Interview with Mr Johann Philipp Oskar Dilo

Well, the start to the success journey ofcourse began with founding of Dilo Inc., Charlotte, USA in 1983. In just two years span we reposed another milestone by incepting Dilo Maschinensystem GmbH, Eberbach, Germany in 1985. After having the accrued expertise and success in a decade's span, in 1996, we did integration of Spinnbau GmbH, Bremen, Germany, as a member of Dilo Group, and in very next year, we launched Dilo Systems as the general contractor for production lines. In 1999, we opened representation office in Shanghai, China. In 2005, again another integration of Temafa Maschinenfabrik GmbH, Bergisch-Gladbach, Germany, as a member of DiloGroup took place. Next year to it, in 2006 we found another representation office in Moscow, Russia. In 2007, New Customer Center in our Eberbach based headquarters had also been started. Year ago we have extended our Technology Center at our headquarters in Eberbach.

In the beginning the basis of our complete line business was established through cooperations with different suppliers. In the meantime Dilo has integrated Spinnbau in 1996 and Temafa in 2005 and has included a large crosslapper production as well. As a consequence Dilo manufactures equipment from bale opening through winding, the complete production lines for needle punched nonwovens in house. For thermobonding or chemical bonding Dilo still relies on partners such as Brückner in Germany.

The worldwide financial crisis makes everybody in the manufacturing industry aware of sharp requirements for efficient production and cost savings. Top priority is saving of fibre material consumption. Production efficiency and product quality contribute particularly during a crisis to stay successful. Dilo is prepared to supply state of the art machinery to enable our customers a strong position within their field. In addition Dilo provides newly developed equipment of the so-called A-series with a medium range performance at a new level of cost/performance ratio. A complete package of new equipment is available from Dilo Group to our worldwide customers who look for attractive machinery in a difficult economic environment.

Automotive: If you look into several nonwoven segments and areas, we find that needlepunched material offers a competitive edge for moulded car parts which are particularly on demand when cars need to be more fuel efficient, smaller and lighter in weight. Therefore, the economic crisis and global warming will result in a requirement for smaller cars which use more needlepunched carpet. A chance for the needlepunch industry!

Geotextiles: Many governments worldwide offer financial packages in order to improve the infrastructure. This will offer opportunities and potential for the geotextile industry again with very interesting applications for needlepunched material.

Filters: A new awareness of the necessity to take care of our environment will create additional sales opportunities for filtration material. Needlepunched filters are highly attractive due to their cost efficient manufacturing, low energy requirement at a high degree of separation e. g. for dust particles. Needled filters are ideal for many different filtration tasks. All this makes me very confident that new opportunities are ahead of us.

Medicine, hygiene and cosmetics: Our new Hyperneedling technology is realized by the newly developed Cyclopunch units with approx. 20,000 needles/m/board. The needle barb is adapted to the fibre fineness in order to transport only one single fibre at a stroke. A new kinematics moves the needle on a circular path resulting in an increase of throughput speed to more than 100 m/min. The Hyperneedling process allows production of light-weight felts made from fine fibres at an area weight as low as approx. 30 g/m² at high throughput speeds. Hyperneedled products are applicable in the fields of medicine, hygiene, synthetic leather, interlinings and filter media.

The needling process in general is highly energy efficient and doesn’t consume water.

Since Dilo has been worldwide present in all important markets including Asia since decades, we consider Asia to be one of our traditional markets. Market shares are varying a lot from year to year on an average basis; however, there is still a very high potential for further growth of the consumption of nonwoven material in Asia and consequently for the related production machinery as well.

Traditionally the manufacturers of nonwovens in the United States, Japan and Europe invest in modern, highly productive equipment of the latest design. In this regard not only the throughput, the production rate is most important but also the quality, the evenness and the surface appearance of the textile end product is regarded decisive in order to compete globally. At the same time also the line efficiency is in the focus. Therefore only highly automated equipment with modern computer controls, memory for production recipes and menu guided operation is evaluated as crucial to stay competitive. One most important point is also the quality and quantity of the fibre used to arrive at a certain high levelled product quality. Recent advancements in the design of nonwoven lines offer features which help to save fibre representing the highest cost factor in the textile industry. Of course, there are still areas where used equipment is applied, too, predominantly to make use of reclaimed or recycled fibre. But even in this area when shoddy material or natural fibre is processed state-of-the-art equipment offers a wide range for dedusting the machines, recycle fibre material from edgetrim or from vacuumed areas within a production line. Easy and quick access to areas is important where cleaning is necessary in order to reduce the downtime for maintenance. All in all a lot of important features speak for the investment into modern equipment of the latest design.

Dilo is specialized in machinery and technology for nonwoven production exclusively. Through this focus and specialization Dilo is able to stay at the forefront of development to provide innovative machinery leading in throughput capacity, production efficiency and reliability as well as in first quality for the nonwoven product itself.

Excellent service is a prerequisite to be successful. Dilo therefore keeps a big stock of spare parts in Germany and electrical parts through partners worldwide in order to provide a high degree of availability on short notice for many typical spare parts. Also our highly trained workforce is constantly travelling worldwide in order to provide field service and assistance.

Our R&D activities focus on improvements, modifications, innovations and inventions for all components, be it preparatory, web-forming or needling machines, with a budget of over 7 % of our turnover. In this regard Dilo has contributed a large number of inventions to the needling technology like e. g. DI-LOOP, DI-LOFT, DI-LOUR, RONTEX, BELTEX, HYPERPUNCH, CYCLOPUNCH, HYPERNEEDLING, etc.

The economic crisis in the industry was caused or at least heavily severed by the banking and financial crisis. The governments worldwide have taken note of this increasingly difficult situation and have reacted in general adequately and timely with their related packages to provide guarantees to stabilize the financial system. In addition, they have provided funds in order to improve the infrastructure, school buildings and the education system in general. Some of those measures cannot be turned into economic success immediately, since improvement in the infrastructure e. g. needs planning and preparation. On the other hand, they certainly provide a positive psychological influence on the situation in the economy. Since we cannot expect to get specific help for all individual industrial segments and since the economic crisis can only be overcome by improving the financial sector first, I find it positive that a new banking structure is coming on stream in order to allow the banks to get rid of bad debts through the so-called “bad banks”. This is carried out with the help of the governments and the Federal Reserve banks. In this regard yes, I can confirm my positive expectation that those measures will eventually work to help to overcome the current crisis. The question, of course, is how quick these governmental, financial programs can turn into real economic recovery.

#######