Break-away

But, how can a company just emerge and build such a capacity so quickly? The answer is that Beworth is a ‘break-away’ business – a break-away from the giant Chinese flat knitting machine manufacturer Ningbo Cixing Company Ltd, known in the industry as simply Cixing.

Cixing emerged when China’s millions of hand flat knitting machines began to be replaced with advanced computerised flat knitting machines in the early part of this century. By 2010 it had grown to become the world’s largest flat knitting machine builder, when it swallowed up renowned Swiss company Steiger, known for its innovative knitting technology.

New generation

Beworth’s debut at ITMA Asia + CITME in Shanghai this month was surrounded by speculation and rumours of family break-ups at Cixing, but the company did have the largest booth in the flat knitting area, which was populated by re-labelled first-generation Cixing lookalikes and a new HS series for sweater knitting and an HF series for shoe upper knitting – China’s shoe upper market is still going strong, the company says.

Industry commentators say that Beworth’s 20,000 machines annual capacity claim is a little exaggerated, but the company may well be producing around 12,000 machines per year. The company is active outside China and already has an office in Bangladesh with 45 staff.

Head of International Sales, Pierre Wang was keen to highlight that fact that his company’s machines were of good quality and told Knitting Industry that Beworth’s needlebeds for example are made from Japanese steel and that the CNC machines it uses to manufacture its machines are also Japanese.

Pierre Wang introduced us to company owner Mr Zheng, who apparently left his senior R&D position at Cixing after a family problem, to set up Beworth. Mr Zheng is said to be the technical brain behind the first generation of Cixing flat knitting machines which brought the company to the world’s attention.

Changes afoot?

Although Cixing is a huge player in the global market, and especially in Asia, it has lagged behind market leaders, Japan’s Shima Seiki and Germany’s Stoll, in terms of technology advances. Whether this changes in future, remains to be seen and it will be interesting to see how the global flat knitting business develops in the coming years. We now have four players - Shima Seiki, Stoll, Beworth and Cixing - with similar manufacturing capacities, in terms of numbers. That assumes of course, that Cixing’s capacity is now reduced, due to the split and emergence of Beworth.

There are some questions that probably require answers from a crystal ball though. Has the Cixing split diminished its ability to compete with the market leaders and will it now fall further behind in the technology race? Or will it develop four needlebed complete garment knitting technology under its Steiger brand as claimed on the company’s booth in Shanghai.

And what about Beworth? Will it just focus on making standard ‘workhorse’ machines for low cost knitwear for exports to western markets from countries like China, Vietnam and Bangladesh? Or will it join the technology race too?

China’s knitwear manufacturing industry is now facing higher labour costs and poor labour availability. Meanwhile there is a boom in demand domestically from consumers with real spending power. In the article - Battle to automate China’s domestic knitwear manufacturers we discuss the race to digitalise China’s domestic knitwear manufacturing industry. What are the implications of this for the machine builders?

One industry insider speculated that the Cixing split may have been a deliberate move to create two distinct brands – one that focuses on standard machines for knitwear exports from Asia and another that focuses on high technology for China’s booming domestic market. Watch this space.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have 3D-knitted a structure on a computerised flat knitting machine that serves as the primary shaping element for curved concrete shells. The new technology is now being used to create a five-tonne concrete structure for an exhibition in Mexico City.

The heart of the four-metre-tall curved concrete shell is knitted - the structure’s formwork is a knitted textile supported by a steel cable-net. The prototype KnitCandela is thought to be the first time that this technology is being used on an architectural scale. The structure is a tribute to Spanish-Mexican architect Felix Candela (1910–1997) and a collaboration with Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHCODE), and Architecture Extrapolated (R-Ex).

55-kilogram formwork for 5 tonnes of concrete

The technology developed at ETH Zurich involves taking a digitally generated pattern and using an advanced Steiger LIBRA 1.130 flat knitting machine to produce the shuttering of the formwork for the shell structure - in 36 hours, the machine knitted a fully shaped, double-layered 3D fabric consisting of four long strips.

The lower layer forms the visible ceiling – a designed surface with a colourful pattern. The upper layer contains sleeves for the cables of the formwork system and pockets for simple balloons, which, after the entire structure is coated in concrete, become hollow spaces that help save on materials and on weight. Manufacturing a formwork for such a geometrically complex structure using conventional methods would cost substantially more in both time and material, the researchers say.

KnitCandela

Meanwhile on location in Mexico, in the museum’s inner courtyard, the knitted formwork was tensioned between a temporary boundary frame and sprayed with a specially formulated cement mixture. This initial layer was just a few millimetres thick, but sufficient to create a rigid mould; once it hardened, conventional fibre-reinforced concrete was applied.

The knitted fabric was flown to Mexico City inside two suitcases - as normal checked-in baggage on a normal flight. The knitted fabric weighs only 25 kgs. and the cable net around 30 kgs. Taut in between the boundary frame, they supported over 5 tonnes of concrete curves.

Knitting is the new 3D printing

The technology behind KnitCandela was developed by Mariana Popescu and Lex Reiter as part of Switzerland’s National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Digital Fabrication research project. Mariana Popescu is a doctoral student with Philippe Block, Professor of Architecture and Structure at ETH Zurich, while doctoral student Lex Reiter studies with Robert Flatt, Professor of Physical Chemistry of Building Materials.

Popescu’s research shows that employing knitted textiles in architectural applications cuts down on material, labour and waste, and simplifies the construction process for complex shapes. Matthias Rippmann, project manager for KnitCandela and senior researcher in the Block Research Group, says: “It took only five weeks from the initial work until completion – much less time than if we were using conventional technology.”

KnitCandela also represents an evolution of the flexible forming system developed for the HiLo roof: a doubly curved, thin-shell concrete structure the Block Research Group developed for Empa’s research and innovation building NEST in 2017. For KnitCandela, the ETH researchers produced the knitted shell in one go, whereas HiLo’s shell was made of a network of steel cables and a sewn textile.

Popescu says: “Knitting offers a key advantage that we no longer need to create 3D shapes by assembling various parts. With the right knitting pattern, we can produce a flexible formwork for any and all kinds of shell structures, pockets and channels just by pressing a button.”

For the construction industry, 3D printing is a major topic. Philippe Block says that, to a certain extent, his group’s pioneering method is a new form of 3D printing, “only it doesn’t require a completely new kind of machine. A conventional knitting machine will do just fine.”

Durst, a manufacturer of advanced digital printing and production technologies, has won two Product of the Year awards at SGIA Expo in Las Vegas. The accolades for the Delta WT 250 and Rhotex 325 have been announced after Durst successfully demonstrated large-format and software capabilities, including the P5 Series with the flagship P5 250 HS machine.

Durst’s Delta WT 250, which captured the RTR/ Hybrid/Flatbed new technology or inkset category, is the flagship for a new generation of printers producing superb litho quality with odorless ink. Durst Water Technology is highly suited for a range of Corrugated Packaging and Display applications. Durst WT inks are completely free or hazardous labeling and comply with the strictest health and safety requirements. The Durst Delta corrugated multi-pass systems are designed for 24/7 operation and have various levels of automation allowing unmanned production.

Winning an SGIA Product of the Year award for the second-year running was the Durst Rhotex 325 in the Roll-to-Roll Direct Disperse Ink on Textile category. This dual purpose, eco-friendly printing system combines direct-to-textile with dye-sublimation transfer printing technology in a 3.2metre platform, all with 24/7, high production output reliability. This is achieved by incorporating Durst Water Technology printhead technology, producing an exceptional print using water-based dispersion inks. Depending on the application and fabric, this printing system can easily alternate between paper transfer and direct printing on polyester-based materials.

Highlights over the three days at SGIA Expo 2018 included Durst unveiling the successful Rho 512R production machine with new LED UV curing technology, which offers additional production features and application possibilities, Benefits of the Rho 512R LED include higher adhesion and less odor, but still retaining the same high performance and reliability of a standard configuration.

Durst Professional Services (DPS) GmbH, which will provide customers with consulting and integration services, software development, contract management and trainings in the future, was also formally unveiled at the show. The highlight of the DPS presentation was the comprehensive MAPS (Multi Application Platform & Solutions) software suite.

This depicts a complete process landscape and offers end-to-end solutions as well as individual submodules for integration into existing production environments.

Christoph Gamper, CEO of Durst Group, said: “Winning the awards underpins our commitment to excellence, particularly as we continue to further develop world-class systems, software capabilities and a service-oriented infrastructure in the United States and across the world. With Durst Professional Services, we're taking another step forward and providing comprehensive solutions for customers’ respective processes and production environments. Every customer is unique and has a different focus. A real benefit of our MAPS architecture is the ability to offer software solutions that can be quickly and easily integrated into existing processes.”

EFI has reported record Q3 sales in its results for the three months ended 30 September 2018, but its profits have dipped slightly.

The manufacturer’s revenue climbed by 3.5% compared with Q3 2017, to $257.1m (£202m), from $248.4m in Q3 2017, but its gross profit fell to $125.5m, down by 1.5% from the $127.4m recorded in the same period last year.

For the nine months ended 30 September 2018, the company has reported revenue of $758.1m, up 5% year-on-year compared to the $724.1m for the same period in 2017.

Speaking yesterday evening (29 October) in his first results call to investors since he was appointed as EFI’s new chief executive officer earlier this month, Bill Muir said: “I’ve already come to admire EFI’s culture on multiple fronts.

“The combination of courageous innovation, technical leadership and customer care is something special and I am thrilled to be a part of it. I see an exceptional group of individuals who are passionate about driving EFI’s success and I see exciting growth opportunities ahead of us.”

EFI reported Q3 Industrial Inkjet revenue of $154.9m, up 8.4% compared with Q3 2017, Productivity Software revenue of $40.5m, up 8.9% year-on-year, and Fiery revenue of $61.8m, down 9.5% year-on-year.

“The [Vutek] h3 is selling very well and we have received exceptional feedback from our customers, but we don’t yet have the new products available to meet demand at the high-end of this market,” said Muir.

“We will get there, and we will have an industry leading product when we do. But we have to accelerate our innovation timeline.”

He added: “In the textile segment of inkjet, our innovation is on track with the introduction of Bolt in Q4, which is our one-pass system derived from the Nozomi platform.

“Bolt will be shown publicly for the first time in just a couple of weeks to over 100 customers from around the world. And while we are not expecting anywhere near the first-year revenue growth we saw with Nozomi, in the long-term Bolt is a game changer in accelerating the digital transformation of textile.”

He added Q3 saw EFI finalise the development of the white ink option for the Nozomi and that the business – which shipped seven Nozomi presses in the quarter – has raised its full-year 2018 outlook for Nozomi revenues to $70m.

“Based upon the pipeline and customer demand, we expect this momentum to continue and we anticipate revenues of $120m in 2019.”

Muir said Fiery sales were “slightly above expectations” and that the company continues to see “good demand” for its corrugated software products.

Geographically, EFI recorded full-year sales of $134.5m, up by 3.9% on Q1 2017, $88.9m in EMEA countries – up 4.5% year-on-year, and $33.7m in the APAC region, down 0.05%.

Looking ahead, Muir said EFI needs to ensure that its various businesses “are operating in a more integrated fashion”.

“EFI has grown in part by acquiring terrific technology and brands. We need to more thoughtfully integrate those businesses, so they can scale and service a global market,” he said.

“We also need to improve our manufacturing processes so we can meet demand in a cost-effective repeatable manner. These are just a few of the areas where I see opportunity to instill greater discipline so EFI can scale to meet its potential.”

Details on outlook for 2018

The order intake recorded by the Rieter Group in the first nine months of 2018 was down by 2% compared to the prior year period. The cumulative order intake was CHF 749.8 million. In the third quarter of 2018, order intake was CHF 238.0 million (Q3 2017: CHF 269.7 million).

In the Business Group Machines & Systems, order intake fell to CHF 433.4 million, a reduction of 12% compared to the first nine months of the previous year (2017: CHF 490.1 million).

In the third quarter of 2018, Machines & Systems received orders worth CHF 135.7 million (Q3 2017: CHF 164.9 million). In the Asian countries (excluding China, India and Turkey), especially in Vietnam, order intake increased compared to the third quarter of 2017. In China, development was stable. For Indian customers, increasing challenges in financing of orders led to a weakening of demand in the third quarter. In Turkey, demand was very low.

The Business Group After Salesrecorded a decline in order intake compared to the first nine months of the previous year, from CHF 115.8 million to CHF 111.3 million (-4%).

Order volumes in the third quarter of 2018, which totaled CHF 36.3 million, were lower than in the prior year period (Q3 2017: CHF 38.0 million). The spare parts business developed positively. However, the lower volume in the machinery business led to a decline in installation services. In the third quarter of 2018, After Sales also recorded a significant decline in order intake from Turkey compared to the previous year.

The Business Group Components? including the acquisition of SSM Textile Machinery ? increased order intake to CHF 205.1 million (2017: CHF 159.1 million), a growth of 29%.

In the third quarter of 2018, order intake was CHF 66.0 million (Q3 2017: CHF 66.8 million). For Components, compared to the prior year period order intake in the key markets of China, India and the Asian countries (excluding China, India and Turkey) was generally stable in the third quarter of 2018.

The global apparel consumption is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 4 per cent and reach $2.6 trillion by 2025. Market growth rate of developed countries is expected to slowdown whereas large emerging economies will be the key drivers of growth. China and India, with a large population base, will be the fastest growing markets in the segment.

Apparel consumption in 2017 is estimated to at $1.8 trillion, which formed around 2 per cent of the world GDP of $79.3 trillion. EU-28 was the largest apparel consumer market worth $400 billion, which was followed by markets of the USA, China, and Japan. These top four markets together constituted approximately 59 per cent of the global apparel consumption. The next four largest markets were India, Brazil, Russia, and Canada, accounting for an additional 11 per cent share while the rest of the world held a 30 per cent share.

It is expected that over the next decade, domestic apparel market of India and China will attain high growth rates of 11 per cent each, to add a cumulative market size of $393 billion by 2025.

Adverse weather and water scarcity have hit cotton yields in the key growing regions of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Due to the dry and hot weather, kapas bolls opened in the early stages this year. Farmers are getting a higher price for their crop at Rs 5,300 per quintal as against Rs 4,500 reported around the same time last year.

Record-breaking cotton arrivals were registered in October, mainly due to the absence of rain during the last 60 to 70 days in the entire cotton belt of India. Cotton consumption during October 2018 has been estimated at 27 lakh bales, while the export shipment of cotton in October 2018 has been estimated at 2.50 lakh bales.

Stock at the end of October 2018 is estimated at 20.63 lakh bales, including 16.53 lakh bales with textile mills, while the remaining 4.10 lakh bales are estimated to be held by CCI and others (MNCs, traders, ginners, etc). The carryover stock at the end of the 2018-19 season is estimated at 15.25 lakh bales.

Domestic consumption for the season has been estimated at 324 lakh bales while exports are estimated to be 51 lakh bales, 18 lakh bales lower compared to the 69 lakh bales last year.

Bangladesh is likely to get duty-free access to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). This applies to Bangladesh's main export items like readymade garments, leather and ceramics. Members of the EAEU, launched in 2015, are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Bangladesh has proposed including goods from Chapters 30, 61, 62, 63 and 64 of Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System in the list of goods originating from least developed countries which are eligible for tariff preferences during its importation into the territories of the EAEU countries. Trade between the EAEU member states has risen sharply. Mutual trade in 2011 was 33.9 per cent more than in 2010.

Cambodia too wants the Eurasian Economic Union to include more Cambodian products like garments, shoes, bicycles and sugar in its tariff scheme. Currently about 900 Vietnamese exporters are active in the EAEU market, with key exports including seafood, coffee, rubber, tea, rice, apparel, woodwork products and confectionery.

In fact, Vietnam-Russia trade makes up 90 per cent of total trade revenue between the country and the EAEU, while trade between Vietnam and Belarus and Armenia in 2016 even recorded decreases from 2015. The reason for this is that Vietnam has a long-time trade partnership with Russia and an inadequate understanding about other EAEU markets.

India’s cotton exports grew 26.8 per cent from April to September 2018. The ongoing trade war between the US and China would possibly open up new opportunities for cotton textile exports from India. Alternate schemes for promoting exports are being devised which would improve the competitiveness of the products. These alternate schemes are expected to be WTO compatible.

India is the second largest textile exporter in the world. Today, cotton yarn and fabric exports account for over 23 per cent of India’s total textile and apparel exports. Banking institutions have been instructed to give in-principle approvals to loans in 59 minutes for small and medium units.

There is a suggestion that cotton yarn and fabrics be included under the ROSL scheme as these products also face the incidence of state levies as in the case of made-ups and garments. The ROSL scheme currently covers only state levies. However, there are also central levies, the burden of which exporters have to bear. To make exports competitive, these central levies are also sought to be refunded under a new scheme.

Other proposals are to include cotton yarn under the MEIS and to hike the MEIS for fabrics from two per cent to four per cent.

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India have been granted a host of benefits like a portal which is empowered to grant them loans of up to a crore in less than an hour.Access to credit, access to the market, technology upgradation, ease of doing business, and a sense of security for employees are some of the other benefits.

It is expected these will go a long way in mitigating the problems of small businesses. GST-registered enterprises will get a two per cent rebate on an incremental loan of up to a crore. The interest subvention on pre and post shipment credit for exports by micro, small and medium enterprises has been increased from three per cent to five per cent.

A Rs 6000 crore package has been announced for technological upgradation of these enterprises. About 20,000 hubs and 100 tool rooms will be developed around the country for this. Mandatory sourcing by PSUs from small enterprises has been increased to 25 per cent from the previous limit of 20 per cent.

Pucblic sector companies have to buy at least three per cent of their purchases from women entrepreneurs. All companies with a turnover of more than Rs 500 crores have to join the Trade Receivables e-Discounting System so that MSMEs don’t face troubles in cash flow.