Interview with Georg Reinhold

Figures for the global textile machinery industry are very difficult to get - and to prove. Depending on the source figures vary substantially. So we usually do not analyse machinery data but look at yarn tonnage and square metres for reference. Our filament business, mainly carpet yarns (BCF) with an annual production of some 2 million tonnes per year, is just a fraction of the whole filament market. A majority of over 90 per cent are textile yarns, namely POY/DTY and FDY qualities. The same holds true for non-woven fabrics which have a share of some 8 per cent of the total textile and technical fabrics market of approximately 85 million tonnes. We assume that the relation in regard to machinery is roughly the same.

We see a prosperous future for the wet-laid-spunlace-technology which was successfully and reliably developed in close cooperation between Trützschler and Voith. All our installations are running as expected or to some extent even beyond the original targets. But the full potential of WLS is by far not explored yet. Today its ecological aspect -flushability- is put to the front for good reasons. The legislative will continue to drive this aspect. The second aspect -cost of pulp as raw material- is not yet fully recognized and deployed in the non-wovens markets. Our trials in semi-scale show non-woven fabrics with very promising touch-and-feel as well as physical properties. Hence, we believe in its growth far beyond today's end.

Within the textile industry NW is a relatively young market. We can see continuous innovation for the end-user of the product as well as for its productions technology. Given that situation it is vital for all vertical market participants to ensure a close and reliable cooperation. Means for Trützschler as a supplier of technological know-how and the related machinery , that we have to collaborate closely with the NW producers, the converting industry and those companies who define and sell end products. In order to be a reliable partner to our verticals we have built up know-how and expertise for all unit operations within the NW as well as BCF/IDY industry. Secondly, we have created a culture of willingness and openness for dialogues with the verticals. We are grateful for every new conversation and partnership.

Actually, we have to differentiate between the two, NW and MMF. We expect the global demand of non-woven products to grow continuously at a growth rate of high single digit to low double digit percentage. Main drivers are the growth of the global income and innovative end-user applications. Hence, the NW machinery industry has to support new applications and provide solutions. In addition to the permanent market growth, we see a clear trend for higher line capacity in order to improve productivity. In contrast to what was said before, BCF and industrial yarns (IDY) have only a much lower growth rate in global demand. At the same time, the global production capacity for these filament types is still in some areas above demand. Hence, we see our customer investing into new machinery either where they adjust their portfolio to specialities and niche markets or where they target to improve their operational cost.

We see strong growth in disposable segments like wipes, pads and hygiene products. These convenience products more and more become affordable for the world's rising middle class. Our non-wovens machinery for disposable end-products based on carded spunlaced as well as thermobonded material provides great customer benefits and hence is in good demand. We see our customers calling for these machines as single components when upgrading their existing installations as well as complete new lines.

Given the size and growth of the population in China as well as India it is obvious that both countries will have a significant share of global demand in our markets. Therefore, we will continue deploying skills and production capacities to those countries in order to establish close cooperation and support to our customers. Thanks to the global footprint of the Trützschler-Group we can build on existing sound infrastructure in both countries.

As you know we have de-invested our staple-fibre technology recently. This step allows us to focus and invest into our non-wovens as well as carpet and industrial yarn segments. Our investment into R&D will be well above average for the coming years. Generally speaking, these efforts will focus on significant improvements of customer's Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TCO) along the whole lifecycle of the production line. In parallel we will closely cooperate with both customers and independent research institutes in the development of innovative equipment, applications and products.

The world of carpet yarn production is a story of its own. Unlike the textile and industrial yarn market, China is not the dominating player. Major regions for carpet and carpet yarn production are North America, Europe, Turkey, Middle East and China. Every region has its own investment patterns. They reflect the consumption pattern and we do not see that changing over the next few years. Both BCF yarn and carpet production are highly automated so it is unlikely to shift production to countries with lower labour costs. The development of the industrial yarn markets on the other hand resembles the textile segment. Huge capacities of PET industrial yarn have been built up in China within the last decade. So the majority of PET IDY is now supplied by Chinese producers. Industrial yarns made from PA6 and PA66 are a different story. Here we still see local activities in countries with a strong utility vehicle industry.

Both NW and MMF producers rely on relatively mature technological unit operations. We do not see entirely new technologies coming up on an industrial scale. But we see a huge potential of combining existing technologies. Take for instance our wet-laid-spunlace (WLS) innovation with Voith: by combining established processes and proven machinery of two industry sectors -wet-laying and spunlacing- we were able to open the door to entirely new non-woven materials.

At ITME we will display our full range of non-wovens solutions. We will focus on end-products and show the broad variety of non-woven materials. We learned at the last ITME show that discussing fibre materials and potential applications is usually of more interest for prospective customers than explaining solely new non-wovens machinery. Nevertheless we will talk technology: On the agenda are two new non-woven components, a modular system for fibre preparation and the new master roll winder for spunlacing lines. In the BCF segment we will concentrate on our new cooperation with EREMA. With our joint solution it becomes possible even for small-scale producers to produce high-quality carpet yarn from recycled PET (R-PET). We consider cost of feedstock to be a key subject to every competitive producer of yarn in India and elsewhere.