WEKO expects dramatic increase in demand in India

WEKO is known globally for developing non-contact application systems for product optimisation and surface finishing with different types of fluids and powdery substances. With sustainability becoming a real issue in the textile industry, WEKO is expecting a dramatic increase in demand for its products in India as its system combines sustainability with cost-savings. In this interview, Jayanta Sanyal, Head of Technical Sales and Processes – Textile industry, WEKO Weitmann & Konrad GmbH & Co KG, elaborates on the advantages offered by WEKO products and explains how it is helping Indian textile firms to reduce the manufacturing cost to increase their competitive edge.

As an expert of non-contact application systems for fluids and powder, how is WEKO helping its customers in their efforts towards product optimisation and surface finishing?

Since 1953, WEKO has been developing and producing non-contact application systems for product optimisation and surface finishing with different types of fluids and powdery substances. Our focus here is always on the lowest possible, exact and replicable use of the respective resources, which enables our customers for more environmentally friendly industrial production. With this non-contact surface finishing WEKO is serving various industries like textile, nonwoven, paper, plastic film, tissue, fibreboard, offset printing, gravure or flexo printing and digital printing. 

Customers from these industries are applying the required chemical products as well as water according to the desired finishing very precisely and accurately with minimum application as well as minimum wastage and drying energy. 

How is your company serving its customers from the textile industry?

Depending on the process requirement WEKO is supplying different solutions for the process optimisation in textile industry. WEKO’s revolutionary atomiser spray technology can be used in woven, knits, carpets, home textiles, denim and technical textiles manufacturing units. The textile mill can use this spray technology for functional finishing application instead of conventional padding methods in stenter frames, in pad – steam- washing range for fabric dyeing / tinting / chemical application, in sanforising for moisture management, in denim single or both side overdyeing, softener application in rope opener or stenter entry for terry towel and knits, before festoon steamer in reactive printing, topping, bottoming, chemical fixation etc. in denim shasher or loop dyeing and many more. As per the process requirement and according to customer’s actual working width range, WEKO is manufacturing different rotor carriers (WEKO-SIGMA, WEKO-ProTec or WEKO –NEO) and the supply units (WEKO–FLOW, WEKO-BASIC) so that the individual process gets the maximum benefit out of it. 

What are the advantages of using the products and solutions offered by your company?

There are various advantages which are listed below:

• Reduction of water and chemicals use
• Increasing production speed mainly in wet-on-dry processes
• Reduction in drying energy
• No material contact, means no bath contamination
• Very less chemical and material wastage
• Low effluent treatment cost
• No tailing
• Single or both side application which leads to the production of various functional or fashion effect. 
• Different functionality at different surface (e.g. hydrophobic outer surface and hydrophilic inner surface)
• Single side overdyeing / tinting mainly for denim fabrics.
• Non-stop change over from recipe to recipe
• Very high flexibility for Product development team.
• Short batch size production with high efficiency and commercial feasibility
• Increased lifetime of sanforising rubber belt and easier pressure pre-setting
• Controlled and consistent shrinkage results by precise moisture management before compacting
• Reduction of certain chemicals in the process, for example, urea in reactive printing

Could you please highlight some of the company’s recent innovations? 

WEKO–ProTec and WEKO-NEO are the two rotor carriers that have been developed and launched during the last years. 

Weko–ProTec is a completely encapsulated rotor carrier with effective exhaust system that is recommended for hazardous chemicals like fluorocarbons, biocides, silver based anti-microbial agents etc. The system effectively removes the aerosols from the working area and assures the health and safety of the operators.

Weko–NEO is a semi-encapsulated rotor carrier specially designed for textile and denim industry where the requirement of application amount and evenness is usually higher.

Sustainability is a buzzword in the textile industry. How is your company helping textile companies in their sustainability path?

The word “sustainability” is not only the buzzword, but the areas covered under this word in a manufacturing sector has an enormous wide area. The older concept of using recycled PET bottle, reused cotton garments, better cotton initiative etc. no more are limited inside the hard shell of this word. WEKO’s philosophy for sustainability is any step taken towards saving of mother earth for a long term.

With our minimal application principles, we reduce the use of fresh and used water, drying energy (consumption of natural gas or LPG), reduction of chemical wastage through draining of high bath volumes during lot change etc. we directly and indirectly contribute in the reduction of carbon footprint and that’s our contribution towards the saving of the life of our mother earth. Final conclusion is, saving and sustainability is using less, not using different one.

How are you serving customers in Indian textile industry?

We have our very efficient sales and service agency (Fab India Technologies Pvt Ltd and Knit Fab Technics Pvt Ltd) in Mumbai and Tirupur in India who are continuously in touch with the customers in textile industry. They promote our new products and developments. With their own service department and very well-trained technicians, they are also support in case of process questions, doing the service and maintenance as well as the commissioning etc. Moreover, our sales and service team of Stuttgart always keep in touch with the customers and respond to their requirement as an extended after sales support. Additionally, WEKO always tries to keep listing under the ATUFS guidelines to support customer investment.

How has been the growth of your company’s business in India so far? What is driving the demand for your products & solutions in India?

India is from the beginning a good market when it comes to textile industry. But the specific demand changed over the past 30 years a lot. In the first decade, WEKO was more known for the moistening management of fabrics – means precise water spray units. These are also the lower price units. This changed into a stronger demand of chemical finishing units starting with request for softening and nowadays all kind of chemical finishing. Therefore, the units are higher equipped and turnover raised to double although the number of new units is staying more or less same (+5%). And we expect a dramatic increase again during the next years as sustainability is now becoming a real topic to the industry. And our system combines sustainability with saving costs which is the only way to implement in a price sensitive market.

What are the key challenges before Indian textile industry? How is Weko helping them overcome some of these challenges?

In spite of the fact that India is the 2nd largest manufacturer and exporter of textiles and apparel in the world with 45 million employees, during recent years, it is facing some challenges such as:

• Shortage of supply and increase in price of raw materials
• Infrastructure bottle neck and lack of modern equipment and technology compared to various other countries
• Pressure to meet stringent social and environment norms and compliances specially from the international brands and retailers
• Strict regulations of waste water treatment the cost of which is in increasing trend, the heath protection of workers and staff, monitoring and auditing of the same, requirements of different certification like ISO, SA8000, GOTS, buesign, Fairtrade etc. making the manufacturing more and more difficult and challenging. 
• Lack of sustainable production and product development
• Lack of efficiency because of less automation and labour-intensive production,
• Unorganised weaving sector,
• Lack of investment in modernisation and automation.
• Price pressure and competition,
• Business slowdown because of Covid -19 pandemic. 

WEKO is helping the manufacturers to reduce the manufacturing cost to be competitive in the market by reducing use of water, dyes, auxiliaries and other chemicals, drying energy, reducing effluent treatment cost etc. Moreover, WEKO’s encapsulated designs are taking care of the health hazards of the workforce and keeping them safe from respiratory illness caused by inhalation of hazardous chemicals. In these ways WEKO is ensuring a sustainable production and helping the manufacturers to achieve environmental and social norms. 

Could you please highlight some of the emerging trends in the textile industry?

Some of the emerging trends in the industry are:

• Minimum use of resources like water and energy by using Best Available Technologies
• Reducing chemical consumption
• No or low pollution load
• Elimination of harmful and toxic chemicals
• Small lot production based on market requirements
• Single side finishing instead of both side finishing by conventional method
• Minimum add on or application,
• Salt free, high fixation reactive dyeing
• Automatic, controlled and precise colour kitchen and dosing system,
• Retrofitting of existing machineries mainly in preparatory, dyeing, printing and finishing area, 
• Lowering carbon foot print
• Cutting production costs to keep or raise market position
• Creating new effects for market differentiation 
• Shortening the involved processes from spinning to readymade garment
• Digitization of production for increased process and quality overview, controlling and showing optimisation potentials etc. 

Germany is one of India’s most trusted trade partners. How do you see the future of Indo-German trade relations in a volatile global environment? 

I think this is more a question to the political leaders, but finally we do not expect any decrease in the good relationships. India is one of the most attractive market in textile industry because of its long history and high skills. In many other industry sectors India has also a huge future potential which will be developed step by step from the economic and political leaders. 

WEKO would be proud to serve the Indian textile industry as well in the future with its solutions. We always had good talks with our customers and prospects about their future view and what they are expecting from WEKO in the future to support their individual targets. Out of this Indian and also worldwide customer feedback we adapt our design. Therefore, a strong relationship is needed for all parties.

What are your growth plans for India?

Our next step is to promote much more the functional finishing systems as well as the dyeing units to Indian market as we see a very big potential to bring sustainability and cost reduction to our customers. And customers could easily integrate our systems on existing finishing lines so that stepping into this new and smart way of finishing is not too big. If they implement a WEKO system on an existing line, they still have the same opportunities like before plus the new possibilities with WEKO.