Technology

SWF, the brand name of SunStar Precision Co. Ltd. Korea was established in 1974 and is among the biggest players in the field of embroidery machines. The company manufactures embroidery machines ranging from single head to multi head, all with coiling, cording and sequin attachment devices, and has clients in more than 150 countries.

The company, which stopped its operations five years back in India, two years back reentered the same and has opened up a manufacturing plant here. SWF is the first foreign company having an embroidery machine manufacturing unit in India. Sunstar has developed a very good operating system which it has brought to India for manufacturing embroidery machines. At present, it has decided to manufacture three models but later may increase the range. As of now it has started with embroidery machine with 18 head, then 6 head and 36 head. The company allows customers to visit and witness its state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Noida.

In 2017, it got good feedback from the Indian customers and sold around 20 machines. Now with a permanent factory it expects to do better sales in 2018. According to the company, it is competing with others on the basis of high quality, good service and faster delivery time. When a customer orders machine from China he will have to wait for minimum 2 months but it delivers in maximum 30 days. The machines running time is more than 10 years but Chinese machine’s only five years. Besides, breakage time with SWF is also very less and it is there to give customers service 24×7. This year the company targets to make 100 machines but it will depend on the demand it will get from the market. It is also creating seven dealers’ network covering all major apparel and textile hub in India.

Prior to opening its manufacturing plant, it sent engineers from India to Korea for getting trained and making same quality machines like Korea here. As the company is having direct presence so will be giving the best after sales service to the customers, which is really important. Like other companies’ customers, SWF customers will not have to wait for the service and spare parts because it is available 24×7. Moreover, as the machines are made in India, so the logistics cost for the customers gets reduced to almost 1/4th when compared to same machine when imported from China, so this is very good benefit for the customers here.

Adding more advantage to this, SWF recently opened its in-house service center for repairing electronic boards of embroidery machines in India. The center was started three months back and is receiving encouraging feedback from its customers. The service center which has been set-up at C-56, Sector 8 Noida is having well-trained and sufficient engineers to provide good service to the customers. After this initiative, SWF’s customers don’t require to replace the electronic board of embroidery machines, which usually costs Rs. 50,000 to Rs. One lakh to them. Now for repairing they only have to pay around 4-5 thousand which is going to be a huge cost saving benefit to them.

While expressing his satisfaction, one of company’s customers from Faridabad – Shiva Arora of Shivaay International says, “We have a very good experience of working with SWF. We are buying their machines from last 15 years and are very happy with their after sales support services. Looking at their machines good quality and services, we recently ordered nine new machines from SWF. Price wise they are really competitive, and are always having enough high quality spare parts in stock with them. Moreover, opening up of an electronic board repairing center for embroidery machines in India is very beneficial for us as it is going to be a lot of cost saving advantage for us.

Lectra, the technological partner for companies using fabrics and leather, put theory into practice at its recent fashion event by unveiling their latest 4.0 Cutting Room to more than 100 privileged industry professionals. “Fashion Goes Digital” drew industry stakeholders and market experts from 20 countries, who gathered at Lectra’s International Advanced Technology Center (IATC) in Bordeaux- Cestas, France, to examine the real-life application of digitalization in fashion.

While the topic of digitalization served as a backdrop for the event, there was a recurring theme at the forefront: fashion companies need Industry 4.0 technology and support in order to be more precise in meeting the evolving needs of their digitally savvy consumers. Nick Chiarelli, Client Partner of Foresight Factory, shed light on new business opportunities for fashion, Nora Kühner, Founder of Nora Kühner Fashion Design Consulting, used her designer perspective to decode the digital future of product development, and Fabrizio Fantini, Founder of Evo Pricing, showed participants how machine learning could help fashion companies predict consumer demand and avoid waste. “While speaking about the future challenges and trends in fashion and luxury, the trend now is to use analytics to drive the entire production process,” highlighted Stephen Taylor, Principal Director of Kurt Salmon.

Waruna Tennakoon, General Manager of Group Cutting, Brandix, and Ajith Perera General Manager of Mathliya Plant, MAS Kreeda, also shared their Lectra customer experience. Based in Sri Lanka, both companies have established themselves as the country’s largest apparel exporters, with Brandix specializing in producing intimate and activewear, and MAS Kreeda in sportswear. “Thanks to the digital revolution, consumers are now more specific in their demands. This will cause a shift in mass manufacturing where there will be smaller-volume orders coming in at a faster rate. As a result, manufacturing models have to be more agile in the immediate future,” explained Ajith Perera, “I am happy to see that Lectra is already spearheading this change by providing us with the necessary technology to help us meet market demand.”

There was no better time to put digitalization into context than during “Fashion Goes Digital”. VIP guests got a sneak preview of the brand new, fully automated cutting room solution for fashion and apparel. Lectra’s Cutting Room 4.0 is an embodiment of Lectra’s commitment to empowering its customers with the best solutions to thrive in this new digital era. This avant-garde technology leverages industry 4.0 principles to provide greater agility, throughput, cost efficiency and in particular scalability in order to respond seamlessly to small batches orders and shorter lead times.

Jean-Yves Collet, CEO of Treize Roches Couture, a high-end French womenswear manufacturer, provided a testimonial on why his company chose to be one of the first to adopt this new solution. He explained how Lectra’s latest technology would help Treize Roches speed up their artisanal production process to bring products faster to market. “When we discussed the possibility of a made-to-order production project, we could really foresee the benefits both in terms of quality and productivity. Industry 4.0 solutions do not yet exist in garment manufacturing. This is why we have decided to develop an Industry 4.0 cutting room. This will allow us, in the preparatory stages to automate the processes as much as possible and improve quality, productivity and training time.”

“We have unveiled our strategy last year where we have identified Industry 4.0 and digitalization as our key drivers. Our goal for this event is to show that we are, indeed, living and breathing Industry 4.0 and we do have what it takes to help our customers succeed in this era. Our latest cutting room 4.0 shows that we are not just talking about the future of fashion anymore, we are living in it right now as we speak,” concluded Céline Choussy Bedouet, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Lectra.

Mouvent has announced that the TX801 – its ingenious new digital textile printer – will be demonstrated live at ITM 2018, 14-17 April, in Istanbul, Turkey. This will be one of the company’s first ever global trade shows demonstrating the TX801 – an 8-colour multi-pass digital textile printer producing the highest print quality on textiles with up to 2,000 DPI optical resolution, associated with very high printing speeds.

The ITM – the international textile, yarn, knitting, weaving, dyeing, printing, finishing and hosiery machineries, sub-industries and chemicals exhibition – is one of the most prestigious textiles technology exhibitions in the world. Over 1,000 textile technology producing companies will present their latest solutions in Istanbul.

There will be four live demonstrations each day of the TX801 at the Mouvent booth, at the following times: 10h30, 11h30, 14h30 and 16h30. The Mouvent team welcomes you to visit booth 509A in Hall 5 during ITM 2018 to witness a true leap forward in digital printing for the textile industry.

“It is a privilege to go to Istanbul and share our innovative digital textile printing technology with the world,” said Reto Simmen, Chief Business Officer at Mouvent. “The feedback we’ve had so far on this machine suggests it is exactly what the market needs at the moment; a highly reliable industrial digital printer, which can print on a multitude of substrates at a competitive cost. We look forward to showing it in action at ITM.”

The TX801 prints with up to 8 colours and, even though it is a scanning type machine, up to 50 per cent of the print jobs can be completed in a single pass, boosting productivity up to 200 sqm/h without compromising on quality. In order to reach those levels of productivity, the TX801 utilises an ingenious, very compact proprietary print engine development based on the MouventTM Cluster Technology, integrating Fujifilm’s Samba print heads. This is associated with speed, precision and scalability, deploying up to 16 g/sqmtr of ink in a single pass. And thanks to the MouventTM Cluster Technology, the TX801 prints with an optical resolution of up to 2,000 dpi, resulting in the very highest print quality of the finished product. The machine can process knitted, woven and non-woven textiles with a maximum fabric width of 1,820 mm with roll diameters of up to 400 mm.

“The history of Turkey’s textile industry is long and rich, and it will be a pleasure to present our latest innovations in this beautiful country,” said Ghislain Segard, Marketing & Sales Manager, Textile Machines at Mouvent. “As a company, we have come a very long way in a short time, and ITM in Istanbul represents another very meaningful milestone on that journey. We are sure the TX801 will create a splash at the event.”

As well as enabling crisp, colourful, very high printing quality in a cost-effective way for short to medium print runs on a wide range of textile materials, the TX801 is a very durable, compact and accessible printer. “The print quality of the TX801 is unrivalled, and attendees to the Mouvent booth at ITM will be able to witness that for themselves,” said Cenk Elkatip, Mouvent’s Area Sales Manager for Turkey. “But in addition, they can also learn about its very competitive price per sq mtr compared with basic digital printers, and it is the quality combined with the affordability that make it such a compelling offer”

Located in Surat, Color Pixel has been engaged in the research, production and manufacture of digital printing and prepress plate making equipment. In order to ensure stable and reliable product quality, the company set up CNC Machining Centre for spare parts in China, and established a joint venture with Navrang Jari, which manufactures metallic yarn and embroidery thread.

Color Pixel and Navrang Jari work closely with the continuous development of high-tech products in line with market demand. In addition to long-term production of standard digital printing presses and pre-press plate-making equipment, but also according to customer requirements for special modification. The company launched a revolutionary Precise localization printing system at Garfab-TX exhibition held recently in Surat. Precise Digital textile printing is a specialized technology based on computer vision and control printing in real time. It is initially used for textiles warp and weft recognition and developed by control printing image’s position. Typical application is printing technology of cross stitch products.

Precise digital textile printing is computer vision technology at first, make use of textile fabric’s warp and weft vision features or semi-finished product’s printing logo pattern (Jacquard pattern) and confirm current printing image’s position and form based on computer vision technology. With further development of computer vision technology. With further development of computer vision technology and printing control technology, precise digital textile printing will achieve great apply prospect.

Given are some of its advantages:

• Automatic alignment printing: Using computer vision technology to identify semi-finished products (e.g. Pieces) position, controlling the print pattern to achieve the alignment print.
• Chromatography printing: Using equipment stations to control print pattern achieve chromatography printing online; using design identity location to achieve trapping print offline.
• Jacquard colour filling: According to the jacquard patterns to confirm the print position and achieve the jacquard colour filling printing.

Operation principal

It uses the high definition industrial camera to give the fabric a photograph, and uses the image processing software to distinguish the warp, weft and mesh, so it can get an contour. According to the longitude and latitude angle, it can rotate, scaling, and other deform action processing to the image, which is under printing. So it can print any orientation.

• Software included: Puzzle software, Image RIP software, printing software.
• Hardware included: High-definition industrial camera, PCI high-speed image processing card.
• Application area: Cross stitch fabric printing, Jacquard, embroidery fabric printing, Shoe, Leather, Positioning Printing.

Given are its application areas:

Embroidery precise localization printing technology

The limitation of traditional embroidery is the colour of embroidery, unable to achieve the same smooth with digital printing. Since the application of embroidery precise localization printing technology, people can only embroidered white lines or contours, greatly lower the production cost. At the same time, the pattern has both traditional embroidery stereo feeling and also exquisite of digital printing and abundant colour, greatly improved the grade of products.

Lace precise localization printing technology

Traditional lace are mostly dyed and printed fabric, after the application of precise localisation printing technology, people can localization printing within the lace contour which will be the important technology for produce high-grade lace.

Table cloth precise localization printing technology

Table cloth precise localization printing technology is the latest technology of 2016 which SDF digital technology co. ltd development. The original cloth was based on artificial counterpoint printing which is very difficult to counterpoint. Since the application of camera localization printing technology, all become simple, put the roll of table cloth on printer, the computer will localization, fast, safe and save large amount of labour cost.

Jacquard, wall cloth precise localization printing technology

High-grade wall cloth is mostly composed of jacquard fabric. Precise localization printing is mainly accurate printing on the counter of jacquard fabric, production high-end, strong stereoscopy products.

Shoe pattern precise localization printing technology

Current fashion shoes requires good air permeability and very abundant colour, shoes pattern precise localization printing technology arises at the historic moment, greatly improved the additional value of shoes materials.

Jacquard fabric precise localization printing technology

High-grade jacquard fabric refers to weaving processing on silk by high-grade jacquard, precise localization technology can location at small letters and contour, produced the fabrics used in high-end clothing, bags and other various occasions.

ColorZen® is a breakthrough technology thathas transformed the cotton dyeing process, making it significantly more efficient and environmentally friendly for the first time. Cotton is the most popular fabric on the planet, and once treated by ColorZen, it can be dyed using far less water, energy, dye, salt, and toxic chemicals. This is revolutionizing the global cotton dyeing industry. ColorZen is on a scaling path to treat hundreds of millions of pounds of cotton and billions of garments over the next few years.

ColorZen has created a holistic and sustainable solution for cotton dyeing, one of the most inefficient and environmentally problematic links in the textile supply chain today. In doing so, ColorZen has also provided the industry a remarkable new innovation that allows for both beautiful new design along with rapid speed to market. Below is a general overview of ColorZen’s model and how its technology will benefit the future of the industry and the world.

We all wear colored cotton

Until now, there has not been a way to dye cotton without using enormous amounts of water, energy, an chemicals. The current process is not only inefficient, but has a deadly toxic output. In many cases, our precious environment is polluted by this process. This renders fresh water unsafe to drink for millions of people.

Cotton is the most popular fabric on the planet

By positively affecting cotton’s environmental footprint, ColorZen is leading the fashion industry and its consumers into a new era of sustainability. Until now, the industry has not been able to dye cotton without using toxic chemicals. ColorZen technology allows any brand or retailer to produce truly responsible and sustainable garments.

How was cotton dyed before ColorZen?

Raw cotton is grown, harvested, and ginned to remove impurities. The raw fibres are then spun into yarn. A mill knits or weaves the yarn into fabric, and that fabric enters the dyeing process. The dye bath conventionally requires a large amount of water, dye, salt, and chemicals, in order to create a chemical bond between the dye and cotton fabric. ColorZen’s unique treatment adjusts the molecular composition of cotton, allowing it to accept dye without the use of toxic chemicals. The ColorZen® process not only dyes cotton cleaner, it can achieve bolder and brighter colors than ever before.

How does ColorZen do it?

ColorZen’s treatment of cotton creates a natural attraction between the cotton and dye.

ColorZen dyes with 95% less chemicals and zero salt

ColorZen® technology requires a 50% reduction in dyestuff, with 97% dye retention, which means the water left over after a ColorZen dye cycle can be reused. Traditional cotton dyeing techniques require toxic chemicals, which are often dumped into and pollute fresh water sources.

ColorZen allows for innovation in heathers

ColorZen heather yarns are produced by blending a percentage of ColorZen® cotton fiber with conventional cotton fiber. The ColorZen® fiber absorbs the dye while the conventional fiber doesn’t. The fabric (or garment) can be dyed as one piece with one dye bath and a single dye cycle, which results in a multi-colored heather fabric.

ColorZen’s process also accelerates speed to market for heather and patterned garments. ColorZen® fabrics can be stocked in an undyed form and dyed upon demand later down the supply chain. Additionally, unlike conventional heathers, ColorZen® heather fabrics can also be pre-bleached so bright heather colors or even pastel colors can be produced.

Sourcing in India

In India, questions about ColorZen® can be directed to ‘Tangibles’, a Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu-based company. Tangibles is headed by Kumareswar, who has over 28 years of experience in the apparel industry.