Durkopp Adler’s pioneering new sewing system: the M-Type Delta was awarded the Innovation Award in the category ‘New Technology’, at the recently held Texprocess trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany. The new M-Type Delta sewing system is a fully digitised industrial sewing machine for materials such as leather, upholstery and technical textiles.

“With our groundbreaking new M-Type Delta sewing system, we redefine industrial sewing and enable solutions that were previously unthinkable,” said Dietrich Eickhoff, CEO of the Dürkopp Adler group in a company press release. “The sewing machine becomes an assistant, partner, helper and communicator. This is a significant difference to all previous machine concepts and offers an incredible number of new possibilities!”

“We produce the perfect seam with this machine, whatever the situation, without the need for conversion,” said Thomas Brinkhoff, director of marketing, Dürkopp Adler group. “This is ensured by the new smart sewing kinematics, which immediately achieve the best sewing results without having to mechanically change the machine.”

The training of the operator is reduced to the absolute minimum, because the machine shows the user with video support what to do and how to do it right. With sophisticated sensor technology, the M-Type Delta ensures that virtually no loss of valuable materials occurs through bad stitches or missing threads.

An integrated usage- or time-controlled maintenance assistant indicates upcoming work. Service work can be documented in the machine and retrieved at any time. This reduces machine downtime to an absolute minimum.

“Anyone who wants to sew individualised products industrially can gain the decisive competitive advantage with this sewing system, because the M-Type Delta is perfectly prepared for use in the necessary machine networks such as our Qondac system.”

With Qondac, the Dürkopp Adler group presented the most efficient production optimisation system for the textile industry at Texprocess. Machine and process data are the key to effectively increasing productivity and enabling new business models. The customisable network solution Qondac captures meaningful performance data of all connected machines in real time, controls the automated setting of workstations and enables an extraordinary increase in productivity and quality in the shortest possible implementation time. Dürkopp Adler is the only provider that is able to network machines of any age or design, demonstrating this live with a digitalised production chain of sewing and welding machines from its own group of companies. Dürkopp has developed a new possibility of streaming work instructions with image and video support at sewing workstations to suit the work process on the screen, while also carrying out correctness checks on the use of the right materials. Production changes are radically simplified and made safer.

For automotive interior applications, the M-Type Premium range has been supplemented with 877 and 878 roller presser feet.

Dürkopp Adler also had a new zigzag machine in their programme: the DA 525i has an XXL hook for effective working with little bobbin change.

With Easy Flex, those who attended the trade fair were presented with a concept which permits customers to easily (Easy) and flexibly (Flex) produce pocket style kits for the Pfaff 3589 themselves, at a minimal cost.

With the new Pfaff 8311 a new generation of ultrasonic welding machines was presented at Texprocess. In addition to regulating speed and welding power, the new Pfaff 8311 allows power to be measured and held constant during the welding process for the first time — a true world first and a quantum leap in the ultrasonic welding of textiles. The machine is now easier to set up and handle. The process is now easier to understand, reproduce and carry out. In short - the machine has been taken to a new level. An additional highlight of the machine is the cutting function. The motor of the cutting blade to the right of the welded seam can be switched on and off.

Equally new is the Pfaff 8303-600, which is the result of collaboration of Dürkopp with Tesa. The Pfaff 8303-600 is a pressure sensitive taping machine for sealing seams, e.g on dashboards and thermally sensitive seams. What makes this solution special is that no heat is used. The work piece is protected and the impact on the visible side is minimal.

The sewing expertise of Pfaff Industrial and the handling know-how by KSL were united in the robot case study for the three key work processes (hemming, decorative stitching, attaching pockets) in the production of jeans pockets. Using the latest and most precise robot and control technology, entire processes are automated and operator interference is reduced to a minimum.

KSL exhibited two automated CNC sewing units, in the form of the KL 110 und KL 311, which have a 360° rotating sewing head for perfect seams during multi-directional sewing. The KL 110 is equipped with DACcad Professional. Using DACcad, complex seam designs can be created, machine set-up costs can be reduced, and the quality of individual material holders can be increased. The KL 311 was presented together with the novel vision system. During the sewing process, the intelligent vision system compensates for tolerances which have developed. These arise due to the shrinking of materials and tolerances, including during the punching of perforations. Specifically, the vision system compares an image of a master example with the image of the piece mounted in the sewing template. By means of individual measurement points, the entire seam pattern is automatically corrected within the sewing programme. Process reliability is significantly increased, waste is reduced.

With the KL 500 robotic unit (with KL 558 sewing head) KSL presented a complete 3D sewing cell, as used in production plants for the manufacture of vehicle dashboards all over the world. Using this unit, entire dashboards are stitched with high efficiency, process reliability and repeatability. The unit includes robot, a vision system, component holders, rotary indexing table, sewing heads, protective fence concept etc. Using the KL 500, various products can be manufactured with minimal conversion effort. The only things that need to be changed are the component holders and possibly the sewing head. Thus, the unit combines flexibility with the highest level of precision and productivity.

The DA Group, consisting of the brands Dürkopp Adler, Pfaff Industrial, KSL, Mauser, SGGemsy and Richpeace, is part of the ShangGong group and the largest manufacturer of industrial sewing machines in Europe. (PC)