– Fritz Legler, Vice President Marketing, Sales & Service, Staubli Sargans AG
Staubli marked its leadership in the Indian weaving segment with a fine display of products and solutions including the SX Jacquards, new generation Dobbies and the Delta 110 automatic drawing-in machines. Staubli sees a trend in India to automate drawing-in operations. Higher weaving machine efficiencies and fabric quality are convincing arguments to go into automatic drawing-in besides saving labour. We spoke to Mr. Fritz Legler, Vice President Marketing, Sales & Service, Staubli Sargans AG of his impression on the Indian market and how he forsees future growth for Staubli in this important market.
Question: How was the year 2012 been for Stäubli in India? How was the response particularly at the India ITME show?
Answer: The Indian investment engine was not running at highest revs in weaving last year – this in comparison to some of the best years prior to the crisis.
Global consumer demands and export markets have been hampered, FDIs in India on lower levels and agreements on e.g., TUF (i.e., 12th Plan) were somehow delayed. As a result, GDP was on a comparably low level, not seen in India for many years. The recently announced measures to deregulate the market will eventually ease some of the pressure.
We, therefore, believe that the downturn has bottomed out and that improvements will be seen this year.
India ITME proved to be a bumper exhibition all around. A record level of visitors was recorded. Stäubli’s booth was one of the major points of interest. Our booth capacity to welcome our existing and perspective customers was bursting at its seams.
Q: Stäubli commands a strong leadership position in the Indian market. What would you attribute this success to? What is the current market share of the company?
A: Stäubli, with its complementary brands of Schönherr and Deimo, has enjoyed a long and successful history of 120 years. Our company believes in and lives up to traditional values such as providing our global customers with innovative products and services, continuity and high quality offerings. Our distribution strategy focuses on an immediate proximity. Our customers in India speak with well-known Stäubli personnel in their own language during their working hours without having to wait until our production units in Europe start their daily work. We have been operating our own company set up in India since 1993 and will be growing it according to market requirements in India. Our General Manager in India, Mr. S. Mahajan, has built a very strong local Stäubli team.
While our market share in India is probably not bad, we still have ample potential to further grow it. Our existing and prospective customers will merit our intention to grow only if we live up to their expectations. The onus is on us!
Q: How important is the Indian market for Stäubli?
A: It goes without saying that Stäubli has very high aspirations and a strategic intent to excel in every market our company is in. India is undoubtedly one of our key markets and plays a very important role now and in future. One of our burning questions is, though, if India is actually reaping its full potential in a global arena of competitive fabric manufacturing and trading. There is still too much red tape in India compared to some of India’s competitors, which is slowing down progress.
Q: With the Government’s push to increase India’s competitiveness in the weaving segment, what is the kind of growth you feel we can witness in the Indian market for weaving machines? Do you see this as a definite opportunity for Stäubli’s business in India?
A: Obviously, Stäubli very much welcomes India’s intention to further strengthen its weaving industry. This push should ultimately lead to a more positive investment climate. What would also help and facilitate investments is if throughput times for financing and applications for subsidies could be shortened and “red tape” be reduced. India has everything on its side – we believe though that growth and competitiveness can be had at even a faster pace compared to other textile nations.
While the country is evolving in those areas, Stäubli will have to make sure to be ready for any kind of market improvements, and to keep its innovative style to excel in providing active warp and weft control systems.
Q: What are Stäubli’s recent innovations in weaving systems?
A: It is probably fair to suggest that Stäubli (including its brands Schönherr and Deimo) is heavily involved when it comes to fostering innovative and cost-optimized improvements in weaving technology. Our shed forming technologies, for instance, are important ingredients and drivers of higher weaving outputs at highest quality and lowest energy consumption possible.
In brief, the following innovations were part of discussions at the ITME show in Mumbai:
– New dobby generation (S3000 series) with a new locking system offering enhanced security for the selection of heald frames on weaving machines and allowing higher running speeds and reliability. Performance is, for instance, not matched by alternative solutions. This new generation is more compact and generates much less noise and vibration despite the higher speed
– New cam motions (1671/1681/1781 series) with a new high-performance cam-and lever assembly offering a broad range of symmetrical and asymmetrical cams for increased flexibility and performance
– New SX Jacquard machines for plain or velvet weaving – driven either with a mechanical link or with a direct and independent drive concept – or our new Univalette Jacquard solution for narrow fabric weaving
– New Safir drawing-in machine – S80 and S30 series – for high-speed and complex drawing in solutions with, for instance, its new concept for filament applications (S30), allowing more than 200’000 ends drawn in a day thus resulting in a production increase of up to 10 times compared to current manual operations.
– High performance Delta drawing-in machine – Delta 110 series – for shirting, sheeting and denim operations
– Carpet weaving machines – ALPHA series offer new carpet design opportunities through active weft control systems with multi weft selection, magic weft effect or high density designs or carpets with shadow effects
Generally speaking, our customers profit from lower production cost per unit produced at higher efficiency and quality levels. The environmental impact is improved through a lower ecological footprint in their operations.
Q: Warp preparation is an area which Stäubli is putting a lot of focus on. What are the technological developments in this area and what are the solutions that Stäubli offers?
A: It is correct – our warp preparation systems are also an important part of our textile machinery business – like our shed forming or weaving technologies. Automatic drawing-in solutions have to make economical sense which is attained through high performance, repetitive and guaranteed quality of any drawing in patterns in one operation of drawing in warp ends into drop wires, healds and reed dents at the same time.
Technological developments cover topics like high-speed electronics, powerful drive concepts, optical detection devices, as well as reliable sensors and pneumatics. Furthermore, reliable yarn detection is a key function in order to properly select different or mixed yarn types in same warp, different color repeats or transparent yarns with very high densities in same warps, and so forth. It is inevitable that automatic drawing-in has to guarantee a proper and parallel yarn and color sequence without any double- or crossed ends.
High quality warps on weaving machines are even more important than simply properly prepared beams from direct beaming, sectional warping and sizing. High investments are made for those pre-processes. But too often process control steps are then interrupted, going into manual instead of automatic drawing-in. Efficient and effective weaving includes automatic drawing-in operations. There are many positive examples in India.
Solutions range from the bread and butter versions of our Delta Series to our Safir S80 covering two-beam applications or heald frame packages of up to 28 frames or our Safir S30 for filament applications exceeding 200’000 ends drawn in a day.
Q: It is the 121st year of Stäubli. How would you summarise Stäubli’s contribution to the weaving industry?
A: Stäubli has indeed enjoyed a long history and has seen many changes over the years. Traditional values such as providing our global customer base with innovative products and services, continuity and high quality offerings have brought about some quantum leaps and major technological breakthroughs:
To name a few:
* Offering mechanized and automated beam knotting and tying solutions for the first time some 80 years ago
* Bringing out new shed forming solutions with, for instance, the rotative mechanism of dobby machines some 30 years ago
* Guaranteeing new design opportunities with electronically controlled Jacquard machines since the eighties of the +last century
* Introducing process-controlled and fully automated drawing-in machines with our DELTA machines in 1991
* Offering single-end or hook control with individual stepper drives on Jacquard machines with our UNIVAL line in 1991
We intend to come along with many more innovative products and systems as we go along.