Interview with Heinz Michel

Heinz Michel
Heinz Michel
President
Santex AG
Santex AG

Asia-Pacific continues to be a dominating market
A machine manufacturer and technology partner for knits, wovens, and technical textiles, the Santex Group claims to be the world's only manufacturer for complete knit fabric finishing lines in both tubular and open width. Mary Christine Joy talks to Heinz Michel, president of Santex AG, to know more about the group and its role as an innovative solutions provider.

How do you rate the markets in Europe, USA, Asia-Pacific and other emerging economies for textile machinery?

Textile machinery is a world market, and it never ceases to fascinate me. We can see some European companies investing in textile and even more in technical textile machines. This is a good signal for the industry in Europe. Of course, Asia-Pacific continues to be a dominating market. We have very close contacts with markets in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. I am impressed with the numerous first class customers we have in those countries. They are producing for the most famous retailers. The Chinese market is handled by our local company Santex Shanghai. The market here has slowed down a bit during the last months of 2014. However we have a very strong market position and I am optimistic about China. The Americas are markets we are working more intensively in order to offer special technology in textile as well as technical textile machinery.

Textile machinery is a vast industry. Could you elaborate on the textile machinery industry in general?

I want to concentrate on our range of textile machinery. Santex AG was founded in 1982 and is focused on textile finishing, mainly for knit fabrics. SperottoRimar from Santex offers finishing solutions for high quality wool and blended fabrics. So we are at the end of the textile supply chain. Besides textile machinery, Santex Group also offers machines for technical textiles under the brands Cavitec and Isotex for coating/laminating with Hotmelt or Wet Coating technology and impregnation lines using epoxy or phenolic resins for carbon, glass or aramid fibres.

What are the latest technological innovations taking place in the textile machinery industry?

Textile machinery is an old industry and therefore technological innovations are realized in small steps. We are constantly working on high efficiency machines with low energy consumption. For instance, we developed special devices to reduce energy like energy-saving chambers for our Santashrink dryer. Furthermore we launched a special Compact machine to get a better lustre and hand of the fabric and to reduce the residual shrinkage of knitted goods. What is topmost on priority with our engineers is to get the best possible fabric quality for our clients. Technical textile machines are invariably customised and we are flexible in attending the demands of our worldwide customers. In the area of coating/laminating we have developed the new Cavimelt P+P, a compact machine with the goals of precision, production and lamination using an engraved roller.

How is high speed textile machinery different from ordinary textile machineries? What is so special about your high speed textile machinery?

In textile finishing, area high speed is not the same aim as in spinning. During different finishing processes it is essential to find the best compromise between efficiency and quality. The tensionless drying, shrinking and relaxing by Santashrink dryers sell well in the demanding market of Turkey and our machines are speed-wise one of the most powerful dryers in the market.

Is there any piece of advice that you would like to give to textile manufacturers before buying textile machinery?

The constant price war is a fact we have to live with. Clients should evaluate carefully the different machines on offer and invest in those companies they can trust to be a partner for the next 10-15 years. In this context, service availability of the machine supplier is crucial and should be considered as critical.

How do you find the nonwoven market in the global textile industry? Do you suppose that it holds as much of an importance as the mainstream apparel market?

Nonwovens will grow even more than in the last years. We are confident that this market has a great potential. Santex has been active in the nonwovens industry for some time now, offering thermofixing ovens using variable nozzle and fan systems.

Spearheading a company like Santex Group is a challenging job. How do you manage your time? Tell us something about you as a professional.

We work as a team; everybody has his responsibility and knows what has to be done. I try to inspire my colleagues by involving people and giving them the necessary freedom to achieve their targets. With this policy we are also able to distribute the work load. I like to have direct customer contact in order to get firsthand information, and this could be in Switzerland or any other country where our customer is.

Santex Group is often into various textile machinery exhibitions and fairs. How do you think these fairs and exhibitions help your products?

Sometimes I think that at all the exhibitions it is the organiser who reaps the most. In 2015, Santex Group will be present in different shows like JEC Composites in Paris, Techtextil-Frankfurt, Shanghaitex, ITMA Milan, besides some small exhibitions in different countries.
Published on: 28/11/2014

DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.