Plan for doubling capacity in a few months
Amritsar, the land of the Golden Temple, has been a textile hub and is particularly famous for shawls and blankets which are exported worldwide. Many of the major textile mills were first established in Amritsar. But the city has been a victim of terrorist activities in the 1970s and 1980s, and this has dealt a death-blow to the local industries. As a result, industries moved out, slowing down the overall development of the region.
Today the scenario is fast changing. The local entrepreneurs are determined to bring back the city to its golden days. One such group manufacturing and exporting blankets, shawls, stoles and scarfs with successful backward integration by setting up its own yarn dyeing unit is Shree Balaji Yarns and Textile (SBYT).
SBYT is a greenfield facility established in 2012. Construction of the factory started in 2010 and commercial production commenced in August 2012. SBYT is headed by two young entrepreneurs – Mr. Manish Mehra and Mr. Hitesh Khosla, Managing Director of SBYT – who have established a worldclass manufacturing facility for yarn dyeing.
The company has a professional team headed by Mr. Mohinder Attiri who comes with more than 20 years of experience in the textile industry, particularly in dyeing and processing.
The promoters of SBYT have been in the textile industry for over 40 years, sourcing dyed yarn from the market. Hence, to cater to its captive requirement and to that of other customers, the group has now gone in for backward integration and established its own state-of-the-art dyed yarn plant.
The company is also catering to the dyed yarn requirement of companies in Amritsar which are into making similar products like shawls, stoles, scarfs and blankets.
Apart from the Amritsar market, SBYT is also catering to customers in Ludhiana for the woollen and cotton knitwear and hosiery segment. It has established a very modern yarn dyeing facility with a capacity to process 5000 kg of yarn per day. “We are planning to double the capacity in the next few months”, says Mr. Manish Mehra.
SBYT has all the necessary infrastructure for yarn dyeing, including preparatory winding machines for soft packaging and RF dryers and cone winding machines. The company has established a sophisticated testing laboratory with automated color management solutions. The heart of manufacturing is the dyeing unit, for which SBYT has installed the new generation Fong’s Allwin and Labwin series of machines. The company has installed 12 machines with varying capacities starting from three kg which are used for sampling up to 500 kg. “In the next phase we will set up higher capacity machines of 800 and 1000 kg dyeing machines as we have increasing requirement from our customers”, says Mr. Hitesh Khosla.
SBYT has the capacity to dye almost all types of substrates and filaments. The company can dye yarn counts from 10nm to 120nm. From 2 by 20s to 2-120nm on substrates like polyester, cotton, wool, silk, poly wool, poly viscose, poly cotton, modal, viscose and linen. The company is sourcing basic yarns like silk and cashmere wool from the domestic market as well as from China.
Some of the major customers of SBYT include Ramson Exports, Piyush Overseas, Startlight Hosiery Works, Southern Knitwear and Shri Ganesh Enterprises. Its clientele are leading exporters of high quality scarfs, stoles and shawls to global brands like GAP, Debenhams and Espirit. Hence the quality of dyed yarn should be top notch.
“We want to set up an eco-friendly plant adhering to all the latest environmental protection norms. Hence before setting up the unit we evaluated many machines and finally decided to go with Fong’s. They assured us the best quality, and today we are very satisfied with the performance of the machines and the output. Their transparent approach and attitude impressed us a lot. We are proud to have set up a unit which strictly conforms to the environment norms. We are very happy with Fong’s, and even for our next round of capacity expansion we will go with them”, says Mr. Manish Mehra.
Out of 12 Fong’s machines installed, the company has one machine with capacity of 500 kg, two machines of 300 kg, another machine of 200 kg capacity, three machines of 100 kg, one machine of 62 kg capacity, one machine of 52 kg and two Labwin model of 10 kg and three kg for sampling.
The Fong’s ALLWIN high temperature package dyeing machine offers an unprecedented liquor ratio of as low as 1:4 with its integrated design of REV-pump, heat exchanger and the flow reversing system (patent granted). The newly designed integrated circulating system results in space saving by approx. 30 per cent as compared with conventional machine arrangements.
The versatile machine is suitable for various types of fibres: natural and man-made fibres and their blends, and 100 per cent cotton, polyester, polyester/cotton, acrylic, polyamide (nylon), wool, ramie/cotton, etc. Different forms of yarns can be dyed such as packages, cheese, cones, hanks, loose fibre, etc., the capacity ranging from 28 kg to 9129 kg.
As per the test conducted by Fong’s National Engineering Co. Ltd., ALLWIN dyeing machines shorten the total processing time for cotton yarn down to 276 minutes, saving electrical and water consumption by over 40 per cent and chemical cost by 19 per cent compared with the conventional machines.
The Intelligent Levelling Control (ILC) system monitors the flow through the package from outside-in to inside-out and vice versa. ILC improves the levelling of colour throughout the whole package, thereby reducing the yarn loss and increasing the reproducibility from batch to batch. Production cost is cut by 30 per cent, making it a premium choice for yarn dyeing facilities everywhere.
The main features of this series machine are its compact piping layout which offers 25 per cent space saving and extreme low liquor ratio of 1:4; the Fuzzy Logic temperature control controlling temperature inaccuracy within ±0.3oC; ILC system improving levelling throughout the whole package layer and reducing the yarn lost; and the advanced intelligent rinsing system shortening the rinsing time and reducing water consumption.
Mr. Mohinder Attri says: “In terms of price, quality and output these are the best machines we have ever seen. The results of the machines are excellent. These are the latest models with the least liquor ratio; hence we are able make significant savings in water, chemicals, energy, power and, mostly importantly, our mother earth”.
In the next phase of expansion, SBYT is also looking at further backward integration into the spinning segment and forward integration into the fabric dyeing and printing. The company is currently catering to the requirement in the domestic market, and has plans to cover overseas markets as well in future.