Korting Completes 20 Years of Service In India

Rendezvous

Korting Completes 20 Years of Service In India

Korting is well-known in the textile industry for its caustic recovery plants for mercerizing lye since 1956. It was Korting that found a way to recover the diluted caustic soda by evaporating water. Karl Hesse of Korting Hannover AG, explains about the caustic recovery plant, sustainable production and the business in India.

Can you explain in brief about the caustic recovery plant?

The basic idea of our system is to collect weak lye from the mercerizing process that can be recovered back in the mercerizing process. So that's a real recovery, if you talk about sustainable production that is a must.

Lot of people talk about changing, sustainable machinery and so on, there is little change in the process, it is not a production machine, the only purpose of this machine is to recover. It is difficult for us to convince people or make them invest money, because they don't get the direct effect the first time, but after some time, say after six months, the results are seen. It is a proven technology, we have references from all over India, and now that it is working, the customer can significantly reduce the operating costs.

How is your business doing in India?

Operation in India started in 1994, we are getting enquiries but there are some ups and downs in the investments like in any industry, but India is still our most important market. Korting has been in India as a joint venture for almost 20 years. Our Indian office is in Chennai, Korting Engineering Limited. We do not need to depend on any agent for our business.

Our customers are into woven fabrics, some customers are doing yarn mercerizing, and some of our customers are into knitted fabrics too. At present, we are into mercerizing machines; this is one of our limiting factors. Mercerizing effect is applicable on wovens, knits and yarn. The most interesting thing here is that India produces huge quantities of textiles, a lot of fabric is processed, lot of lye is used, so there is higher potential for savings. Korting is well-known in India not only in textile applications, but also in steel and other areas.

How has been your business after India ITME?

Lot of projects is in the pipeline but noting is coming to final set-up. Last year, after India ITME, people said market is picking up, lot of projects and discussions are going on, but projects are still in the pipeline. Our projects are getting postponed. The business is overall doing well in India but right now the market is a little slow because of the impending elections.

All bigger companies are our references. We are always offering tailor-made solutions so we don't have variations. As we do not have many variations, we need to sit with our customers, understand their requirements to give them individual solutions.