Experimenting with new technical textile products
Bannari Amman Spinning Mills Ltd. (BASML) is part of the Rs. 3,000-crore Bannari Amman Group which has interests in sugar, distilleries, textiles, education, etc. One of the largest industrial conglomerates in South India, BASML was originally incorporated in 1989 by the name Shiva Textile (CBT) Ltd., and changed to its present name in 1991. Mr. S.V. Arumugam is BASML’s Managing Director.
BASML’s main activity is cotton yarn spinning with an installed capacity of 1,43,232 spindles. Shiva Tex Yarn Ltd. (STL) is a group company in the similar business with an installed capacity of 90,000 spindles. Both the companies put together have a massive capacity of close to 2,33,000 spindles and produce more than 30,000 tonnes of cotton yarn year-on-year. Spinning operations are supported by windmill power capacity of 60 MW. The company has in the last decade diversified into weaving, knitting and technical textile sectors.
Bannari Amman Spinning Mills has four plants – two spinning units at Dindigul and one weaving plant and one technical plant at Coimbatore. The other products of the company include coated fabric for use in home textiles, apparel fabrics, industrial fabrics, breathable waterproof fabrics, reusable adult/baby diapers with bio-degradable single use pads, and quick dry (a bed protector for beds).
Both the mills of STL are equipped with the latest generation spinning machinery from LMW and Rieter, Autoconers from Schlafhorst, Germany, and TFOs from Volkman Murata. They are also equipped with a complete range of testing equipments from Uster Switzerland to test raw cotton and yarn. For production of high grade weaving knitting yarn, the mills made major investments in RIETER COM4 SUSSEN ELITE COMPACT SPINNING system.
The new spinning facility of BASML is equipped with state-of-art spinning machinery like blowroom, carding from Truetzchler Germany, comber, drawframe from Rieter Switzerland, ring frame with auto doffer from LMW India and linkconer from Murata Japan.
BASML primarily produces yarn in the count range of 20s to 100s. Though gray yarn is typically a commodity with individual players having limited pricing power, BASML, by virtue of its size and having built its brand for quality yarn, enjoys premium pricing. A sizable portion of its production, nearly one-fourth its total capacity, is being exported to international markets like Israel, Mauritius, Egypt, Taiwan and South Korea.
Supporting the spinning business are BASML’s weaving and technical textile divisions although the contribution in terms of revenue has been only marginal when compared to spinning.
The company has a very large and sophisticated weaving operation with 135 Sulzar projectile wider width looms producing close to 43 lakh metres of fabric per year. The weaving unit of Bannari is considered one of the top quality fabric producing facilities in India having the capability to produce all kinds of woven fabrics in 100% cotton, in various thread counts (TC) ranging from 500 TC to 1000 TC, in wider width upto 140 inches, warp counts upto 90s Ne, 250 threads in 1 inches and weft counts upto 120s Ne, and with 2, 4 and 8 pick insertions.
Currently 49 looms have been specially modified for ultra fine count weaving and also 86 Jumbo looms capable of producing jointless fabric rolls in excess of 2,000 metres in length. These looms are used mainly for industrial fabrics.
The knitting division is responsible for production of 15 tons of grey knitted fabric by installing 40 circular knitting machinery supplied by Pailung, Terrot and Mayer & Cie.
Technical textiles
In a detailed discussion with The Textile Magazine, Dr. K.S. Sundararaman, Executive Director, the brain behind the TT division, talks about the growth of this division since inception. “Technical Textiles in the forms done in Bannari Amman is an extension of our processing division. The processing industry gave us a better understanding of getting a job done instead of applying colours used in conventional processing industry. We experimented using speciality finishes to get a better output. This was the start of an idea.”
The Technical Textiles Division of the company comprises one of India’s largest and state-of-the-art coating and flocking factories as well as the first PUR lamination unit in India. The company’s weaving division specializes in manufacturing wide-width fabrics.
With regard to technical textiles, the company produces coated fabrics which find application in home textile, upholstery, apparel fabric, performance and industrial fabrics. The company also has a laminating division with polyurethane lamination system which produces breathable water-proof fabrics used in a variety of applications, including ‘quick dry’ for kids, military and high-altitude wears.
Bannari has one of its kind installation of a Gravure roll-based moisture-cured polyurethane lamination system. This unit can bond different types of fabrics together for advanced applications. Some examples include bonding polar fleece to polar fleece, fabric with a breathable water proof membrane for military and outdoor applications, creating water proof/incontinence bed products as well as lingerie applications.
The processing and technical textile unit of Bannari has an installed capacity to laminate more than 36 lakh metres per annum upto a width of 1.9 metres.
The company has a specialized coating and flocking line which is one of the most advanced of its kind in the world. The line is primarily aimed at manufacturing world class flock furnishing fabrics, Velours, black-out fabrics for curtains and pattern flocking for garment and fashion industries.
“Technical textiles is not all that different from traditional textiles. Once you have chosen the right raw material, the rest is very similar to traditional textiles with some minor changes involved in production”, says Dr. Sundararaman.
Bannari’s flagship product “Quick Dry” – A bed protector for beds wherever babies and the elderly sleep, i.e., waterproof, breathable, absorbent, soft, reusable, anti allergic, durable & more.
The company has invested heavily on R&D and marketing, two areas neglected by most textile industrialists, and is striving to achieve excellence in all sectors of the textile industry, from fiber to finished product and to effectively harness and integrate all available technology across various elements of the textile chain.