Rieter is the world’s leading supplier of systems for short-staple fibre spinning. Based in Winterthur (Switzerland), the company develops and manufactures machinery, systems and components used to convert natural and man-made fibres and their blends into yarns. Fibre2Fashion spoke to Dr. Norbert Klapper, CEO of Rieter, to understand how the company is preparing to deal with the post-pandemic world, and the key product highlights it will present at ITMA Asia 2021.
Where is Rieter positioned today in the spinning machinery industry? How do you maintain your competitive edge over your competitors?
Rieter is the leader in market for staple fibre machines with a market share of around 30 per cent.
The foundation of Rieter's market position is technology leadership. Our ambition is to make the best offering to our customers in terms of value for their business. In general, we can say that this value comes in two different flavors: lowest cost per kg yarn or yarn characteristics which allow the customer to achieve a price premium in their market.
Where is the manufacturing/production done for your machines? What is your installed capacity? How is the demand and supply worked out?
We build our machines in the Czech Republic, in China and in India. Our components, the parts of machines which are touching the fibre, come from Europe. During the pandemic, we maintained our capacities in order to ramp up the business when the market recovers. Today we can see that this was a good decision.
What are key machinery industry trends for the future?
I guess we can say that there are three major trends in the spinning machinery business: automation, flexibility, and integration.
Automation relates to running the machines with a minimum number of operators. In many markets, it is very hard to find operators for the work in a spinning mill. Rieter's piecing robot Robospin for ring spinning machines and the Robodoff for semi-automatic rotor machines help customers address this challenge.
Flexibility means to be able to produce a broad range of yarns at low changeover cost. At ITMA Barcelona in 2019, Rieter introduced three compacting devices to the market: Compactdrum, Compacteasy and Compactapron. With those devices, customers can turn a ring spinning machine into a compact spinning machine in a very short timeframe - and vice versa. Our customers love these products.
And the third trend is integration, which means to connect the spinning machines and integrate them into a system. This is what Essential does for our customers.
There is an additional trend I would like to mention: sustainable yarn production. On the one hand, this means to produce yarn at the lowest possible consumption of resources, particularly energy and raw material. On the other hand, it means that the spinning process is supposed to be able to spin regenerated fibres into a good yarn. In both areas, Rieter is making significant investments.
How has the pandemic impacted you a company in terms of supply chain disruptions and order cancellations?
At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, our first priority was to put a comprehensive crisis management programme into effect. Protective measures for employees were implemented at all Rieter locations worldwide.
Rieter made major efforts to avoid or compensate for disruptions in the supply chain and to ensure service on the field. Our teams did a fantastic job. This allowed the promised deliveries to take place almost on schedule while customers received largely seamless support.
We did not experience major order cancellations.
How are you equipped today to deal with a post-pandemic world?
Despite the extremely difficult situation, Rieter made further progress in implementing its innovation strategy in 2020. And we decided to save cost by making use of the flexibility of our organisation, not by restructuring.
As a consequence, Rieter is well prepared for the post-pandemic world, both in terms of innovative products and the capacities required for the ramp-up.
Are you visiting this year's ITMA Asia fair? If yes, what will be the key highlights in terms of your products?
One of the key highlights Rieter presents at ITMA Asia is a highly automated, digitised ring spinning system. It operates at maximum raw material yield, minimum energy cost and best in class productivity and flexibility.
SSM showcasing the brand new NEO-YW precision winder which combines excellent winding performance and package quality with low waste and energy consumption at a high productivity.
Graf with the cylinder wire P-1940s and the flexible flat Resist-O-top C-60 is boosting customer competitiveness by extending product lifetime while delivering significantly improved and consistent silver quality.
Rieter exhibits the products at ITMA Asia + CITME 2021 National Exhibition and Convention Center, Shanghai, China, from June 12-16 in hall 8 at booth c07. On June 11, 2021 Rieter has a virtual booth in place to showcase all products from anywhere, anytime via its website.
What future expansion plans do you have?
Our first priority is to fully implement our strategy: maximum customer value through technology. We made good progress over the last couple of years, but there is more to come.
And we are excited about the Rieter Campus, our new technology and innovation center in Winterthur. We are confident that the decision on the implementation of the project will be made soon. (PC)
Investment in textile machinery is done keeping the next 3-5 years in mind. Do you think buyers will now think more in terms of short-term investments (after all, one full year was lost to the pandemic)?
Market recovery after a shock like the COVID-pandemic follows a pattern. It starts with an increasing demand for wear and tear parts which are needed to restart and run the mills. In a second stage, customers are additionally demanding spare parts and single machines: spare parts are required to keep the mills running, single machines to get rid of bottlenecks in the mills and increase capacity. In a third stage, spinning systems from bale to yarn come on top.
In an increasingly digitised world, how are your machines keeping pace? What new innovations on the anvil?
A couple of years ago, Rieter had identified the potential benefit for our customers from digital technologies: to provide spinning expertise which is hard to find, to substitute labour which is not available in many markets and to get rid of inefficiencies in the spinning process. Essential - the Rieter Digital Spinning Suite is a single system for addressing these issues.
Essential integrates all digital applications across the spinning mill in one single management system. It connects all machines and auxiliaries - including those from other suppliers - that influence the production of yarn and provides user-defined interfaces for third-party systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Users can select modules in the Rieter Digital Spinning Suite that best suit their requirements and add them individually. We continuously add modules and features to Essential which improves its attractiveness to our customers.
Published on: 29/04/2021
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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