French connection at ITMA

French Textile Machinery Manufacturers are offering hardware, software and services. Evelyne Cholet, the Secretary General of their association, states that “the French textile machinery manufacturers are technology partners for their customers. Together they cooperate on a long-term basis often from a specially-designed machine to many after-sales services”. The objective of these services is to let the customers get the best return from their investments. They include, for examples, remote assistance through Internet, spare parts availability and upgrading.

“In fact, she adds, often, even before the investment decision is made, the machinery manufacturers’ R&D teams work directly with the customers to design specialty machines.”

R&D and service are embedded in the French Textile Machinery Manufacturers’ DNA. It has always been. Remember that Jacquard, the star of the textile machinery invention was French! The manufacturers are agile SME’s run by entrepreneurs with long-term objectives. The managers have very often a long history and strong ties with their companies. Then, in such SME’s, the information flows very rapidly between the commercial, technical and research departments. This is how it should work and it does. It allows to go much further than purely commercial relationships with the customers; trust and confidence are not buzzwords.

That’s why France is the sixth textile machinery manufacturer worldwide with an annual turnover of about 1 billion Euros. They are particularly strong in long fibre spinning (wool, acrylic… ), yarn twisting and control (including technical yarns), space-dyeing, heat setting for carpet yarns, carpet systems, dyeing and finishing, felts and belts for finishing processes, nonwovens, air conditioning of textile plants, and recycling processes of textile materials.

Cholet concludes, “We have worked hard to welcome our customers on our booths at ITMA, and surprise them; my message to them about our machines is: make it yours!”
Here are some examples of the French exhibitors: