Oerlikon Manmade Fibers with the product brands Oerlikon Barmag and Oerlikon Neumag is the world market leader for filament spinning systems, texturing machines and BCF carpet yarn, staple fibre spinning as well as nonwovens solutions.
The Vice President of Oerlikon Manmade Fibre segment, Germany – Mr. André Wissenberg shared recent developments at Oerlikon with TEXtalks International at Techtextil 2017 in Frankfurt.
TEXtalks: What does industry 4.0 means to Oerlikon?
André Wissenberg: The industry 4.0 topic is one of the most important topics driving our textile industry. We – from the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment with Oerlikon Barmag and Oerlikon Neumag solutions for the production of manmade fibers, BCF, filaments, staple fibers, nonwoven and artificial grass – are focusing on this topic and presenting ourselves since a couple of months at ITMA Asia, at ITME India and now here are Techtextil in Frankfurt with solutions in the field of industry 4.0.
I would like to give an example: You might know the Microsoft HoloLens – it’s a development from Microsoft in 2016 and we were one of the first companies in Germany to come out with solutions for our customer services activities in terms of remote access. That means if you, as an operator in a plant, might have a problem and you can’t solve it by yourself. You just can take the augmented reality glass and share all relevant information with the camera and the screen that is available. You can share the situation on-site with an expert, for example, sitting somewhere in the world or in our facilities in Germany. Both together than solve the problem. The operator and the expert in Germany together can find a solution within a couple of minutes and this becomes a win win situation for both, for us and for our customers.
TEXtalks: Can you describe about Oerlikon Plant Operation Center?
André Wissenberg: Another topic in terms of industry 4.0 is our plant operation center, we call it POC 4.0. It is software that enables our customers to control and to measure what happens in the whole production value chain. It is not only focused on the spinning plants, also available for the texturing if you are going to do textured yarn, but also above this production process. So it is possible to use it along the whole textile value chain and you can use it not only in one production plant, but you can use it via a cloud solution also for several production plants you have in the world. Then, you are able to look at your smart phone and see all the details and all the dashboards that we are offering. So, as a manager for a company using our Plant Operation Center you will be able to control a global company.
TEXtalks: Can POC also be used for existing machinery solutions?
André Wissenberg: Plant Operation Center POC 4.0 can be implemented for new machinery solutions and also for already existing plant solutions. Here we are acting like a consultant, let’s say, we have to sit together with our customers to find the right solutions for them, to listen to their requests and requirements and then to offer them the best solutions in terms of Plant Operation Center.
TEXtalks: How was the response from the visitors during Techtextil?
André Wissenberg: Techtextil Frankfurt 2017 was an excellent exhibition. It is not an exhibition for machinery builders like we are in terms of showing machines. We have to listen to the visitors. We have to listen to our customer, because they are talking here, in Frankfurt, about materials – and we are the one who can offer them, let’s say “the heart of any material” in the textile world. The heart of any textile material is the yarn – e.g. polyester and nylon – and we have the production solutions for that. We took the opportunity in Frankfurt to listen to the customers and offer our solutions for the production of manmade fibers.
TEXtalks: How do you see the future of technical textiles?
André Wissenberg: The future of technical textiles has many opportunities and as we can see here at Techtextil in Frankfurt more and more technical textiles will be used in daily apparel. There are smart textiles, functional textiles and sportswear – and this is not a classical technical textile in terms of industry textile. So, technical fibers will be more and more part of our daily life. But there is another topic at the Techtextil that you can see more and more coming up – it’s the composites topic. There are also a lot of technical textiles in this regard. So, I see the Techtextil will grow and will adapt and take over other topics like apparel and maybe hometextiles – like the composites.
