Picanol presents a brand new airjet machine

Picanol demonstrated its latest weaving technology at ITMA Barcelona. ITMA Barcelona witnessed the world premiere of a brand new airjet machine, the OmniPlus-i, which represents a new benchmark in airjet weaving. This further builds on the solid base of nearly 40 years of experience in airjet weaving, during which over 100,000 airjet machines have so far been shipped. In total, Picanol had 12 machines on display at ITMA Barcelona. In addition to five new airjet weaving machines, Picanol also presented five rapier weaving machines with many new developments. Furthermore, a rapier machine in Jacquard execution was on display at the Bonas booth and a terry airjet at the Stäubli booth.

In an ever-changing world, the needs of the weaving mills as well as the expectations of the operators are evolving rapidly. The increasing awareness regarding environmental topics, increasing costs and the availability of resources and skills, as well as the digital revolution, will push us in new directions. For this reason, Picanol products are designed with a focus on four principles:

• Smart performance: Performance is the first requirement for any weaving machine or feature, and the most obvious indicator is the theoretical maximum speed. Very often, however, the gap between this theoretical speed and the effective speed under real life circumstances is huge.
• Sustainability Inside: When it comes to waste prevention and energy consumption reduction, Picanol has been taking up its responsibility for years. Our machines are conceived with a built-in capacity for sustainability. We have proven this with our pioneering Sumo Drive concept, introduced in 1996, and up until today still the most energy efficient main drive available. Sustainability is also about waste management. We not only reduce waste but try to avoid it completely. The EcoFill feature serves here as an excellent example.
• Driven by Data: Everybody realises that in the next decades digitisation will become ever more important. Data have to be captured, made accessible and usable for production optimisation and artificial intelligence. Since the first introduction of electronics on weaving machines in the 70s, Picanol has been at the forefront of digitisation. With every new machine, we continue to be a trendsetter in this field and to further deploy Industry 4.0 in the weaving industry: the self-setting machine is just around the corner.
• Intuitive Control: Our children inspire us, especially in their intuitive and effortless handling of technology. Wireless-ready, robust and designed for maximum instant readability, the new generations will not accept anything less than that. This user centric design is also integrated in the concept of our machines, making all operations and interventions intuitive, easy and self-explanatory.