The circular knitting machine builder Mayer & Cie headquartered in Germany is having its best year since 2007. As per the statement made by Mayer&Cie its business is currently ‘overwhelmingly good' and says that although 2012 is not being considered as a great year by other players in the market. The company stated that it has been a boom year experienced after the crisis in Europe.
Mayer&Cie’s Sales Director Wolfgang Mueller said that Mayer's order book was already tightly filled until at least August when the German textile machinery builders close their factories for the annual vacation. However it has also been stated that for some models Mayer has to quote deliveries in Asia it is quoting staged deliveries.
Expands to East with Amtek
Mayer increased its capacity by employing additional staff at both its Albstadt headquarters and at its Amtek Knitting Technology subsidiary at Vsetín in the Czech Republic. Mayer utilises the Czech site as a lower cost production centre particularly for the assembly of high labour content items such as selection magnets and yarn carriers and for complete machine assembly for certain models.
Mayer both strengthened its Albstadt production location and increased its world market share through the strategic acquisition of Amtek Machinery last summer. Amtek has a 50 year history of building quality circular knitting machines in the former Czechoslovakia and was known globally for its innovative and reliable knitting technology. In recent years Amtek has been successful particularly in the key markets of Turkey and India as well as in the former CIS states in the upper medium price segment.
Increased Market Share, Enhanced Segment
At the evaluation made concerning the expanding of the market shares and the company’s future, Managing Partner of Amtek and Albstadt headquarters, Rainer Mayer indicated that they had obtained successful results especially in the recent period. Mayer; "With the acquisition of the Czech manufacturer of circular knitting machines, Amtek Machinery on 25 July 2011, Mayer & Cie. GmbH & Co. KG succeeded in making another strategically important step in securing the production location Albstadt and its staff," said. Mayer anticipated new synergies in both the market and the cost sides through the acquisition and these now seem to have been realized. On the one hand Mayer also informed that Amtek's product line has opened up a further market segment and on the other hand procurement and manufacturing synergies have lead to a further strengthening of the company's competitive position.
Sales Increase Achieved in Jacquard Machines and Relanit Technologies
Sales Manager of Mayer&Cie, Wolfgang Mueller informed that the current good turn in the company's fortunes is difficult to pin to any one particular factor and added that in fact sales increases are being experienced over a wide range of models and especially on high end products such as jacquard machines and the company's Relanit technology. Mueller told that there is a competition in exports against its European and Asian competitors and continued his statement as follows: “We are doing anywhere near as well as our European competitors. We continue to obtain important results with a successful speed. The company has benefited from leading European retailers pulling out of China as orders have moved to Bangladesh, Turkey and Indonesia, markets where Mayer is traditionally strong. On the other hand it can be defined that ITMA actually helped to open customer's eyes to the level of innovation coming out of the company. Mayer introduced a revolutionary Project planning to eliminate the twisting of ring yarn and ring spinning by combining knitting and spinning. The first Spinit machine will be installed at a customer site in late 2012.”
Mueller pointed out that they have succeeded to reach the innovations made at ITMA to customers and that they have started to get feedbacks from several regions in the world. Mueller also explained that in India being one of the markets constantly developing, they have taken a strategic decision to go customers with their innovations.
The target for this year is 1.000 machines
As per the statement made by the company, the importance of after sales was pointed out. While service opportunity is indicated to be one of the factors impressing customers, it has been informed that assessment performed last year with feedback provided by customers via feedback forms on the handling of service requests scored 1,3 on a scale from 1 (excellent) to 4 (lousy). The company organizing its sales studies as per the feedback also takes further important steps so as to accelerate its supply process. Mayer always being referred to its production increasing every year has increased its target. Mayer aiming to produce around 1000 machines this year in total launched a new single jersey machine designated the MS 3.2, with the MS signifying ‘Mayer Single'. "The MS 3.2 is in effect a Mayer S4 3.2 with some modifications," says Mueller.
New low cost single jersey option
Mayer launched the MS 3.2 machine earlier this year in countries where it has competition from Asian machine manufacturers and from Asian built European machines. These include China, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and Turkey. In order to be competitive price wise, it has been focused on the most common gauges and diameters - 24 and 28 gauge and 30", 32" and 34" diameters.
The complete MS 3.2 knitting head, which is the same as the S4 knitting head, and the main frame are completely manufactured in Germany and the upper part of the machine is both sourced and manufactured by Amtek in the Czech Republic. Machine assembly also takes place there. This newly produced machine has features to attract the attention of the current S4 3.2 users. Needle and platinum is also available as it is in the previous machines. Mayer&Cie continues to produce with a lower price policy but in high standards compared to the previous ones as a German product with the production made in the Czech Republic.
