Karl Mayer displays products for technical textiles sector

One example of successful product development in conjunction with partners is the stretch sun-screening textile, OMBRA-DLS. This warp-knitted, grid-like textile combines stretch warp yarns with tape yarns, which are inserted by a magazine weft system, and can be adjusted specifically to suit the amount of solar or thermal radiation impinging on the textile.

The result is a constant light diffusion and climate management. This innovative textile was presented by the partners involved in the project, Elasol and Penn Textile Solutions, on KARL MAYER’s stand at Techtextil and attracted a great deal of attention.

“There is more interest in OMBRA-DLS than we expected,” explained Markus Regenstein, the managing director of Penn Textile Solutions. “We are looking for global distribution channels and partners, and were able to make some promising new contacts in this respect.” Enquiries came mainly from South America, India, Europe and China.

“The discussions also generated new concepts for new applications, such as incorporating lighting effects in interior design,” explained Leo Jasper, Elasol’s managing director, who was pleased with the excellent feedback.

His opinion was also shared by Axel Wintermeyer, the sales director at KARL MAYER MALIMO, who brought the production machine – a raschel machine with magazine weft-insertion - and the know-how of his company to bear in the project and who was especially pleased that KARL MAYER was seen by many visitors as being an innovative partner in developing new ideas.

“The visitors were impressed by the concept of our partnership,” he said when summing up his assessment of the fair. In addition to OMBRA-DLS, the visitors were, of course, also interested in the many conventional applications of weft-inserted warp-knitted textiles. Examples of the main ones were as coating/backing substrates, geotextiles and nets. Enquiries about these came mainly from existing customers and were, for the most part, extremely specific.

Warp preparation – ready for the increased demand

The success of KARL MAYER at Techtextil was complemented by the positive assessment by the Warp Preparation Business Unit. “Footfall on our stand was very high and we had many interesting conversations. We also conducted many specific negotiations,” explained the regional sales manager, Michael Schaaf.

The discussions showed that the range of technical textiles had increased again – a trend that KAR MAYER is able to cater for with the performance features of its high-tech warp preparation machines. The Opt-O-Matic sectional warping machine in particular can offer exactly what customers need for challenging applications, i.e. high efficiency, productivity and flexibility.

For example, glass, basalt and carbon can beprocessed on the Opt-O-Matic, as can monofilaments. “Our many years of experience in the technical sector means that we are expert partners to our clients. We were able to demonstrate this yet again at this year’s fair,” was the feedback from the sales team in the Warp Preparation Business Unit.

Karl Mayer