the previous year. Turkey recorded a marked decline. Despite a lower volume, the gross margin increased slightly.

Reiter Textile Systems:

Mainly as a consequence of the steep decline in demand at the Textile Systems Division, orders received by the Rieter group were 32 % lower at 1559.3 million CHF. Sales of 1806.6 million CHF were 6 % lower than in the first half of 2007 (3 % lower on a currency-adjusted basis). The weaker trend of business in the second half of 2007 and the slump in demand in the first half of 2008 resulted in lower sales at Textile Systems.

Lakshmi Machine Works:

Indian textile machinery giant LMW published in quarterly results and registered decline in revenue of textile machinery division from Rs. 4526.0 million for quarter ended June 30, 2007 to Rs 4303.2 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2008.

Uster:

Deterioration of the world's finance and banking sector has had major impacts on economies worldwide, which was not foreseen at the half year. This results in a negative impact on Uster's customers' investment plans and along with restricted ability to obtain credit, has led to a further decline in demand for machinery as well as testing systems. As a consequence, for the full year 2008, Uster Technologies expects revenues to be around CHF 150 million (compared to CHF 187 million in the previous year).

Oerlikon:

The sales of the Oerlikon Group in the first half-year declined by 6.5 percent to CHF 2.5 billion, compared to last year's same period as Textile Business showed quite week business symptoms. In order to prepare Oerlikon Textile for a continuation of the cyclical slowdown expected until 2010, Oerlikon's management initiated a project called Simplify Oerlikon Textile which includes steps like rationalizing product range, trimming fixed costs by 20 percent compared to 2007, reducing European workforce by approx. 1,000 employees, cutting the number of production sites worldwide by half, Expanding manufacturing capacity in China.

Picanol:

Picanol Group was faced with a decline in the demand for weaving machines that was stronger than expected during the first half of 2008 as decisions relating to the investment in new weaving machines are being scaled down or postponed worldwide as a result of the general economic unrest. The turnover of the Weaving Solutions division amounted to 141.7 million euros, a decrease of 27% compared to the same period last year.

Year 2008 witnessed and enjoyed quite a number of events organized exclusively for textile machinery like ITMA ASIA + CITME - 2008 and India ITME.

• ITMA ASIA + CITME 2008: The first ever combined and most awaited show ITMA ASIA + CITME 2008 was organized at Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Shanghai from 27 to 31 July 2008. The grand show was held in the space of 126,500 square metres with 11 halls for exhibitors to exhibit their products and was structured by fourteen product categories like spinning, weaving etc. While total of 1,368 exhibitors from 30 nations and regions participated in the show, the show noticed approximately 80,000 visitors in its duration 5 days.

• INDIA ITME 2008: 8th INDIA ITME - 2008 was held at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, from 15-22 November in Bangalore. With the exhibition area of 42,500 sq. mtrs, around 750 exhibitors exhibited their latest technology in 4 A.C. Halls. Apart from 440 Indian participants the show observed participants from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, U.K., U.S.A., China, Turkey, Brazil and other parts also. Approximately 30,000 visitors attended the show.

• CSMAS India 2008: CSMAS India 2008 which was organized by CMAI & CSMA, was held at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, from January 10 to 12, 2008. Nearly 100 Chinese companies using an area of 10,000 Sqm exhibited their innovations.

• Other major trade fairs include SIMATEX from November 11th to 14^th - 2008, FESPA World Expo Asia-Pacific 2008, Bangkok, from 28th 30th November, featuring innovations in textile printing technologies, JIMA 2008 - Apparel Machinery Trade Show, MEGATEX Pakistan 2008, April 15 - 18 , Beijing International Sewing Machinery Show (BISMA) 2008, INLEGMASH 2008 in Russia.
  
  Some major conferences and seminar in the year 2008 include French-Egyptian Seminar on Textile Machinery at Cario, ATNT-2008 - International conference on Advances in Textiles, Machinery, Nonwoven and Technical Textiles at Coimbatore etc.
  
  In summary, year 2008 had seen many important happenings and changes in textile machinery field. Although it had been a year of apprehension and disappointment, the industry faced all the challenges with positive attitude and tried to convert roadblocks into stepping stones by finding out various opportunities for sales and business.

References:

• http://machinist.in/
• http://www.picanolgroup.com