Rotorcraft's Breakthrough Innovation Is The Unbreakable Compact Unit

Rendezvous

Rotorcraft's Breakthrough Innovation Is The Unbreakable Compact Unit

When we stepped into Rotorcraft’s booth, a white meeting room and positive vibes touched us for a conducive chat. Midway through ITMA 2015,Frank Gossmann, CEO, Rotorcraft, was quite confident about the walk ahead and did not waste a minute to tell Anurima Das how business was getting a sustainable edge to commit to the needs of tomorrow.

How has ITMA been for you?

We have been having a good time since the beginning of ITMA this year. We didn't really expect that customers will walk in such good numbers from day 1 itself. We have had a good attendance of Indian customers, and also from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia. People are utilising their time at our booth to directly address their queries and discuss things with the medium and top level managements. In a nutshell it is a good start.

Let's talk about the innovations you have brought this year to ITMA.

Since the last 15 years, we have been dealing with compact spinning. Saving energy, resources and of course money was on our agenda this year. The green compacting system thus has been our foray this year. Getting rid of the spinning triangle has been our primary work till now. This time we have addressed bigger problems and the solutions to these are actually the innovations we bring to ITMA. The first problem was the fragile nature of the compact units. We were concerned about the amount of cost a spinner has to encounter to replace these ceramic compacts, each time it broke. Keeping this in mind, we came up with this unbreakable compact unit, which is cost effective and will not break even after a year. The second problem was that in many countries, including India, the spinning mills run at very high speeds. To adjust to this higher speed, we came up with a modification in our drafting and spinning angle. Apart from these, maintenance is also one parameter that we have tackled quite methodically at present.

How cost effective is green compacting?

There is a long debate regarding why to choose the green compacting systems and how much to spend. When some client comes to us to understand or make a choice, we first understand what they are going to spin. For the first timers or people who look for a lower yarn count, we ask them not to opt for Rotorcraft. But when you talk of high yarn quality, fine count yarn, yes we are the answer. Then the cost of switching to our systems are easier on the pocket and you end up saving cost on energy too, even though you are running the spindles at a high speed.

Are people ready to switch to green compacting by paying the price?

Yes they are. The word is 'sustainability'. People have been waiting for this shift for long. They are more than ready to switch to energy saving processes. A client of Rotorcraft has also named their yarn as Greenium: green premium yarn.

How do you think the textile market will progress in the coming year?

The big boom in China is over, even though we still count China as one of our biggest market. India is definitely going to be a stable market. A positive growth is what we can surely count on for the coming year.

Any marketing proposition to make it big in the coming months?

Standing here today, this is definitely a very valid question and we are definitely counted by the market as the R&D experts. This has at times in the past been a shortcoming for Rotorcraft, as we didn't quite know how to market our innovations/products. In order to capture the market you need to pull it too, a push is certainly not enough. We need to quite actively advertise and spread a word about the products as much as possible now, to pull in the right strings.