A.T.E. adds feathers to cap with new tie-ups

With four more tie-ups in the last few months, A.T.E. has scaled new peaks in providing top-end technologies to the textile industry. The top-most in this group is Savio Macchine Tessili, Italy, for automatic winders, two for one twisters, open end spinning machines and yarn bulking machines.

Another new tie up has been with Texpa Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Germany, for fully automatic cutting and sewing, folding and packing lines for home textiles. The third is a tie-up with Danti Paolo E C, Srl, Italy, for surface finishing machines. Danto Paolo is specialised in making full range of fabric finishing machines for woven and knitted fabrics covering, sueding, brushing, shearing, raising and polishing.

In garment sector, ATE?s tie-up with Rotondi Group Srl, Italy, will bring in the high-tech pressing solutions for jackets, trousers, jeans, and shirts to the apparel sector.

Gurudas Aras, Director, Textile Engineering Group, A.T.E. Enterprises Private Limited, spoke to Samuel Joseph, Editor, Indian Textile Journal, about the recent tie-ups and highlights of A.T.E. at India-ITME.

How have the recent tie-ups with some foreign majors for latest technologies helped A.T.E. Group strengthen its position in the supply chain?

With the philosophy of offering end to end solutions to the customers under one roof, A.T.E. has been pursuing efforts to complete the machinery range to cover the entire textile value chain. In that pursuit we have been successful in tying up with renowned machinery makers from Europe in the recent times. The recent tie-ups have helped us in making a broad and technologically advance offering to our customers which in turn has strengthened our market position further.

Especially the recent tie-ups with Savio, Italy for automatic winders and twisters, Color Service, Italy for automation in colour dispensing, Danti Paolo, Italy for fabric raising, shearing & finishing and Texpa, Germany for home textile made ups have helped us in satisfying our customers? need for one window solution from us. A.T.E. had a product gap of automatic winders for years which has now been filled up with the tie up with Savio group which offers technologically advance automatic winder called EcoPulsarS.

What is the basic strength of the A.T.E. in terms of providing consultancy, supplying machinery and parts, and deploying forces for implementation of projects?

A.T.E.?s strength lies in the knowledge of the industry and processes as well as in specialised teams with strong domain knowledge. Our team of sales people has deep domain knowledge on technology which is helpful in partnering the customers to decide on right type of technology. With reach experience of our Customer Support Group (CSG) in service support comes handy in guiding the customers in selecting the right processing parameters. We have separate teams for each domain e.g. in each of the verticals like spinning, fabric forming, processing, technical textiles, garmenting and utilities we have separate teams for sales and service support. Similarly we have separate teams for spinning accessories and processing accessories which support customers in running the plant efficiently with right accessories and spares.

We have nearly 150 people working in sales, service and support functions in the Textile Engineering Group (TEG). Through 11 offices across India closer to the textile producing centers, we are able to support huge base of our customers in the fastest and best possible manner. Through our own company A.T.E. Technology (Bangladesh) Pvt Ltd. located at Dhaka, we are able to cater to the customers in Bangladesh as well. In view of handling many complete projects of leading textile players in India, A.T.E. has developed an expertise in handling complete projects on nearly a turnkey basis. This is the reason why more and more customers get attracted to A.T.E. for giving complete project orders so that they have great comfort level dealing with a reliable partner like A.T.E., which can supply machinery from leading suppliers across the world and also offer complete after sales support as well.

Which are the recent projects completed and ongoing for industries within the country — their scope, technology and values?

In the last one year, we have done many big projects but I will name a few them? Vardhman, Nahar, Arvind, Welspun, Indo Count, Sintex, Morarjee, Trident, Shahi, D?Decor and Creative. With some of these companies like Vardhman, Arvind, Welspun and Trident usually we have always some ongoing projects. Our scope covered helping the customers in pre-sales activities and the supply and installation of the machinery for spinning, fabric forming and processing as well as technical textiles. These were mainly with the supply of machinery from Truetzschler India, Zinser India, Luwa, Karl Mayer, Osthoff, Zimmer, Monforts, Fongs, Monfongs, Goller, Mahlo, Corino, Color Service and A.T.E. Envirotech.

A.T.E. has made strides in implementing project abroad.

Give us some details since its beginning and the current progress.

A.T.E. has extended its reach globally through some of our own brands. TeraSpin drafting and spindles are supplied all over the world to countries like Germany, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. TeraSpin has succeeded in supplying to some of the reputed foreign machine makers as well. Similarly A.T.E. Envirotech which supplies effluent treatment plants have completed projects in USA, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Africa. EcoAxis, our group company operating in the field of IoT and remote monitoring has also completed some projects abroad. With own in house technologies and brands A.T.E. has gone global establishing the group as one of the most reliable, quality oriented technology suppliers.

In manufacturing, A.T.E. has successes to be proud of — Trumac & TeraSpin. Can you please share with us some details of developments in these segments?

Truetzschler India Pvt Ltd (TIPL), earlier known as Trumac, is a joint venture between Truetzschler, Germany and A.T.E., which has been a success story since years. TIPL manufactures blow room, cards, draw frames and combers. The spinning preparatory machines from TIPL have been the preferred choice of spinners for decades. Now the Ahmedabad facility of TIPL is a global hub of manufacturing combers for the Truetzschler group. TIPL has so far supplied 10700 cards in India. Today in the Indian market Truetzschler machines have already established their technological leadership over the last many years.

TeraSpin was formed after taking over the SKF textile components operations 5 years back. The operations were moved from Pune to the state of the art new factory at Ahmedabad. TeraSpin supplies very high precision spinning components like drafting systems, drafting components and high speed spindles. Within a short span, TeraSpin has established its name due to high precision manufacturing and high quality standards. Today TeraSpin spinning components are running in many leading mills across the continents. Some leading speed frame and ring frame manufacturers are regular buyers of TeraSpin components for their machines.

What will be the highlights of A.T.E. at India-ITME?

What are your expectations — for the company as well as the industry as a whole?

A.T.E. will have large presence in the coming India ITME in most of the halls either through principals? stalls or through own big pavilion in hall no. 5 in processing section. Our principals like Truetzschler, Savio, Luwa, Karl Mayer, TeraSpin, MAG and Innospin will have their own stalls on which A.T.E. teams will be present to show the latest innovations of the principals. A.T.E. will have its own large pavilion with processing principals in hall no.5 spread over an area of 576 sq m.

In A.T.E. pavilion, under the processing section, we will have stalls of Fongs group (Fongs, Monforts, Then, Goller & Monfongs), Osthoff, Zimmer, Mahlo, Corino, Color Service, Stalam, Guarneri ,Texpa and B-Tex. Under the carpet section, we will have stalls of Zimmer, Schwing, Matthys, PMT Ribbons and XETMA. Under processing accessories, we will have participation from CEIA, Datatex, Dunline and our in house EcoAxis and Flow technology division. We also will have a separate section of our garment division under A.T.E. pavilion exhibiting garmenting solution capabilities. In hall no.7, will have a separate stall of our group company Valance Electron, which operates in the area of anti-static solutions for the textile industry.

Looking at the response of the participants, the upcoming India-ITME will be one of the biggest and the best ITME as per my expectation. India being one of the shining stars amongst the textile producing nations, a lot of foreign machinery manufacturers from across the world would be participating.

Also delegates from all over the world are expected to visit including high level delegations from some countries. A.T.E. will be also participating with lot of enthusiasm since most of our principals are participating this time in big numbers. Visitors will be experiencing A.T.E.?s presence everywhere in the exhibition.

Are there any gaps to be filled in the technology for the future, and what are the strategies for the coming years?

Most of the product gaps have been filled up by A.T.E. over the last couple of years. But of course it is impossible to cover each and everything under one roof. We do have some product gaps existing in the value chain but unless we find right products and partners we will not get into those verticals. For A.T.E., our reputation and trust of our customers is most important which keeps us always on toes to do thorough exercise in choosing right partners and right products. Many customers buy products of some of our principals because A.T.E. is offering them meaning the products must have passed the litmus test of quality and performance. Right now we are only focusing on consolidating our existing product offerings and concentrating on delivering better value to our customers through right products and strong sales and service support.

Apart from textile industry, there are other related areas like cooling and clean technology (air, water & energy).

Your comments on the recent developments at A.T.E.

Since our Managing Director, Anuj Bhagwati is genuinely committed to creating better environment for the people and the planet, our Group has taken steps to enter into areas which will make a better environment for the business and the people.

A.T.E. firmly believes that sustainable development is possible only when corporates get involved in sustainable business practices. Through this passion and commitment, A.T.E. has invested in and developed technologies and products. With this backdrop, A.T.E. has entered into the businesses of waste water treatment (ETP), cooling solutions, energy efficiency solutions and machine to machine solutions. All these areas are of critical importance for the environment.

A.T.E. Envirotech offers a comprehensive range of technologies to address the treatment and recycle needs including zero liquid discharge (ZLD) and to suit the specific requirements of end-user industry.

They have successfully done many projects for the textile industry, to name a few, D?décor, Dicitex Furnishing, LNJ Denim, Alok, Mandhana, Tessitura Monti, Indorama, Sangam and Jayvishnu etc.

In comfort conditioning, our group company HMX has successfully provided comfort cooling solutions in regions where the ambient temperature varies throughout the year. The HMX-Ambiator can maintain the temperature between 24-28°C for 98 per cent of the year. The system can be used for spot cooling, fresh air pre-cooling and industrial cooling.

Under the energy efficiency solutions, we have the concentrated solar thermal system (developed in-house), which can provide process heat for various industrial and commercial applications.

A.T.E.?s unique approach to combine energy efficiency with renewable solar energy delivers the largest savings in carbon-intensive fuels, and directly influences the bottom-line, thus enabling our customers to meet not only their business goals, but those of sustainability as well.

Our group company EcoAxis operating in business intelligence and analysis and IoT area offers a complete solution ? understanding business and process needs, providing requisite components ? data acquisition to Business Intelligence-enabled visualization, with the complete capability of integrating the shop floor to the top floor. The Smart Manufacturing Suite is deployed on the Cloud and is offered to customers in a SaaS model, thus eliminating the need for customers to procure, manage, and maintain high-end hardware and software and focus only on their primary manufacturing.