Within the field of the warp knitting and warp preparation technologies, Karl Mayer maintains its position in the market via its machines that provide speed, efficiency and operating flexibility. Senior Sales Manager of Karl Mayer, Business Unit Warp Knitting Mr. Bastian Fritsch, welcoming Textil Dünyası Publication Group at their Headquarters based in Obertshausen, provided information regarding the new technologies they introduced to the market, the advantages they offer to enterprises and the Turkish Market.
Karl Mayer is a successful company having a long-standing background. Can you provide some information regarding the history of your company?
“Actually it is quite exciting, this year we have our 80. Anniversary and we will be celebrating in a way open house shows and with special events with our customers. So, Karl Mayer was founded in 1937 by Mr. Karl Mayer and he started his work with engineering work that time and then from there he went into the textile machinery manufacturing. Today that we are a global oriented, family-owned company with subsidiaries all over the world and really a wide field of customers all over the world.”
Notably in the field of Warp Knitting machines, what are the innovations that are enhancive in terms of speed, efficiency and operating flexibility?
“Karl Mayer is market leader in the warp knitting field, you know we have different business units; we have warp knitting, we have the warp preparation and technical textiles. I am representing the warp knitting side, the sales representative on warp knitting side. Karl Mayer is market leader but we are also innovation leader and this is a big responsibility so we focus a lot on development and on innovations. Whenever you see Karl Mayer participating in exhibitions or in shows, you will always see new developments. Recently, the core innovations, the core introduction that we did was on the new technology of Tricot machines. We have implemented a new design concept on the Tricot machines as well as a new technology concept. This includes a new platform for mastering technology,the KAMCOS®2 system. KAMCOS® 2 is designed to organize and structure the control concepts of all the machines produced by the KARL MAYER Group and serves more function of smoother operating and more productive operating of the machine. At that technology we have not introduced a new speed increase, for us it was more important to focus now on smooth operation, increase of efficiency, increase of productivity and monitoring of quality of fabric and there we have introduced a few new functions. An futher important feature is the Low Energy Option (LEO®) as a contribution to sustainability. This was on the Tricot side and on the Lace side we have introduced last year, our so-called LACE.EXPRESS, it’s an OJ 59/1 B machine, which is a complete new development in the outerwear lace field. The new OJ 59/1 B carries also KARL MAYER’s LEO® Label.
Sure we have also new introductions on the double needle bar and on the raschel side, but I think these are the main two introductions and new developments that we did.”
Can we obtain information regarding the advantages that is provided particularly to the manufacturers of home textiles via the Raschel machines by Karl Mayer that can produce a wide range of patterns and offer advanced options?
“If we look at home textiles, I think home textile is basically 80% of our business of warp knitting in Turkey. Home textile is wide spread for us and the main application is embroidery ground, embroidery ground which is then used on Schiffli embroidery machine and this is a 2-bar or 3-bar ground which is done on a standard tricot machine. This is I would say the core part of our business that we do in Turkey. The second part is what you are referring to, this is raschel. Raschel is a different machine type, we have the RJPC 4 F-NN Model, and this is the traditional known jacquard raschel machine, which we have more than 100-200 machines in Turkey, which is traditionally used for the jacquard curtain application. The big producers in İstanbul, in Çorlu, we have customers operating these machines in Gaziantep, so this is widely spread. And the final application is a jacquard curtain or also been used sometimes for outerwear. So this gives really flexibility in different applications, but the machine is equipped with a jacquard, where you can create all kinds of different designs, basically it doesn’t limit your design possibilities at all. So this is about this side and if we talk about raschel, raschel is also now Multibar raschel. Multibar raschel can be with a jacquard, can be with a fall plate or can be a fall plate machine without jacquard. So this is mainly used for the outerwear field but also nowadays very often in the curtain side. This is now a more common application.”
What strategy has Karl Mayer set for Industrie 4.0? To what extent has Industrie 4.0 innovations been contributed to your products and systems?
“I want to refer to this question with our new system, which I mentioned earlier in the first question and the second question, the so-called KAMCOS®2. It is a new operating platform, which enables the operator and the industrialist to operate the machine more efficiently; you can create very easily a network with your machinery part, which you can then monitor and operate from a central point. You can also have a Connect App, the access to more efficient technical support KARL MAYER CONNECT. The app has been developed to provide faultless, efficient communication between the customer and KARL MAYER’s service organisation. The customer can also look at the machine data within the company network, even outside the machine’s working area. This is only a short introduction, but digitalization is one of our main topics, it’s on the agenda of Karl Mayer and we are strongly working to create availability of data from our machines as good as possible, which enables the customer to more efficiently utilize the machineries. I think this is what we follow in Turkey at the moment that earlier labour was always available, but I think especially on the operating level of machines, labour is becoming more and more shorter, especially in the main areas, like Istanbul, Çorlu and Bursa labour is not that easily available and that’s why a lot of customers approach us, how can we increase our efficiency in order to reduce operators also on machines, the main target is not only to reduce operators, but I think it is mainly a demand from the market, because there is a shortage of skilled labour on the machines.”
As a company, where do you position the Turkish textile industry? Can you provide information regarding your market share in Turkey?
“At first let us talk in general on the importance of Turkey. I think I’ve been travelling to Turkey since 16-17 years on behalf of Karl Mayer. The Turkish market was always very interesting, very exciting, it has developed over the last years. Looking at the last 4-5 years, Turkey has really developed in to a highly creative and innovative market so that’s why we also focus a lot on Turkey. If you now look at Turkey in our main markets which we are serving, I think Turkey is always either number 2, 3 or 4. If we look at the last 3 years, I think it will always be between number 2 and 3. Our first biggest market is still China, it remains China, but last years it was always between India and Turkey, number 2 and number 3. We have now other markets coming strongly, but Turkey has been a very important market and will remain an important market. We have long-term customers, big customers like the big textile groups and there is also very close relationship between the Mayer Family and some of the big families in Turkey. So we’ve been working with our agent Erko for almost 70 years together, so this also shows the focus on Turkey. And if you see Karl Mayer is present at every exhibition in Turkey, we have a high presence of Turkish customers here in Obertshausen, so it’s one of our key markets.”
How would you evaluate the first quarter of 2017 in terms of your targets with respect to the Turkish market? What sales figures do you aim to achieve by the end of 2017?
“I think that the budgeting here at Karl Mayer is normally done in the 3’rd quarter of the previous year. The 3’rd quarter of last year in Turkey was not that easy and that time it was not that easily predictable where could the year 2017 lead us, so we somehow had to put a budget and a target, it was rather conservative. But still seeing a lot of possibilities after the slower 10-12 months, we said okay, we are trying to go in a good middle for our targets. If I now look at the 1’st quarter of 2017, it was far better than we expected. I think there were certain political developments, which probably helped to gain more investment confidence with our customers and this now leading in to orders. So if we follow the next months like we have now started the year, I think we are on a good way to overcome our budget and probably in terms of machine numbers, it could be a very successful year for Karl Mayer. But at the moment it’s as you know very unpredictable, the situation in Turkey. We work very hard with our presence in the market; we work very hard with our agent to communicate with customers but we are optimistic. It is definitely a more positive development that we saw last year.”
What are your goals for the global markets in 2017? Could you mention about the markets that you have a strong presence in and your goals set for those markets?
“I mentioned earlier the main markets for Karl Mayer Group; China, I think we have a high presence in China; we are in the synthetic fibre field, which is still the main area for warp knitting. But I think this year the 2’nd strongest market will be Turkey, so this is quite positive. And on the next levels there will be new markets, which we are not that strong earlier. I think we will have a very strong business in Vietnam. Vietnam has become a new hub outside of China in Asia, which is pretty attractive for foreign investment. So there we see a very positive development, same in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was always a little bit in the shade of India, but has really in 2016 and 2017 developed in to an important and strong market for us. Moreover also Indonesia looks quite optimistic. But if we look at the traditional markets, in Europe Germany is very good for us. I think we can see in Germany; generally the political and industrial situation is quite good and this also reflects in our businesses in Germany. In Europe further stronger market is Poland, we are doing good business but also traditional markets like Japan and USA remain quite strong. A little bit weaker is the South American market, because many things are happening in this area. Especially a strong market was Brazil for us and I think these markets are affected by the economic situation over there.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“Maybe a last comment is to mention the way Karl Mayer thinks about the Turkish market. Not only about the Turkish market but also about the Turkish people. We Germans are very close to Turkey; everybody of us has Turkish friends, so feel very close to Turkey. And I think we all have to work together to remain this good relationship. Karl Mayer does a lot for this, we have a high presence in Turkey, and we want to work together with our Turkish friends and customers. This is something that everybody has to work on.”
