Indian market for yarn feeders good: IRO chief

Yarn tension can make or break the quality of yarn and an efficient yarn feeder is essential in any modern textile production process. And IRO AB, a Swedish giant is the unrivalled global leader in this field. ´We have been in the Indian market since 1990s. In fact, we started our operations sometime in 191-92 and now Svan Texcon Pvt Ltd is the second agent we have so far in India. We have the entire service line in Ahmedabad with engineers,´ Mikael Aremann, Managing Director of IRO AB, told the Editor of ITJ in an exclusive talk during the recently-concluded Texfair in Coimbatore.
China, Turkey and India are the biggest markets for IRO. ´India has a very big future in textiles. We see the market in future, particularly after 2015, becoming very good. Our R&D base in Sweden is also geared for innovations and we launch better and better products year after year,´ said Mikael
The association with their India´s agent, Svan Texcon Pvt Ltd, Ahmedabad began in 1998. Said Shailesh R Desai, Director of Svan Texcon: ´The market in India is huge. IRO has roughly a share of 92% for their products in the country. Our strength is service. For any problems, our customers are facing, we are immediately there attending to the problems.´
´India has a huge population of shuttle looms and according to various data, India has 1.5 million shuttle looms and with inadequate availability of labour, all these shuttle looms will have to be converted into shuttleless looms in the future. This underscores the tremendous potential for yarn feeders in the coming years. We are expecting a conversion to shuttleless looms at the rate of 10,000 looms per year on an average, which itself means a very big market for yarn feeders,´ said Desai.
The technological prowess of IRO is legendary. ´The most important factor deciding quality of a product in weaving is the tension of the yarn. For instance, one of our products is Chrono X3, which is latest, most innovative and versatile product. It incorporates new developments such as the ´M-Flex´ and improved accessibility for connecting powered accessories. Chrono X3 comes with many well established and proven features, such as the energy efficient permanent magnet motor, specially designed spool-body for excellent yarn handling and connection to IRO´s light-weight switch-mode power-supply and interface control box,´ said Mikael.
The fact that IRO is a OEM supplier to all the giants in weaving industry including Itema Weaving, Sulzer, Dornier and Picanol shows its proven ability in the world of weaving. ´Presently we have come to a top performance level in rapier looms with 190 cm with a unibrake for shirting and other materials and has reached a level of 620 rpm, which today is the highest,´ said Desai.
In R&D, IRO is a leader among the textile technology-providers. ´We do a lot of up-gradation of systems in the old looms. It includes replacement of the old accumulators with new and latest models of accumulators. In the projectile, we have a model Star G2, which incorporates many of the latest feeder developments into one neat package. This can be applied to all varied counts. This is our economy model, which runs to 1200 m/min. This is a very fast-selling model in India,´ said Desai.
Making use of a new and improved mechanical sensor system, and using our permanent magnet motor technology, Star G2 ensures perfect speed regulation with dramatically reduced power consumption. The user-friendly design ensures easy handling and operation. Star G2 is perfectly suited for weaving finer yarns at lower speeds on both new installations and as a retrofit for older weaving machines.
Desai also spoke about a special low-twist device for flat Lurex yarn. ´With this device, there will be very low twist, which f