Since end of 2020, RETECH has a strong order intake

RETECH AG, Switzerland, is a leading producer of components and godet rolls for heating and drawing of synthetic filaments and fibers. The company has gained a leading position as a supplier of heated godet rolls, on-line yarn tension monitoring equipment and complete draw frames for spin draw lines in the worldwide synthetic fibre production. In this interview, Ralph von Arx, Managing Director, RETECH AG, highlights why Switzerland will always remain an important partner for Indian textile industry and his company’s growth plans.

It has been over one and half years since Covid 19 pandemic struck the world. How is the situation now in terms of business for your company? At present, which countries are driving demand globally?
Fortunately for RETECH the Covid 19 pandemic was in terms of business not as dramatic as general forecast at the beginning were. After a strong but only short decrease of sales the business started to recover after summer 2020 and, since the end of last year, we have a strong order intake. Not only from single markets or countries – it is coming from all over the world and from different market segments.

What kind of changes are you seeing in customer demand in the post-Covid market compared to pre-Covid world?
What seems to be changed is that customers/countries who relayed on importing goods are focusing on producing the goods by its own to become more independent. This trend we are particularly noticing on high performance fibres such as Aramid yarns.

Could you please highlight on some of technological developments by your company in the last 2 years?

RETECH as the expert in drawing fibres has developed its range of heated godets further to an extent to cover the whole range of customer demands up to solution for high performance fibres and therefore temperatures up to 350-400°C working temperature with an excellent high quality temperature profile to ensure highest yarn quality.

Next to these high temperature godets we developed the next generation of temperature transmitters and temperature controllers to be able to transmit a higher number of heating zones (up to 6 zones) and build the unit even more compact to safe space.

How is your company helping textile firms in their transition towards sustainable development?
One of the major goals of our recent developments had been to reduce the energy consumption of the heated godets during heat and draw process. By using our highly efficient PSM motors we are able to safe 30% of energy compared to former technologies. By working with the RETECH induction heating concept and its “storage” functionality we are able to safe approximately 25% of heating energy compared to other technologies.

India is aiming to increase its global market share in Manmade Fibre (MMF) textile value chain and in technical textiles (TT). How can your company help Indian firms in these 2 segments, i.e. MMF & TT?
Manmade fibres and finally technical textiles are the most important sector for our company and products. As already mentioned before our heated godets are designed to handle the requirements for this sector. If India is pushing this sector, we are the right partner to heat and draw MMF to the highest quality. The aim of India to increase the global market share will give us possibilities to enlarge our customer base in India significantly.

Companies are increasing usage of Industrial IoT (or Industry 4.0) to boost efficiency. How is textile machinery sector reacting to it?
In our opinion IoT started in the textile machinery sector some years ago but is still at the beginning. It will have an important impact in the future as well as for further developments. Also, in our sector of heated godets, this topic is becoming more and more important and we have implemented already several IoT’s to generate data to be able to give important information to the operator as example about bearing temperatures, induction heater situation, etc. which helps to get an overview about the current equipment situation on one side and on the other side to optimise the production process for the fibres itself.

Switzerland is one of India’s most trusted trade partners. How do you see the future of Indo-Swiss trade relation?
We appreciate the close technical contact to our Indian customers who are highly educated which is always helpful when it comes to projects with our technical demanding products. Due to this good and close cooperation we can assure best working equipment and with it a long durability of our products.

Switzerland, as a major player in the textile machinery segment, will always remain an important partner for its Indian customers. We are convinced that Indian customers are relating on Swiss quality, Swiss service, accuracy to achieve their goals to be a high-quality producer of textiles for the global world.

What are your growth plans for India?
India is a country with high potential for our products. Due to the fact that RETECH is supplying its products to many European and Non-European machine manufacturers (OEM) we have a good installed base of our products in India. By aiming to enlarge the MMF and TT sector, India will be driven to invest into own process technology and to become more independent from standard machines. This will open the door for RETECH to enlarge its direct business as we are the partner and expert in drawing fibres to perfection.