Velcro Companies Adds Production Capacity To Meet Customer Demand For PRESS-LOK Technology

BRAMPTON, Ontario/BOSTON, Mass. — September 6, 2016 — Velcro Companies today announced it has completed an expansion of its manufacturing facility in Brampton, Ontario, increasing its North American production capacity for its popular PRESS-LOK® flexible packaging closures.

The Press-Lok closure is a durable, easy-to-use fastening technology that was developed for the flexible packaging market and enables consumers to achieve an effective seal without the need for tedious and precise line-up. Press-Lok has been integrated into a wide variety of consumer product packaging including pet foods, detergent pods, rice, cheese, protein powder, granola, and nuts.  Since its launch four years ago, Press-Lok has been adopted by customers in more than 45 countries.

“The Press-Lok closure technology allows our customers in the food and packaged goods sectors to create simpler, smarter and more reliable packaging experiences for their consumers.  With just a squeeze, Press-Lok easily aligns to create a secure seal that you can feel and hear.  It’s what real closure is all about,” said Jurjen Jacobs, vice president of Marketing and Innovation for Velcro Companies.

Scott Filion, president of the Americas region, said: “The Press-Lok closure system has been one of our most successful innovations. The installation of this state-of-the-art equipment in Canada will enable us to serve the needs of customers in the fast-growing market for flexible packaging.”

Peter Buchanan, plant manager of Velcro Companies in Canada, added: “The expansion of the Brampton facility continues a tradition of innovation and quality that Velcro Companies established in Canada more than 50 years ago. We are very proud of our people and their commitment to serving customers, and we look forward to continuing the company’s growth in North America.” The company celebrated its 50th anniversary in Brampton in 2014 and currently has 110 employees there.

With the launch of the Press-Lok manufacturing capability, the company’s facility in Canada was named a Center of Packaging Excellence, and it has attained major quality standards including QS9000, TS16949, ISO14001. It is also in the process of certifying to BRC/IoP Global Standards for packaging materials, to meet the strict requirements of large food producers.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Velcro Companies

ITMA Asia + CITME 2016 Exhibitor Preview: Thies

COESFELD, Germany — September 6, 2016 — Thies GmbH & CO. KG concentrates on sustainable product solutions and focuses on the development of innovative, intelligent and integrated concepts for yarn and fabric dyeing. Founded in 1892, the family company combines many years of commercial, product and application experience.

This time Thies Textilmaschinen will present the established and successful soft-TRD SIII. This machine is most versatile and specially designed for high-sensitive and super-critical fabrics. The 2016 version incorporates various new detail improvements, many of them developed in response to suggestions from customers and users.

The construction of the soft-TRD SIII combines the perfect running conditions of the famous soft-TRD SII with the latest short liquor ratio technology. With liquor ratios starting as low as 1:5 a variety of sensitive fabrics can still be treated gently and at the same time economical. Together with a high-performance temperature control system it makes the soft-TRD SIII even more ideal for polyester fabrics.

soft-TRD SIII has been specifically developed to meet the requirements of stringent international and local environmental protection regulations with simultaneous consideration of its economic efficiency.

Visitors are most welcome to visit Thies at ITMA ASIA, October 21-25 in Hall H6 Stand E 16.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Thies GmbH & CO. KG

Comez International Undergoes Change In General Management

FRICK, Switzerland — August 2016 — Bertram Wendisch will take a new challenge within the Jakob Müller Group as head of research & development and member of the group Management, and therefore will resign as general manager of Comez International by the end of August 2016.

With Bertram we are loosing a manager with great passion, dedication and loyalty, who helped Comez significantly during the business combination process with Jakob Müller AG, Frick and with continuous improvements.

For the new challenges in the headquarters in Frick we wish Bertram great success.

Paolo Malnati, assistant of the general manager, will take over the responsibilities as the new general manager starting September 1, 2016.

Before his assignment at Comez Paolo gained many years of experience as technical director with other textile machine manufacturers.

We wish Paolo great success in his new important role and we believe that the engineering background of Paolo will significantly contribute to the further successful development of Comez in the upcoming years.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Comez International S.r.l.

Frank Spaan Intended Successor To Eef Bos As CFO Of TenCate

ALMELO, the Netherlands — September 5, 2016 — Eef Bos has decided to step down as CFO of TenCate as of 1 October 2016. ”Since the company entered into a new phase of its development, this is for me a natural moment to leave TenCate.”

The Supervisory Board of TenCate thanks Eef Bos for his contribution and involvement with TenCate in the past years. The Supervisory Board has the intention to nominate Frank Spaan for appointment as his successor by the General Meeting of Shareholders as per 1 October 2016.

After this appointment the Executive Board of TenCate will consist of Jan Albers, CEO and Frank Spaan, CFO.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Royal Ten Cate N.V.

Teijin Frontier To Participate In Première Vision Paris

TOKYO — September 06, 2016 — Teijin Frontier Co. Ltd., the Teijin group’s fiber-product converting company, announced today that it will participate in Première Vision Paris, a major event for global fashion-industry professionals that will be held in Paris from September 13 to 15.

The booth, named TEIJINTEX® by TEIJIN FRONTIER (stand: 6K15), will feature fabrics made from two outstanding materials — SOLOTEX® and DELTAPEAK® — including a selected portfolio of Autumn/Winter 2017-18 materials developed with advanced  post-processing, spinning and yarn-processing methods.

  • Specific items in the exhibit will include:
    Solotex polytrimethylene terephthalate fiber is soft, stretchable, shape-retaining, dimensionally stable and brightly colored thanks to its molecular structure. Several versions will be presented, including glossy textiles and hybrid fabrics that blend with other fibers, making it appealing as all-purpose fashion materials. Partially bio-derived SOLOTEX® is also an environmentally friendly choice for the future.
  • DELTAPEAK® is a next-generation polyester fabric that combines excellent physical properties with high levels of functionality and quality. In addition to softness, durability and elasticity, the fabric offers ultraviolet protection and anti-transparency, as well as snag resistance due to its dense, flat-knit surface. Many global sports-apparel brands and manufacturers have already adopted the fabric. The booth will present a version of DELTAPEAK® that achieves excellent in resilience and glossiness texture thanks to a special post-processing method. Another exhibit will be a newly developed nylon-based DELTAPEAK, a great material for athleisure-type fashionwear.

Première Vision Paris, held twice yearly, is forecasting some 60,000 visitors and nearly 1,900 exhibiting companies from over 50 countries this time. By participating in the show, Teijin Frontier aims to increase its presence in Europe and continuing growing its global business.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Teijin Frontier Co.

Tailor-Made Viscose Fibers With Benefits For Hygiene And The Environment

KELHEIM, Germany — September 5, 2016 — These aspects are the key elements of two presentations at this year’s Dornbirn Man-made Fibers Congress that will highlight the latest activities of renowned viscose speciality fiber manufacturer Kelheim Fibres.
The presentations, however, will show completely different applications of Kelheim’s viscose speciality fibers.

While Dr. Roland Scholz — together with Dr. Jörg Zacharias from Krones AG — will report on the current status of a joint research project regarding the use of viscose fibers as a filtration aid in breweries, Sebastian Basel will talk about the use of viscose short cut fibers in hybrid nonwoven technologies as, for example, in the production of wet wipes.

Despite the completely different end uses, in both cases Kelheim’s specialities impress with their typical core properties:
These fibers can easily be adapted to the specific needs of the customer. In beer filtration, the formation and the structure of the filter cake of a viscose precoat filter can be controlled by the fibers’ geometry. Cross section, diameter and length of the fibers play a key role.

Entirely different aspects are important for the broad range of nonwovens products in the hygiene sector: Here, softness, flushability or high absorbency are required.
But these, too, can be controlled by modifications in Kelheim’s viscose short cut fibers — and not only by the last process steps of converting or finishing, as it is often assumed.

Another benefit is the environmental credentials of viscose fibers. Wet wipes and other everyday hygiene products are made for one-time use only. Shortcut fibers from Kelheim allow for the production of nonwoven wipes that can be flushed down the toilet without the danger of clogging and that are completely biodegradable.

In beer filtration, too, the object is to substitute diatomite — which is viewed in an increasingly critical manner — with eco-friendly viscose fibres that are a 100-percent compostable and can therefore be disposed at low cost.

And finally, there is another common aspect: both applications require an extremely high level of physiological safety and hygiene standards. That is self-explanatory when it comes to wipes for personal care and even more obvious in food and beverage filtration — viscose fibers from Kelheim are ideally suited for both applications.

The presentations highlight only two specific applications of Kelheim’s viscose speciality fibers — but there are many more. For further information on their range of versatile specialities, Kelheim’s fiber experts are available at their info booth in the foyer of the congress center.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Kelheim Fibres

ITMA Asia + CITME 2016 Exhibitor Preview: Reiners + Fürst

MONCHENGLADBACH, Germany — September 5, 2016 — At ITMA Asia + CITME 2016 in Shanghai Reiners + Fürst will present new travellers for Siro-Compact with optimized geometry and new surface characteristics. The end-users benefit from low yarn hairiness and longer traveller service life.

Customers in China prefer the latest generation of TURBO rings especially for Compact and Siro yarns. During ITMA in Milan R+F introduced this further milestone in high speed spinning. Already more than 2.5 Mio. units are running successfully in the markets. The enhanced surface allows increasing machine efficiencies by up to 10% – especially when producing yarns of sensitive fibres or with highest spindle speeds.

For worsted spinning R+F introduces J-travellers for ring heights of 9.1 and 11.1 mm with enhanced surface for better performance of the spinning process. Different shapes are available for top results in the whole range of worsted spinning.

For the processing of fibre glass R+F shows the latest series of horizontal travellers for twisting of fine fibre glass filaments for ring heights of 9.5 and 4.8 mm.

Customers especially value the professional service and support R+F is providing particularly for finding solutions of increasingly complex applications.

Visitors are invited to stop by at R+F’s booth at ITMA Asia + CITME in Shanghai: Hall H1, Stand B 30

Posted 6, 2016

Source: Reiners + Fürst

Shima Seiki Launches New Fashion Web Service

WAKAYAMA, Japan — September 5, 2016 — Computerized knitting machine manufacturer Shima Seiki Mfg. Ltd. has launched its Shima Trend Archive & Forecast (staf®) site, a web-based service dedicated to empowering its members with the means to search and download from a rich stock of information as well as tools to organize that information to aid in fashion planning, design and presentation.

With the fashion industry constantly updating its offerings every few months, fashion planners, designers and merchan- disers traditionally have come under enormous pressure to present new ideas on a consistent basis, leading to stress, psychological burn-out and even physical illness. As a means to alleviate this situation and give industry professionals an unprecedented opportunity to enhance their planning efficiency and capability, staf features an information archive of fashion and color trends covering the past 50 years in addition to those for the next season, as well as a massive collec- tion of fashion-related content, covering materials, flat sketches and design patterns. In addition, a vast collection of fash- ion photos are available in conjunction with the Aflo photo agency, and the latest fashion-related news articles can be picked up from news sites as well. All this information can be selected and sorted efficiently and organized in a concept board that can be shared among a variety of smart devices for presentation purposes.

Furthermore, the advantages gained from using staf can be enhanced significantly in combination with Shima Seiki own “SDS-ONE APEX3” design system. staf content can be imported, edited and processed quickly and easily on APEX3. 3D data can also be combined with APEX3’s simulation capability, offering even more powerful and effective pre- sentation.

A free 30-day trial is available upon account registration.

staf will be featured at the upcoming Première Vision show in Paris September 13-15, 2016, at Parc des Expositions de Paris Nord Villepinte. Special demonstrations will be available at the Shima Seiki booth in Hall 6, Booth 6J40-6K41.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Shima Seiki

A Personal Welcome To The USTER Total Testing Center: Let Assistant Q Take You On A Tour Of His Workplace

USTER, Switzerland —September 6, 2016 — Uster Technologies knows how difficult it is for spinners to recruit suitable employees. So the company is offering them a new virtual staff member. His name is Assistant Q and he has the know-how and ability to make a real difference in quality management and business success – as well as absolute loyalty and commitment. Meet Assistant Q at the Uster booth at ITMA Asia + CITME 2016.

Assistant Q is ready to slot in to a spinning company at a senior level. He already has 65 years of Uster experience and is totally quality-minded. In addition, Assistant Q is always there, working 24/7 as part of the new Uster Tester 6.

Smooth running of every mill operation

With the data from the Total Testing Center Assistant Q has an overview of all the processes in the spinning mill. He examines test data from every production stage, alerting management to any potential issues. He directs alerts to the personnel responsible via their PCs (and in future to mobile devices) and also manages the process of solving the problem. He records when messages are acknowledged and tracks the history of the issue to its resolution.

Assistant Q also handles the routine saving valuable time for quality managers. His systematic approach drives timely problem-solving and makes a vital contribution to avoiding quality complaints and claims from customers.

Data analysis and fabric predictions

This new staff member takes in all the test results and provides fast analysis and interpretation. For example, he might identify changes at the carding process leading to a lower nep removal efficiency. In that case, he would immediately report the issue to the relevant operator.

Assistant Q supports to prevent against negative feedback from buyers about unsatisfactory yarn quality for weaving and knitting applications. He evaluates fabric appearance, using a series of parameters and a grading system of 1 to 5. Yarns graded 5 are expected to be top of their class in fabric appearance. His vast application knowledge and years of sample testing underpin this grading system. He also makes reliable predictions for knitted fabrics, where pilling is a key issue. His grading here is based on the new hairiness values provided by the Uster Tester 6 – as well as other parameters affecting pilling resistance.

Meet Assistant Q in Shanghai

Assistant Q can be observed in action at the Uster booth at ITMA Asia + CITME 2016. Interested parties – as well as curious visitors – will be introduced to him in his workplace, the Total Testing Center. Here, accurate test results are combined with real-time information from yarn clearers and additional testing instruments. Assistant Q’s knowledge, experience and working practices are integrated in the Uster QUALITY EXPERT which is incorporated in the Uster Tester 6 evenness tester. With Assistant Q, the Total Testing Center is an indispensable tool for modern mill management, making the leap from traditional data collection to powerful analytics and informed decision-making.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: Uster Technologies

INDA Announces Three Novel Absorbent Hygiene And Personal Care Products As Hygienix Innovation Award™ Finalists

CARY, N.C. — September 6, 2016 — Banana fiber-based feminine pads, stretchable adhesives for disposable underwear, and facial exfoliating cushions are the top three contenders selected for their novelty, uniqueness, and technical sophistication as finalists for INDA’s prestigious Hygienix Innovation Award™.

INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, announced the following products are in the running for the annual award: Kimberly-Clark Corporation’s Kleenex® Exfoliating Cushions; H.B. Fuller’s Conforma™ Adhesive; and Sustainable Health Enterprise’s (SHE) Go!™ Pads.

The winner will be selected and announced at Hygienix, The Premier Event for the Absorbent Hygiene and Personal Care Markets, October 24-27, 2016, at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel in Orlando, Fla.

In its debut last year, Hygienix attracted over 600 leading professionals and excitement is mounting for a repeat strong turnout. Over three-and-a-half days, the newest and latest technologies, innovations, and advancements in this important and growing nonwovens segment will be spotlighted at Hygienix.

Each finalist will make a short presentation on Oct. 25 on how their product best meets the award criteria. The winner will be chosen by the Hygienix Conference participants, INDA’s Technical Advisory Board, and the Hygienix Conference Planning Committee, and announced on October 27 at the Conference.

“This year’s finalists were selected from many nominations received across the entire spectrum of absorbent hygiene and personal care products. These products demonstrate the high level of sophistication and creativity in our markets today,” said Dave Rousse, INDA’s President. “The finalists truly are the best of the best for expanding the use of nonwovens into new and exciting application areas. These leading companies raise the bar of excellence for all of us. Presenting the award is always an event highlight and this year won’t disappoint.”

The finalists are:

  • Conforma™ Adhesive – This unique, stretchable adhesive can be used in place of elastomerics to create a stretch feature in disposable absorbent products. It opens up new opportunities for manufacturers to design the next generation of more underwear-like, all-over stretchable incontinence products. The adhesive can be applied in-line and when combined with an extensible nonwoven it creates a conformable fabric that has high extensibility, softness, and easily stretches and retracts, according to H.B. Fuller.
  • Go!™ Pads – Using patented technology developed by SHE to make an absorbent core from banana tree agricultural waste, Go! ™ Pads maintain superior absorption without using any chemicals and super-absorbent polymers. SHE employs hundreds of local women through local sourcing of banana fibers and pad production while delivering an affordable product to girls, primarily in East Africa, who normally wouldn’t be able to afford pads causing significant costs to their education, health, productivity, and dignity. This breakthrough process will be used to develop a range of essential health products that address overlooked and taboo health issues, according to SHE.
  • Kleenex® Exfoliating Cushions – Combining multiple layers of nonwovens—each specially engineered to deliver a specific benefit—into a novel, versatile facial cleansing tool.  The result is a dual-sided cushion with one side that gently exfoliates with a textured nonwoven and a second side with a buffing texture printed on a non-woven to smooth and polish skin.  Inside the cushion a water activated cleanser creates a rich lather which is released through purposefully designed apertures on the exfoliating side which also allow the user to control the amount of exfoliation depending on the area of the cushion used.  Kleenex® Exfoliating Cushions leverage the versatility of nonwovens to deliver a completely unique and customizable facial cleansing experience, according to the company.

Posted September 6, 2016

Source: INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry

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