Indian Textile Machinery Industry

Overview and Trends

Textile industry in India is considered as a pioneer industry, as India’s industrializations in other fields have succeeded through the resources generated by textile industry. Though, from the early 1970s to the beginning of liberalization in 1992, the industry tended to be isolated as measures taken by the Government (with the apparent objective of protecting the cotton growers, the large labor force and the consumers) have constantly eroded its prosperity.

World over, the Indian textile industry is considered as the second largest industry. It has the biggest cotton acreage of 9 million hectares and is considered as the third largest producer of this fiber. In terms of staple fiber production it comes fourth and sixth for filament yarn production. The country reports about one fourth of global trade in cotton yarn.

With over 15 million people employment, the textile industry accounted for 20 percent of its industrial production. Covering textiles and garments, thirty percent of India’s export comes from this sector, in terms of exports it is the largest contributors for the growth of Indian economy. In spite of high capital and power cost, the Indian textile and garment sector’s strength comes from the availability of cotton, lower labor costs, well skilled supervisory staff and plentiful technical and managerial skills.

Although very few countries are endowed with such resources, today’s globalization has brought new opportunities for the India textile industry. Concurrently, it is exposed to threats, particularly from cheap imported fabrics. Thus, India has to fight for her share in the international textile trade. Even if it is assumed that WTO will mean better distribution of the world trade, the benefits for India will not be any different than for the other developing countries. The Indian textile industry would, therefore, have to not only rely on its strengths but should also endeavor to remove its weakness.

India’s apparel exporters, though, have been employing various strategies to make sure that they remain competitive in the liberalized trading environment of 2005 and beyond. Many manufacturers are taking action for improving production efficiency through advanced automation system, re-engineering of production systems, merging separate production units and backward and forward integration of operations and are keen to expand their production capacity in anticipation of enhanced demand in 2005 and beyond Among other manufacture are seeking changes through diversifying their product ranges, exporting high value apparel and improving their design capabilities and some of are planning to raise added value by setting up joint ventures with foreign firms, to take benefit of their technical, design and marketing proficiency. Others are making relationships with foreign buyers to increase their marketing capability.

Support has also arrived from the Indian government in the removal of restrictions on investment by large companies and foreign investors. The Government has also provided assistance to expand the infrastructure for exporters and has given incentives for techno-logical up-gradation. Though, most important restriction is the inflexibility in labor laws, which cause it hard for large firms to cut their workforces when require.

Textile industry in tenth plan

The Tenth Five Year Plan of India (2002-2007) forecasted a GDP growth rate of 8 percent for which an industrial growth of 10 percent is predicted.

The aim of the Tenth Plan is to facilitate the textile and apparel industry to:

. Develop world class state-of the-art production facility to accomplish and maintain a leading global position in production and export of textiles and clothing.

. Withstand demands of import penetration and uphold a dominant existence in the domestic market.

. To accomplish these aims heavy funds are needed in technology and modernization in critical areas particularly in spinning, weaving, knitting, finishing and apparel sectors.

. The technology up-gradation scheme (TUFS) introduced in 1999 intended to make investments component attractive. This scheme has been established to promote modernization and technology up-gradation in the specified sectors of textile and jute industries.

. The Government of India has also declared the National Textile Policy-2000 to expand a sound and vibrant textile industry. The objectives and plunged areas of the national textile policy cover technology up-gradation, enhancement of productivity, quality consciousness, product diversification and so on.

Schemes to strengthen investment in textiles during the Tenth Plan cover:

Rearranging spinning capacity

At present nearly 38 million spindles are already existed. About 10 million old spindles required to be scrapped, and another 15 million spindles to be modernized. Adding on, about 3 million new spindles have to be set up during the Tenth Plan period.

Loomage

The decentralized power loom sector, which reported 68 percent share of the cloth in the country, is in very strong and immediate need of renovation. The textile package declared in the Central Government included renovation of the weaving sector with 2.50 lakhs semi-automatic/automatic shuttle looms and 50,000 shuttleless looms.

Finishing

There are nearly 2324 precessing establishments in the country of which 83 belong to composite units, 165 to semi composite and others 2076 are self-governing processing houses. Among of 227 establishments are modern, 1775 are of medium technology and 322 are obsolete establishments. Reconstruction of finishing units will need a huge financial expenditure.

Schemes for expansion and development of the knitting sector, technical textiles, and woolen and jute industries are to be considered. The textile Engineering Industry is to be encouraged to modernize and offer state-of-the-art technology to the textile industry and through focused textile machinery R&D efforts, domestic reaches and development are to be initiated.

Growth in the textile machinery

Due to high investments on renovation of plant and machinery in the textile manufacturing industry, the manufacturing of textile machinery, their parts and accessories rose last fiscal by 25 percent to Rs 1,668 crore from Rs 1,341 crore in the previous fiscal.

According to the Textile Machinery Manufacturers’ Association of India (TMMAI), the industry also witnessed its capacity of consumption at 55 percent during the year.

But, on the other hand the total projected demand of Rs 4,200 crore of the textile industry, a major contribution was satisfied through imports. This has identified for an urgent requirement on the part of both the user-textile industry and the textile engineering industry (TEI) to start a joint assessment to reverse this movement, said the outgoing Chairman of TMMAI, Sanjay Jayavartanavelu.

On the event of the 45th annual general meeting of Textile Machinery Manufacturers’ Association of India, Jayavartanavelu said the surge in demand for textile machinery has initiated the TEI to make production capacity bigger to satisfy the increasing demand, particularly in the spinning machinery sector. The units in the industry were dynamic to step up production to cut down the delivery period.

This is regardless of the truth that they had to compete with longer delivery schedules from main machinery suppliers. In spite of this, the TEI should make an effort to satisfy the demand in volume/quality and performance with effective after sales service.

The TMMAI Chairman felt amendment in fiscal policy and elimination of hurdles being faced by the TEI required to be effected to make the indigenous textile machinery sector gain strength and scale up its technology and export competitiveness. The areas of fiscal modification needed are letting down the rate of excise duty on textile machinery from 16 percent to the merit rate of 8 percent, continuation of the relaxation in excise duty, which should be extended to inputs required for making of specified textile machines.

The intermediate products required in producing textile machinery as well as spares should be put at four percent excise duty subject to actual-user stipulation. At the same time, the present customs duty concessions on specified machines must be detached and one common rate of import duty of 10 per cent should be charged for all textile machines.

The TMMAI Chairman also emphasize the requirement for early creation of a Rs 2,500-crore development fund for TEI to facilitate the units to use on R&D, infrastructure building, export promotion and plans on environmental protection.

Recent developments in technology

In the international textile and clothing trade, the elimination of decades old quota system has thrown up new challenges as well as unlocks new prospects for the Indian textile industry.

According to the vision statement made by the ICMF for the textile sector, by 2010 the Indian textile industry has the potential to have the market size of worth of $ 85 billion from the present size of $ 36 billion. This development can be gained by the opening of new domestic as well as export segments. Textile export could arrive at $ 40 billions mark by 2010 from current 12 billion dollar level. Result on export side can be measured satisfactory during the last six months. For receiving the prospective business, the textile industry has to move towards value added products. The most value addition in textile segment is created by the apparel segment. Processing, fabric manufacturing and spinning segments in order to make quality apparels will require up-gradation

During last decade, there has been observed fast progress in machinery/technology. A concise representation of modern developments in a range of areas is given below.

Spinning

Manufacturing facility in blowroom line has enhanced to 800 kg/hr with a prerequisite to work 3 mixings all together. To process broad range of cottons, the latest blowroom is provided with automatic bale opener with integrated mixer and cleaning systems. For the latest carding machine as a substitute of one licker-in, multiple licker-ins is built-in serially. And provide more stationary flats. For feed roll, doffer, web doffing, maintenance free digital drives are used. The whole card clothing can be separated with a less function of operation. For full flange of operation, a variety of systems like NEP control, flat control and waste control etc., are integrated.

For modern draw-frame machine, delivery speed up to 1000 mt/minute made possible with an alternative of automatic draft control mechanism which gives out requirement for gear change for controlling draft and delivery speed. In few machines separate deliveries can be restricted without help. Supplier also offers draw frame which can be connected to carding machine. It is stated that owing to digital autoleveller the precision measurement is in its height on an average one meter CV of sliver can be controlled below 0.4 percent.

Combers speed up to 400 nips/min is possible due to technological advancement. From latest comber up to 1.3 tones/day productions is achieved. Touch screens display system also provided with these machines. The display covers production data, process setting, machine parameters setting and fault message display. To save installation time many machines are provided with fully assembled in four modules.

Latest speed frame are offered in atomization system including all the operations. All the functional set ups can be fitted on electronic panel. Bobbin size 6″ x 16″ or 7″ x 16″ can be available. There is an availability of alternative of manual or auto doffing. Machines are provided upto 160 spindles capacity hence considerable saving in the operational cost possible.

In the latest ring spinning system winding geometries are further give to maximize result with less winding tension. Hence, superior draft up to 80 are received with higher spindle speed (above 20000 rpm). A number of other features of modern ring frames are adopted with inverter drive for spindles, independent spindle ring rail and drafting system drives, fast doffing system with no trailing ends. Ring frame up to 1344 spindles are provided. In presents rotor spinning system, diverse yarn can be spun in several part of the machine. It is feasible to get package of changeable density. All the technical factors and machine adjustment can be controlled by computer. In the latest rotor machine it is viable to make a package with 30% higher package density than old rotor machine.

In the latest winding machine path of ring cop from bottom to winding head is further developed. Hence, superior control of winding tension produces lower augmentation in hairiness. The adaptable knotting cycle combined with tailored acceleration dynamics facilitates to alter production system. The immediate controlled cylinder inverter and suction motor inverter are provided for energy conservation. Modern vortex spinning system is available to spin cotton yarn at a speed of 400 mt/min. The technology was previously applied for spinning synthetic blended yarn only.

The latest DREF spinning system can make numerous kinds of multi-component yarns. The drafting unit can manage all kinds of synthetic fibers such as aramid, preoxidised fiber, polyamide, phenol resin fibers and melamine fibers. The machine is able to perform with several cores. The manufacturing facility is achieved as high as 250 mtr/min and fineness of yarn can be from 0.5 to 25 nm.

Weaving

The important aspects of modern weaving preparatory/ weaving machines are reviewed as under:

Machinery producers of both weaving preparatory and weaving machines have received gain in technological aspects to make fault free fabric for the garment sector. Nearly all the machines are provided with electronic control panels and micro-processors controls which monitors and control the machine utility to satisfy the fabric quality need and modification in design styles.

Maintenance of machine has turn out to be stress-free due to proficient lubrication system and improved machine design and substitution of mechanical tools with electronic control system. There is an obvious progress to resource the components and auxiliary equipment from the selected good manufacturers rather than making themselves, hence decreasing the cost of the machines. In latest rapier looms weft insertion rate ranges from 1200 – 1500 mt/min. Many looms are provided with weaving a broad range of fabrics. In many weaving machines weft insertion rate is achieved at higher and ranges from 1800-2500 mt/min.

Latest sizing machine is provided with uniform size pick up facility across the warp sheet and for least amount hairiness and loss in elongation. These are maintained by temperature control and moisture control devices. Squeeze pressure can be maintained by programmable controller to synchronize the compressing at all the speeds. Stretch monitoring instrument is imparted to control the stretch.

Knitting

In recent times the quality requirements imposed on a knitting factory by its customer have become even more precise due to greater emphasis on the reproducibility in case of repeat order. Typically a modern knitting machine has following features as:

Automatic computation of fabric reduces speed, feeders per course, stitch/cm and elongation

Automatically managed thread infeed by inflowing the needed thread infeed per cm

Automatic management of height modification through computer

Automatic supervision of yarn infeed and yarn tension

Through user friendly software, computer helps to make the goods on the selected pattern

Processing

New generation processing machine incorporates microprocessor controls. Various process parameters can be programmed in microprocessor for strict adherence of processing conditions. Apart from good control, machines are also energy efficient and features are incorporated for the reduction of consumption of chemicals, water and steam etc. The developments are also taking place keeping environment requirement and eco-friendly processing while manufacturing the textile products and safer conditions for those involved in the manufacturing.

Process control or quality control

In the area of cotton testing, latest instruments are mostly available as High Volume Instruments (HVI) and are prepared with automatic sampling. They also evaluate short fiber content and maturity index values besides testing of length, strength and fineness parameters. It is stated that maturity values are fairly precise. Instruments are also provided with test color, trash neps and fluorescence values. Few suppliers are offering bale management systems.

For the manmade fibers and its connected instruments offered with the measurement in denier, tenacity, elongation and crimp properties. From the creel, robotic arm can carry the fiber samples automatically.

In the part yarn quality, latest evenness tester can measure, evenness, imperfection and intermittent errors at a greater speed. Many of them instruments are prepared to measure hairiness, diameter variation, shape, and dust as well as trash contents. Single thread strength testing machine are provided with a testing speed of 400 mt/min. The machine is prepared to take out 30000 tests per hour. It is noted that weaving operation of the yarn can be expected advanced with this machine. Some of the single thread strength machines are fitted with automatic yarn count determination device.

Yarn fault classification device has shifted to the winding machine from the laboratory. Data of entire yarn lot can be readable from the winding machines. Electronic check Board can perform the yarn grading, based on yarn output and observed by applying CCD camera and software to measure yarn report. Instrument can also offer fabric simulations if needed.

In fabric testing, automatic fabric inspection device can examine grey and single cotton dyed fabrics for all materials covering air bag fabrics and glass fiber fabrics. The imperfection can be recovered from their reports and images. In the area of process control and management ERP systems are establish which supply 3-tier solution covering the online data acquisition, offline data entry cum reporting device and intelligent business management device.

Conclusion

Today, Indian industry is extremely fragmented. In the organized spinning sector there are nearly 2300 players with 280 composite mills, There are 1000 weaving units and around 1,45,000 independent processing units and innumerable garment makers. The position of machinery technology is not well apart from the spinning sector. Nearly 100000 modern shuttleless looms are needed to set up and to satisfy the target by 2010. Processing sector will also require big amount of up-gradation. It is calculated that a total investment of 35 billion dollar might be needed to achieve the growth intended by ICMF.