Oerlikon Textile is presenting a suite of groundbreaking innovations at the world's largest textile trade fair, the International Exhibition of Textile Machinery (ITMA), thereof seven completely new developed textile machines. These innovations address the need for greater efficiency, flexibility and quality with reduced energy consumption. Oerlikon's new textile machines and equipment deliver energy savings of up to 50 % ("e-save") and productivity gains of up to 25 %. "At this year's ITMA, we are showcasing the most efficient and sustainable product range we have ever produced," says Oerlikon Textile CEO Thomas Babacan.
Oerlikon Group CEO Michael Buscher adds: "With the next generation product portfolio we presented today, Oerlikon Textile has laid the groundwork for sustainable and increased business success, despite a more challenging market environment". Oerlikon Textile will showcase its renewed portfolio at ITMA under the banner "innovation has a name - Oerlikon."
Textiles are increasingly being used in new technical applications including composite materials for vehicle bodies, airplane parts, construction industry components and for geo-textiles used in landscape construction and agriculture. Furthermore, the growing world population and the emergence of new middle-class consumers are fueling the demand for clothing. Both trends call for high quality textile machinery, a structural growth market. To meet growing demand and to tap new areas of application, textile producers require highly efficient and flexible machines, equipment that uses significantly less energy and which meets higher quality standards. This is exactly what Oerlikon Textile is showcasing at the ITMA in Barcelona. Highlights of its trade-fair presentation, which covers 1,400 square meters, include Oerlikon Schlafhorst's new Autocoro 8 for the manufacture of natural fibers and Oerlikon Barmag's new eAFK automatic texturing machine for man-made fibers.
The new Autocoro 8, which is being unveiled at the ITMA and can be seen in operation there, is the greatest rotor spinning innovation in 30 years. It boosts productivity by up to 25 % while delivering higher-quality yarns and packages. The machines' 480 spinning positions are individually powered, automated and entirely autonomous. The new precision rotor facilitates start-up times are up to 80 % faster than those of conventional belt-drive rotor spinning machines. The new rotor motor is integrated into the spinbox SE20 and designed for speeds of up to 200,000 revolutions per minute. Thanks to the new Autocoro 8, spinning mills can be more flexible than ever before and the overall cost of spinning can be drastically reduced.
Another pioneering innovation is the new eAFK automatic texturing machine for pro-cessing man-made fibers for clothing applications. Thanks to its new modular machine structure, the new machine is much more flexible and efficient and manual contact with the packages is entirely eliminated (no-touch principle). Packages with the same running length facilitate the cost-effective processing of yarns as well as higher prices for textured yarn.
