Textechno Herbert Stein GmbH & Co. Assistant Managing Director Dr. Stefan Fliescher and General Sales Manager Marcus Hardelauf welcomed the Editors of Textil Dünyası Publication Group at their production plant located in Mönchengladbach and provided information upon their investments regarding the Turkish market as well as their new technologies.
Textechno is a long-established company. Could you please provide insight into the growth story of your Company and specific technologies you have developed in the course of production of test equipment today?
Stefan Fliescher: Textechno is a leading designer and manufacturer of precision test equipment for textiles, man-made and natural fibres, headquartered in Mönchengladbach, Germany. Established for more than 60 years, Textechno is, together with its subsidiary Lenzing Instruments in Austria, world market and technology leader in the field of man-made fibre and filament testing.
Textechno stands for reliable, innovative and highly automated technology as well as outstanding production quality and sustainable testing systems. The scope of supply includes fully-automatic testers for linear density, tensile strength, elastic properties, fatigue, shrink, crimp, interlace, friction, entanglement, imperfections, evenness, hairiness and fibre length.
Besides the above scope of supply, Textechno also provides turn-key laboratory solutions for textile companies from one source, which include consulting, layout conception, installation, technical training and after-sales services
Textechno offers a wide range of test equipment for technical textiles besides test equipment it has been providing for conventional textile industry. Could you identify your innovations in this field?
Stefan Fliescher: It is correct that we are developing and producing testing equipment for both, the conventional and technical textile industry. In both fields, it is our aim to continuously develop the existing range of our products as well as new innovative testing equipment with a very high degree of automatization and flexibility. In the field of conventional textile industry especially our universal yarn-testing device STATIMAT DS fulfils these attributes, as it combines the most important testing methods - tensile, evenness and count testing - in one instrument. The further developed Fibre Classifying System FCS measures the fibre properties of both, cotton- and man-made fibres, and gives therefore important information about the spin ability of cotton- and blended yarns as well as a very high degree of flexibility.
For testing technical textiles our STATIMAT 4U is world-wide the only automatic tensile tester for high-tenacity yarns and our FAVIMAT+ is nowadays the standard tester for technical single-filaments, including carbon, aramid, glass and UHMWPE.
What is the position of Turkey in textile sector for you? Could you please give us information about your market share in Turkey?
Marcus Hardelauf: Turkey is a very important market for Lenzing Instruments and Textechno. For more than 5 years already we are represented in Turkey by the company INTA. Because of the importance of this market our general manager for lab projects Dr. Kugler is travelling frequently to Turkey. Together with INTA we keep close relationship to our clients. Turkey is a continuously growing market for us in both the field of classical as well as technical textiles.
How did the first quarter of 2017 go for you in terms of your goals set for Turkish market? What are the sales figures you aim to achieve at the end of 2017?
Marcus Hardelauf: The first quarter of 2017 was for Textechno very successful and also our sales figures in Turkey were very satisfying. It is very difficult to foresee the market situation for this upcoming year, but, we are optimistic, that we will have a further good year in Turkey, as we had in the years before.
What will be your activities regarding the global markets market in 2017? Can you please tell us about the markets you are dominant in and your goals set for such markets?
Marcus Hardelauf: As already said before, we will still strengthen our good market positions in the conventional and technical textiles industry. The company's new aim is now to further develop and strengthen its global business activities and strategic position in the area of Advanced Materials (glass, carbon and polymer fibre) in the industrial sectors aerospace, automotive, marine, building and construction, energy, electrical / electronics, consumer goods and sporting goods.
Stefan Fliescher: In this field we have developed a single-fiber pull-out-test system FIMATEST, which determines the fiber-to-matrix adhesion and gives therefore essential information about the bonding between fibers and resins. The FIMATEST hads won last year's JEC World Innovation Awards. A further JEC Innovation Award winner is our drapability testing device DRAPETEST. Our new ROVINGTEST measures the properties that are most important in manufacturing, processing and R&D of carbon and glass fibre rovings in one system: Friction properties, spreading behaviour, broken filaments and homogeneity of filament orientation.
Because of our increasing presence in above-mentioned markets and the high quality and flexibility of our products we are looking forward to continue providing our customers with innovative high-class testing equipment ‘Made in Germany.’
