Thirty companies, often world leaders on their specific markets belong to the French textile machinery manufacturers´ association, well known as UCMTF. Their total annual consolidated turnover of 1 billion Euros makes France the sixth textile machinery exporter. Their specialties: long fibre spinning, yarn twisting, heat setting, Jacquard and dobbies, carpet systems, dyeing and finishing, felts and belts for finishing processes, nonwovens, air and recycling processes.
Bruno Ameline, President and Evelyne Cholet the Secretary General of UCMTF reply to The ITJ on various issues related to the members participation at ITMA 2015.
Let´s be direct. Why should the ITMA visitors come to the French machinery manufacturers booths?
Of course, to see each individual company´s innovations. Our companies are SME´s, run by real entrepreneurs. We are innovative and market oriented. We design and produce state-of-the-art machinery, we offer the best service. This is in our DNA. About innovation, remember Jacquard, the most well-known textile machinery inventor, he was French! Today, with our skills, expertise and experience, we develop creative and innovative solutions for our customers. We do it thanks to our engineers with both textile and mechanical backgrounds, thanks to our partnerships with our clients.
Even if SMEs, the French machinery manufacturers have set up very effective networks to offer the best service to most remote customers´ locations. We support our clients wherever they operate. We do it through offices, warehouses, agents or distributors.
For the spare parts, our members have been pro-active for the last few years, and logistics to deliver them very quickly has been tremendously improved. We work with our clients to help them to introduce new products on their markets, to have reliable and cost efficient production processes. It gives us a real competitive advantage. At ITMA 2015, we will welcome both our long time customers and new ones with short or long term projects.
Do you expect 2015 to be a great ITMA?
ITMA 2015 is clearly a must to attend event. Up to now, 1,05,000 sq m of exhibiting space have been booked, this is already 25 per cent more than the final results of the last session in Barcelona. There will certainly be many innovations and an emphasis on energy, water and raw materials savings. ITMA´s 2015 motto is ´master the art of sustainable innovation´, sustainability is certainly a major decision making feature of the investments decision making process. The French machinery manufacturers have already made very interesting inroads into sustainability and we include it in our R&D programmes.
In Milan, visitors are expected from all over the world, they will represent a great number of companies with investments projects. I feel the choice of the city where ITMA takes place is very important for the success of the expo. As you know, it rotates among European cities which can offer the appropriate expo centers, travel offer, and, I am sure it is very important, the best more subjective attractive power. Milan is certainly such an attractive place.
Copycats are a real danger for your companies, how do you deal with this issue?
At ITMA, as everywhere, we have a very powerful way to sue copycats. We have established an active working group on this strategic topic. We absolutely need to protect our intellectual property; it may be our most important asset. We will sue the counterfeiters very aggressively. We have strong arguments: our patents, our brands. Most of our customers who, as I said are our long-term pa