Interview with Dr. Andreas Schmidt

The research teams at Hohenstein work mainly at the areas of functional textiles which include, protective, sport and medical textiles. One of our main topics is to examine and optimize the physiological aspects of clothing systems to enhance the wearer performance. Together with the notified body 0555 we are well prepared to optimize i.e. the clothing systems for fire fighters. But also textiles for the automotive industry are developed and optimized. Here one target is to enhance the noise reduction inside a car. Another very important point for us is the thermo-physiological and skin sensorial influence of the cover fabrics on the drivers performance. With our work we can optimize the car seat, arm-rests etc. For us a quite new working field is the building industry. In a very first research project in this field we have replaced the conventional outer plaster by a technical textile and have improved for example the humidity transport through the facade thus resulting in a less mold and algae compared to conventional heat insulated facades.

In my opinion three sectors are important: protective textiles, textiles in automotive and transportation industry and last the construction and building sector. A very interesting sector also is medical textiles, but for those the question will be the development of the market share of disposable textiles.

On the one hand it can be a good chance for reinforcement textiles in the construction sector. Concrete with textile reinforcement for example can be of less weight with the same stability - or of higher stability at the same weight - as the steel reinforced version. With those a real performance boost with respect to stability can be realized. On the other hand for shipping goods (no matter if textiles or other materials) form Japan and some areas of China around the globe one have to check that there is no radioactive contamination. This should be done by experts, but these are quite rare. As far as we know actually this safety checks are not done.

I do not know the Indian market well, so I cannot really answer this question. One challenge I know is that, both markets are rapidly growing. This results in logistical challenges for transportation of goods and workers as well. In China the infrastructure is more developed and let's say almost sufficient while in India there is still the need of a vast improvement in this field. And that in China the standard of living is increasing (and also earnings) faster than in India, which causes also a lot of issues so the low cost production is moving to i.e. Bangladesh.

I think in China sustainability becomes more and more important and is definitely an issue since the last years in production and the related effects on the environment. In most of the other Asian countries sustainability is currently just a very small issue or not even existing.

This is a very difficult question. There are no international standards which declare a product or service is “sustainable” or not. Therefore it mainly depends on the intensity one like to go sustainable and what quality systems one likes to implement. Some question for a better understanding: are you only looking for your own products? Are you looking also what is your supplier doing in this field, or even the supplier of your supplier? Are you only looking for production processes or is the logistic included? Also the skill enhancement of the workers can be taken into consideration. So one can do a lot but the main question in my opinion is: What does your customer really want? As long as there is no international standard or common understanding of sustainability, everyone will do something at lowest cost possible.