Having a worldwide presence in 120 countries, with more than 2,500 employees, Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment, through its customer services and automation solutions, offers its customers an innovative approach in their manufacturing processes of manmade fibers. In the special interview conducted with our publication group, Mr. André Wissenberg, Vice President Marketing, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs of Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment provided information regarding the innovative practices taking place within the manmade fibers segment and shared his assessments with respect to the market.
Can we obtain some information regarding the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment?
With its Oerlikon Barmag and Oerlikon Neumag brands, Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment is the world market leader for manmade fiber filament spinning systems, texturing machines, BCF systems, staple fiber systems, nonwovens and artificial turf systems and – as a service provider – offers engineering solutions for the entire textile value added chain. As a future-oriented company, the research and development at this division of the Oerlikon Group is driven by energy-efficiency and sustainable technologies. With the expansion of the product range to include polycondensation systems and their key components, the company caters the entire process – from the monomer all the way through to the textured yarn. The primary markets are in China, India, Turkey, Europe and USA. Correspondingly, Oerlikon Barmag and Oerlikon Neumag – with more than 2,500 employees – has a worldwide presence in 120 countries as part of the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers network of production, sales and distribution and service organizations. At the R&D centers in Remscheid, Neumünster, Chemnitz and Suzhou, highly-qualified engineers and technicians develop innovative and technologically-leading products for tomorrow’s world.
Can you provide information with respect to the special applications that you have developed for the efficient production of industrial yarns?
We offer numerous technologies for manufacturing industrial yarns, fibers and nonwovens. Those form the basis for almost all technical textiles within growth markets like electronics, energy, food, functional wear, infrastructure and transportation. Automobile tires, safety belts, airbags, geotextiles, roofing membranes, guy ropes for drilling platforms, conveyor belts, sails and fishing nets – all these are manufactured using industrial yarns, fibers and nonwovens. Even this selection of applications showcases the diversity of what is possible in potentially the most exciting area within the textile sector. Industrial yarns are considered to be the ultimate discipline in filament manufacturing. High tenacities, extreme dimensional stability, tremendous durability along with a large range of titers – although the demanding production process promises high-margins, it is however also simultaneously a huge challenge both for the yarn manufacturer and the systems constructor.
With a production window of between 50 and 12,000 den per filament yarn, Oerlikon Barmag industrial yarn systems cover an extremely-wide titer range. Depending on the application and the required yarn characteristics, our systems produce ‘strong’ yarns for all applications: from high-tenacity high-modulus yarn for safety belts, HMLS yarns for tire cord all the way through to low and ultra-low shrinkage yarns for tarpaulins.
Among other things, monofilament yarns and tapes are being deployed as agricultural textiles such as baler twine yarns and wind-protection netting, as bulk goods sacks, carpet backing and geotextiles. Oerlikon Barmag supplies systems for woven, fibrillated polypropylene tapes with the highest tenacities – in excess of 7.5 grams/den – available on the market, which can also be used in road construction. Synthetic staple fibers are not only used in the manufacture of textiles, these diverse manmade fibers are also being deployed in industrial applications. Predominantly, polyester and polypropylene fibers are processed to create carded nonwovens for geotextiles, insulating materials, filters and similar products. In addition to many further special industrial applications, shortcut fibers for reinforcing concrete, cement and plastics are another area of application for synthetic staple fibers. Oerlikon Neumag offers systems for manufacturing mono- and bicomponent fibers in plant sizes from 5 tons per day upwards.
What strategy has Oerlikon set for Industrie 4.0? To what extent has Industrie 4.0 innovations been contributed to your products and systems?
Industry 4.0 is one of the most important topics driving the textile industry. We are focusing on this topic and presenting ourselves since nearly a year at ITMA Asia, at ITME India and now at Techtextil in Frankfurt with solutions in the field of industry 4.0.
Let me give you the following example that we have developed within the context of our customer services digitalization strategy. With ‘Intelligent Plant Control – IPC 4.0’, we are opening up new horizons for our customers. We were the first German company within the textile industry that offered – in the same year that saw the official market launch of the Microsoft HoloLens technology – within the context of the ITMA Asia 2016 in Shanghai innovative customer services for the maintenance of manmade fibre systems and for the training of plant managers and their staff.
Today, our customers are able to ‘walk’ through their manufacturing systems using augmented reality glasses and acquire support for optimizing their production processes by means of ‘remote access’. This creates a win-win situation for us and our customers. Whereas engineers or technicians to date had to travel to the manufacturing facility, our customers now contact them on Skype. Thanks to the HoloLens technology, they have the same view and interactively communicate with one another – and, due to state-of-the-art technologies, even across language barriers. It is now all about being courageous, trying out these new approaches to customer services and exploiting their many benefits.
What were the primary areas of focus for new investments and research in the last year?
We entered into a strategic partnership with the Italian company Teknoweb Materials s.r.l. aimed at extending the nonwovens production systems portfolio to include the high-growth market for disposable nonwovens. We announced that our two companies established a new, jointly-owned company. With this development, we strengthen the Oerlikon nonwovens systems business within our Manmade Fibers segment and expand into the attractive disposable nonwovens market.
What kind of innovations are you giving place to so as to provide cost and energy savings in spinning mills as well as to create environmental sustainability?
Profitable, sustainable growth for all stake holders is our goal and our company is thus making its contribution to securing the future. Performance, quality, sustainability and passion are the factors that enable our Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment to face the challenges of the future day by day. By expanding our e-save philosophy consistently we are increasing value through high-quality innovative industrial solutions, continuously. All our products and services since the introduction of e-save in 2004 are developed with the following four e-save aspects in mind: energy-saving, best economics results, highest efficiency and sustainable environment protection.
As a company, where do you position the Turkish textile industry? Can you provide information regarding your market share in Turkey?
2016 was in general a difficult year for the manmade fiber industry. Overcapacities in China and the Chinese government’s 13th five-year plan resulted in an extreme market slowdown. Investments have been postponed and orders put on ice. For us as a manmade fiber solution provider, this has been a critical development as China is the most important market in terms of pure sale volumes for both us and our competitors. Other strong markets, such as Turkey, India, Europe and the US, have not been able to fully compensate for this decline. But we have noticed that – despite all previous predictions from well-known market research institutes – the markets in the first half of 2017 are recovering again. We are very satisfied with our leading market position in Turkey for our innovative solutions for filament spinning and texturing as well as our synthetic staple fiber and BCF carpet yarn spinning. And, there is a potential to grow for our nonwovens business within the turkish market, too.
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?
We can see, that the world market for the manmade fiber machinery industry is back again after 2016. One reason for the recovering of our businesses within the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment is the considerable increase in investment in the Turkish and Indian market and our strong global staple fiber business. Here, we have also benefited from our takeover of the Trützschler synthetic staple fiber technology last year – by the way a strategic move at the right time. Furthermore, the current Chinese five-year plan is focusing above all on investing in modern, sustainable technologies – despite also concentrating on reducing overcapacities. To this end, we are confident that the current market upturn is sustainable and our sales figures will defenitely increase compared to the year before. But as we are a stock exchange listed corporation, you know, I can’t tell you much more about our expected results for 2017.
Will your activities in Turkey continue through your agency? What is your approach to opening your own branch office?
Against the background of the current political and economic developments in Turkey a reliable forecast for the upcoming months is quite difficult. But we see further investments for the filament spinning and texturing, the synthetic staple fiber spinning as well as the BCF carpet yarn production processes. As a longtime partner for the textile industry in Turkey we will be with our customers as in the past and will offer innovative solutions for their business. We are looking positive into the future and we are placing an emphasis on comprehensive solutions for the turkish textile industry. And, there is no doubt, our partner on-site is and will be in the future Tekstil Servis in Istanbul.
