Part of the Savio Group, SedoTreepoint provides control systems for dyeing and finishing machinery, and the company has seen substantial growth in recent years. Thanks to both the development of its technology and its partnerships with other members of the group, one of the first textile machinery businesses to embrace Industry 4.0 is SedoTreepoint.
During the last decade, the company saw some steady growth year on year, but 2017 was an extraordinary strong year with record numbers which was primarily due to its key markets like China and India and traditional markets like Germany, Italy or Greece. It is also associated with major dyeing machine suppliers worldwide where there is no difficulty in getting the machine along with Sedo automation.
Indian market
India is one of the most important markets for SedoTreepoint. It has a team for sales and service in Mumbai and Coimbatore, present with SUN Instrumentation & Control in Surat and in Delhi it works with Corpora Consultants strengthening its presence in Northern India. The company is also planning to expand further in the coming months.
During the last two years, SedoTreepoint has seen a strong interest in machine automation systems from the Indian customers. Instead of investing in low-cost equipment without or with limited integration possibilities, customers want to modernize and upgrade production technology to higher levels, increasing efficiency to compete with the industries from other countries.
“I believe we are now in a fascinating phase of moving to a new understanding for combining automation and IT. Indian textile industry can enhance its competitiveness. We invite the Indian customers to discuss with our team, possibilities to achieve higher energy savings and digitalization in their industry”, said Mr. Andreas Hannes, Marketing Manager, Sedo Treepoint GmbH
New Technology launch
In an IT-driven field, there is always a change of technology happening very fast. SedoTreepoint has been evolving continuously. For SedoMaster production management system, a new powerful and flexible reporting was introduced with a possibility to create a personal dashboard showing all-important KPI’s at a glance. On the automation side, support of RFID tags was introduced. Also a new software system was added named SedoExpert with enhanced production planning and simulation tools. The company is now supporting printing applications, e.g., for rotary printing. There are interesting new innovations in development and customers can be curious about the future novelties.
Controllers Business: Customers now look for an overall plan for their production, not only seeing individual machines for automation but looking for a deeper integration and ways to get valuable data out of their production. Besides dyeing, there is a growing demand to also integrate continuous machines in their IT and software systems. A common platform on the machine is therefore required which Sedo can offer to them for all machine types. To start with big data/data mining, all the data must be collected and made available.
For customers, there is a challenge to educate their operators in the features which a fully integrated system is offering. To utilize savings and increase efficiency, there are plenty of possibilities if one knows how to operate best with the system.
Color management business: Color Quality control and recipe calculation in the lab is important and ROI can be achieved within less a year. Color management systems have more to offer: It not only brings accuracy and repeatability in the production with shorter lead times into production. With shorter process times and less corrections, machine efficiency goes up. Better processes save water, energy, dye-stuff, etc. They will also help to store process know-how in the system and put in article or customer based rules.
“We also hear from customers that the quality of dye stuffs is also changing from shipment to shipment. We also offer systems for incoming goods inspection and recipes can be re-calculated to fit to the changed dye stuffs”, he said.
Industry 4.0
“For Industry 4.0 and smart factory, there needs to be a common data platform. Customers already have some automation and systems. If you try to bring together the data on a higher level, there are too many different protocols / standards or single information islands. We advise customers how to go beyond these limitations. Next step is a central information platform. In installing our manufacturing executing systems (MES), all data become available, not only for Sedo systems, but also for third party systems, like machines, dispensing or ERP systems. Then we can really look into the smarter technologies like production simulation optimization, lot tracking and preventative maintenance that are available in the SedoExpert system.”
Sustainable manufacturing
Sustainable manufacturing has become to some extend a buzzword which has to be treated seriously. The company has hundreds of customers worldwide and Sedo knows the machinery and peripherals. Sedo is in exchange with all business partners and ready to help customers to get sustainable production that can be seen in figures on their production reports.