Humidity control plays a imp role in textile processing

Condair is the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial and industrial humidification and evaporative cooling products and systems, setting standards with regard to energy efficiency and hygienic solutions. The company exports to over 50 countries throughout the world. Condair is represented in India’s textile industry by Regent Machine and Servicing, who provides system design, supply, installation and servicing nationwide.

Jaydeep Dasgupta, Managing Director, Regent Machine & Servicing, Indian representative of Condair, speaks on Condair’s products for the Indian market, and how the company caters to the textile industry.

Excerpts…

What are the market prospects for your company’s products in India and how do you plan to position these products?
Condair humidifiers offer rapid return on investment through improving the operating efficiency of a textile mill. Humidification systems, such as the JetSpray, have been serving the Indian textile market for many years and have been continually developed to remain at the forefront of humidifier technology.

By maintaining the ideal air humidity in a mill, fibres keep their tensile strength, resulting in fewer thread breaks and less machine downtime. In this era of ever increasing energy and labour costs, minimising machine downtime is essential to profitability. The JetSpray can maintain the ideal mill humidity both as a standalone humidification system and also as a top-up system to an existing old or inefficient air handling unit.

Condair’s comprehensive humidifier range offers a solution for any textile humidity control project. With the highest quality operational and hygiene features, their reliable performance positions them as the first choice for leading Indian textile companies.

Which industries are the major users of your products?
Textile, tobacco, paper and printing, tea, cold stores, automotive, museums/art galleries, etc.

What do you bring to the table for the customers?
The knowledge and experience of the global leader in humidification, hundreds of successful projects in the textile sector both in India and around the world, combined with the most advanced range of humidifiers available. All this is supported locally in India by Regent Machine & Servicing’s expert sales and engineering teams.

How are you catering to the textile industry?
Optimum humidity control in a production facility will maintain the moisture equilibrium between air and textile, thereby eliminating evaporative losses from the product. As well as maintaining the final product weight and strength of the textile, this considerably reduces fibre shedding. Machine downtime due to breakages and re-threading is also minimised, vastly improving productivity.

As well as the direct benefits to the product, staff comfort is enhanced as the environment is cooler by several degrees and humidity prevents static-build up and dangerous electro-static discharge.

What is driving the demand in this industry?
As demand for improved quality and productivity rises across the India textile industry, so does the need to enhance the complete factory environment – including the air quality. Humidity control in textile processing plays a vital role but is frequently overlooked with corners cut on quality. Humidification systems that consistently deliver the ideal environment for modern high-speed plant provide a rapid return on investment.

The environmental control inside a textile mill’s quality control laboratory also plays an important role in the future development of the production line. Typically these areas are small and need close humidity control to specific levels. Therefore in-room steam humidifiers, like the Condair RS that can maintain a room at ±1%RH, are ideal.

Are you seeing any emerging trend in the textile industry (and/or other industries) that you intend to tap?
Investing in supplementary humidification systems, such as the JetSpray, to top-up humidity control provided by existing air washer or air handling unit based systems, is much less of a financial burden. We are seeing many factories taking this approach rather than upgrading old air towers. It is a fraction of the cost, easier, much quicker, and with very effective results.

Modernisation and automation is increasing across industries. What is the significance of this for Condair?
The textile industry has seen much modernisation in recent years with massive investment in high-speed machinery. The return on this investment is increased productivity but to fully realise this, machinery must be operated in-line with the manufacturer’s recommendations. This is particularly true for ambient humidity levels, as faster processing speeds mean increased tension on fibres, slivers and yarns. If air humidity drops, machine downtime increases, production efficiency decreases and the return on the investment in the machinery is impaired.

Have you resumed manufacturing activities at all your plants? What are the key challenges faced by you at present and how are you handling these challenges?
Condair has manufacturing facilities in Asia, Europe and North America. All were operational throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, some with slightly reduced production. Every plant is now operating normally with regular lead times being achieved.

How do you intend to tide over the present crisis due to Covid pandemic? Have you recalibrated your growth plan due to Covid-19?
For Condair it is business as usual. Whenever industry suffers difficult times, business owners look at ways of reducing costs or improving efficiency to sustain or hopefully enhance their profitability. Condair’s humidification solutions help textile businesses achieve this and we continue to see good growth from the Indian textile sector, despite the pandemic.