Exhibitors
at Techtextil and Texprocess 2017 reported that the market for technical textiles
continues to boom in China and Asia, while there have been record orders –
especially for nonwoven technology – from the USA in the past two years.
In the
European Union, however, and especially in Germany, there are worries that
further environmental legislation will be harmful to all industrial manufacturing
going forward – even as new digital solutions are starting to see reshoring in
certain sectors.
High
demand
“Since mid-2016, we’ve experienced
a really high demand for new nonwoven lines that appears to be totally
disconnected from the general slow-down of growth reported for China’s
economy,” said Tobias Schäfer, general manager at Andritz Nonwovens.
“After the decision by the Chinese
government to stop the single-child policy at the end of 2015, Chinese spunlace
producers decided to anticipate future market demand and make new investments.
New lines are now on stream to offer top-quality spunlace fabrics complying
with international standards. In 2016, Chinese producers invested in the
combination of TT card web forming and Jetlace Essentiel hydroentanglement
units, which is already recognised as setting the standard in Western
countries.”
Solid
success is also reported from the US market.

According
to INDA, the North American nonwovens association, the 2007-2009 global
recession resulted in many nonwovens companies putting plans for new capacity
investments on hold for a number of years and there was little growth between
2010 and 2014.
Things
started to change in 2015 and in 2016 no less than 17 new nonwoven lines became
operational, bringing the total nonwovens manufacturing capacity in North
America to 3,596,000 tons.
This
year, a further 14 new lines will come on-stream, adding 203,000 tons of
additional capacity and representing further growth of 5.6% for 2017.
Made in
America
A direct
link can be made between this flurry of activity and the Made in America
campaign, including Walmart’s massive commitment to sourcing an additional US$250
billion of products that are made, assembled or grown domestically in the years
up to 2023.
Adding
to this momentum, there have been parallel initiatives by sports brands such as
Nike and Under Armour, along with considerable investment by the US automotive
and aerospace industries in new domestic manufacturing technology.
The
automotive industry in particular, is a major user of nonwoven materials, but
the new lines that continue to be put in place are for a wide range of end-use
applications ranging from hygiene disposables to home furnishings and filter
media.
“The Made in America approach
that’s currently being heavily pushed by US retailers and OEMs, and to a
certain extent the government, is prompting investors to build nonwoven lines
within the US, whether they are US companies or from elsewhere,” says Tobias
Schäfer.
“Turkey’s Mogul is the latest example of a
foreign investor in the US, to serve the local market. These investments are
based on high capacity lines for which Andritz can provide adapted solutions.”

Optical
quality
Italian
company, Loptex, based in Montano Lucino in Italy’s Como region, is also now
enjoying success in the supply of its Centra+ optical quality control system
for the nonwoven market in the USA.
“The Centra+ is a forefront system
designed to allow the comprehensive and accurate detection and elimination of
fibre contamination,” said commercial manager Renato Gerletti in Frankfurt. “We
are currently doing well with the system in material flows for medical and hygiene
nonwovens, and Germany remains our biggest market here, now followed by the
USA, and also Brazil, Spain and Italy.”
The
Centra+, he explained, employs acoustic, optical and ultraviolet technologies
for the multiple detection of all contaminants on nonwoven or spinning lines.
“It is allowing our customers to
make significant savings in processing materials and at the same time improve
the quality of their nonwoven webs and yarns,” he added.
European
pressures
Meanwhile,
at a special Techtextil 2017 press conference held by ICV, the German chemical
fibres association, chairman Stefan Braun spoke of the challenges facing
manufacturers from European energy and environmental policies.

The ICV
represents around 20 fibre companies with a combined headcount of 12,000 people
and turnover of €3 billion.
“The recent plans of the European
Commission in respect of the decarbonization of the European economy scare many
energy-intensive industries, man-made fibres included,” he said. “Germany’s
contribution to the European climate and energy framework is considerable, but
it has not been accompanied by appropriate compensation measures and we have
been obliged to invest much more on ecology than efficiency.
"Furthermore, the upcoming
European carbon leakage list reform may lead to further exorbitant costs for
many energy-intensive industrial sectors. By comparison, the same sectors in
China are fully subsidized in their power expenses.”
China continues
to add capacity for manmade fibres and many new projects are decided without
sufficient market research, he added.
Excess
capacity leads to low prices and poor profitability, encouraging dumping and
leading to market distortions.
“Decarbonizing the European
economy would mean completely outsourcing our industry,” Braun concluded. “The
vision of deserted industrial areas cannot be in the interests of anybody.”
Digital
printing

At the
same time, new digital solutions are now being viewed as the tools for bringing
some high value production back to Europe.
This
potential was demonstrated within the ‘Digital Textile Micro Factory’ at the
Frankfurt show, bringing together technology for the entire networked automated
production of garments – incorporating CAD design, printing, cutting,
assembling and labelling.
“When it comes to ‘fast fashion’,
micro factories offer the opportunity to put ideas into practice immediately
and to try out new business models, based on specific customer requirements,” said
Olaf Schmidt, vice president of textiles and textile technologies at Messe
Frankfurt.
“The demand for individualised
products requires the entire production process to be made more flexible,”
added Elgar Straub, general manager of the VDMA’s Textile Care, Fabric and
Leather Technologies division. “Serial production with smaller and smaller
batches – right down to batches of just one – is only possible with
industrially manufactured individual products.”
Fespa
clash

As far
as digital printing was concerned, however, the two Frankfurt shows were
inevitably affected by the decision to hold the Fespa Europe printing machinery
show in Hamburg from May 8-12, with Techtextil and Texprocess running from May
9-12. This obliged some exhibitors to opt to be at one or the other, or stretch
resources to be presented at both.
EFI
Regianni, for example, showed a wide range of digitally printed fabrics in
Frankfurt while deciding to launch its new Renoir Flexy at the Hamburg event.
This is
an industrial textile printer designed to allow nearly any business to enter
the industrial digital textile printing field by offering the performance of
larger Reggiani printers at lower initial costs.
“Customers can run the widest
variety of fabrics – from knitted to woven as well as stretch materials,” said
sales and marketing director Michele Riva.
The
overlap with Fespa, however, did little to diminish the success of the two
Frankfurt shows, which attracted a record 1,789 exhibitors and drew more than
47,500 visitors to Frankfurt over four days – up 14% on the last two events in
2015.