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70 | The Textile Magazine NOVEMBER 2011
Mr. Susumu Toyota, Deputy Gen-
eral Manager, Textile Machinery
Business Unit, says energy costs in
Japan are pretty high for some time,
promoting development of the tech-
nology.
In Toyota’s weaving machinery
compressed air consumes the most
electricity. “We have taken steps
to minimize the volume of airfow
and pressure of the air. We have re-
viewed the design of all components
– nozzles, reeds and so on. We have
achieved a 20% saving in air con-
sumption in our weaving systems”.
With spinning systems becoming
increasingly long and demanding
larger motors, Toyota has developed
an electric motor with lower power
consumption. It has also optimized
the vacuum system to save energy
and achieved a 7% reduction in con-
sumption, says Mr. Toyota.
Looking ahead, he says mini-
mizing energy consumption will
remain a key trend. “Energy costs
are increasing world-
wide. Also fexibility of
our weaving machinery
is key. Nowadays the
economy is more glo-
balised – there are so
many different demands
regarding fashion and
customers have to react
quickly to change and
machines need to be
fexible and able to pro-
duce and kind of style,
with machine setting
changed easily”.
“There is also demand
for automation as labour
costs become higher in
countries such as India
and China”, he adds.
According to the Tex-
tile Machinery Business
Unit, while the speeds
of looms are approach-
ing their limit, there are
still many things to do
and a long way to go as
far as power saving on
looms is concerned. In
China and other emerg-
ing economies, the
power situation is espe-
cially unstable, and the rising costs
of labor and raw materials have in-
creased production costs. Accord-
ingly more people are attaching
importance to the pursuit of energy
saving, and this is likely to become a
major subject in the future.
At ITMA 2011, Toyota Industries
exhibited fve JAT710 air-jet looms.
This model boasts of its largest share
in the world market. Since its launch
into the market in 2003, the JAT710
has been maintaining its world’s
ITMA 2011 [exclusive feature]