Partners Sigma for Indian market operations
New Spinning Technology (NST) is a Czech – Chinese joint venture for manufacture of open-end spinning machines. The company was established in 2009 with a manufacturing facility in China. NST rolled out the first set of machines in 2011 in the Chinese market, and since then the company has been making steady progress in the Chinese domestic market and has also made a strong foray into the Indian market.
The open-end spinning market is highly competitive with many leading global manufacturers offering manual, semi-automatic and fully automatic solutions. Then why should a customer consider NST? To know more about this, we met the core founding team who have come together to start this venture.
What really impressed us about NST is this core team of talented professionals with more than two-three decades of experience in development, manufacturing, sales, marketing and service of open end machines, having worked with the leading global brands all through their professional career. It is this valuable experience that NST has put together in developing an open-end spinning machine, taking into consideration the advantages and disadvantages of products already available in the market.
As mentioned earlier, NST installed the first machine in 2011 for a customer in China, and today the same customer has already installed five more machines, thanks to the superior performance. NST has supplied its open end machines to a few more customers in China. Having gained confidence on the quality and performance of the machines, NST decided to look at markets outside of China, and the first among them was India.
In 2012, a team from NST visited India during India ITME and met prospective customers. The company appointed Sigma Quality Products as its agent for the Indian market. Sigma is owned by Mr. K.K. Sundar, who again comes with more than four decades of experience in the textile industry out of which he has spent nearly two decades selling open end spinning machines in the Indian market. It was a perfect fit for NST, and together they are now a formidable combination.
NST and Sigma had a focused strategy of identifying specific customers for open-end spinning. The company started working with Rajapalayam Mills (RAMCO Group), understanding their specific requirements and supplied the first two machines at end of 2013. Based on the performance of these machines and the excellent support extended by NST and Sigma, Rajapalayam Mills has ordered for five more machines, of which three have been supplied already. This is a big step forward for NST and Sigma in the Indian market. The Ramco Group consisting of Rajapalayam Mills is one of the top quality spinning mills in India. The fact that they have installed these machines and gone for repeat orders, speaks a lot about the quality and performance of these machines and the commitment of the teams at both NST and Sigma.
The open-end spinning machinery market is divided into three segments. On the top end we have the fully automatic machines, and then we have the semi-automatic machines, and finally the manual ones. The market is clearly moving from manual to semi-automatic, and this is where most of the volumes come from. The numbers are still limited in the fully automatic segment. NST has positioned its machines in the top end of the high performance segment of semi-automatic machines.
Normally open-end spinning machines were mainly used for waste spinning of counts below 12s. But now the technology has improved significantly to manufacture cotton yarn for hosiery and even low twist up to 34s count, viably. The OE spinning market is expanding and the semi-automatic segment in particular has been growing well. The market size in India for such machines is between 75 and 100 machines per annum.
The XF688, the range of machines offered by NST, comes with industry leading features like dual drive, Loepfe yarn clearers, automatic mass piecing, individual sliver feed and data collection systems. The dual drive system with independent drives for the left and right side of the machines has resulted in significant savings in power consumption for the customers and also offers for immense flexibility. This has been proved and tested by the customers themselves.
NST has also ensured that the machines are fitted with the best of components from global suppliers, so that availability of spares and service will not be an issue in any global market. Accordingly, the machines are fitted with components from Siemens, Control Techniques, B&R, to name a few. The XF 688 offers significant savings in power, ease of operation, limited yarn breaks, better cooling system of the control panels and, most importantly, very high quality of yarn.
Any good machine can be successful in a market only if it is supported by good aftersales service and spares support. The complete aftersales service support is provided by Sigma in India. Sigma’s service team is strong one with experience in installing and servicing of open-end machines.
NST’s biggest advantage has been the core team which has decades of experience in open-end spinning. They are working very closely with the customers to identify areas for improvement, and decisions are taken very quickly. The team works with the customer not just on the machines alone but even on products and technologies. All these could well make NST a strong contender in the market for open-end spinning.