Germany is one of the largest exhibiting nations at ITMA. More than 240 German exhibitors are presenting their products in Milan. The claim “Master the Art of Sustainable Innovation” is one of the performance commitments to be delivered to more than 1,00,000 trade professionals, who are expected to visit the exhibition.
Textile manufacturers are facing a multitude of challenges and are expected to shorten the production intervals more and more. Technical textiles, due to most versatile specifications, machinery and equipment, have to be adjusted frequently, quality, productivity and resource efficiency are equally important in the business.
Ms.Regina Brueckner, Managing Director Brueckner Trockentechnik and Chairperson of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association announced at the VDMA press conference on ITMA, “VDMA and Blue Competence members provide best practice examples for resource and energy saving, sustainable corporate culture and strategies, integration of functions, automation and steps towards Industry 4.0. Additionally we support our customers with technological advice over the whole manufacturing process as we believe that first class machines also need first class consulting and support”.
Energy efficiency is still a major topic in the textile industry. Therefore the German industry presents a new edition of the VDMA energy efficiency guide on textile machinery. In addition, German experts not only present their innovations but demonstrate the energy savings along the entire textile production chain of well-defined textile product categories. Profound calculations cover the full textile production cycle of cotton T-shirts, functional shirts or textile billboards, hygienic nonwovens and woven architectural fabrics.
Ms. Karin Schmidt, Head of Technology of VDMA Textile Machinery confirms, “These five product examples stand for thousands of textile products. Total energy savings of up to 30 % are possible by using German state-of-the-art technology compared to the machinery generation 10 years ago”.
The textile machinery manufacturers affiliated with VDMA are recognized worldwide for their leadership as regards innovations and quality. Mr. Thomas Waldmann, VDMA Managing Director emphasized “They constantly optimize machines, components and technology also in view of sustainability and thus offer the key for energy and resource-efficient manufacturing processes”. While energy-efficient textile machinery clearly offers great saving potentials, Ms. Brueckner pinpoints that decisive influence lies also in the hands of the textile manufacturers, the demands on the textile product, the material, the fibre supplier, all have an influence on energy efficiency.
In a complex textile process, especially the proper use of machines guarantees the expected total energy saving. The advanced German technology demonstrated in ITMA supports machine operators worldwide. Intuitive assistant systems, support by databases that hold the sum of the process knowledge as well as simulation of the entire process cycle are just some promising developments for optimizing the resource and energy efficiency in textile mills.