Montex 6500 meets demand of Selvam Process

22 Jun '11

3 min read

Indian commission dyer, Selvam Process, has installed the country's first Monforts JV Montex 6500 made in the Monforts Joint Venture company in China to meet the demand for open-width knitwear, with heat setting and finishing, by its export customers.

India's Selvam Process is located in the heart of the country's knitwear production centre of Tirupur and was founded in 1990 by R. Subramaniam as a commission dyer for the knitwear sector, initially using 'winch' technology.

By the late 1990s he had been joined by his son S. Raju with a brief to modernise and expand the company's production capacity, Raju had by 2000 introduced a range of Fong's dyeing systems. He took over control of the company in 2009.

During this period, the company had been receiving increasing requests from its exporters for open-width dyeing – entailing out-sourcing the knitwear greige material for heat setting treatment.

“I therefore had to find a 'total solution' so that we could handle both tubular and open-width knitwear in-house.”

The solution proved to be India's first Montex 6500 stenters from Monforts, built in the JV Company in China, supplied through Monforts local representative, ATE Enterprises.

Installed in December 2010, the stenter today handles all heat setting treatment for the open-widths and finishing.

Open-width greige knitwear is now 'slit' and washed in a Bigwash filter tank prior to heat treatment through the Monforts stenter featuring twin padders.

Selvam provide a wide range of dyed knitwear including, for example, 100% cotton, interlock, single jersey, rib, honeycomb and fleece.

The company has also recently introduced a number of blends incorporating polycotton, polyester or viscose. It is also starting to provide dyed lycra blends, which also demand heat set treatment – which can now able to be carried out in-house.

Fabric weights handled through the stenter range from 110 gsm for single jersey to 300 gsm for fleece.

Using its conventional dryer for tubular knits, Selvam had been dyeing up to 7000 kg/day made up by 4 t open-width and contracted out for heat setting, plus 3 t tubular knit.

“The new 8-chamber Montex stenter will process up to 15t/day,” said S. Raju.

“This additional capacity will not only include our own in-house open-width production but also knitwear from other local dyers for heat set treatment.”

Producing dyed knitwear for both ladies and gents fashion-wear, end customers include GAP, M&S, AG, Mack and Ferro.

Open-width demand

“We started to notice exporters were beginning to express an open-width preference in 2009, offering less wastage.”

“Savings of as much as 3% can be made with open-width production compared with tubular finishing,” he said, adding, “Further, with conventional dyeing techniques, the unit can only be used as a dryer. The Monforts stenter is a multi-purpose unit offering drying, heat setting, curing, coating and finishing.”

“Additionally, the stenter can efficiently apply heat setting and finishing to both sides of the fabric.”

“During the finishing process, softeners, for example, can be applied.”

He concluded, “By offering heat treatment in-house we can guarantee 'real' quality with stenter quality control procedures, with no variation in the superior quality finish.”

Monforts Textilmaschinen GmbH & Co. KG

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