YORK – As part of our build up to this month’s ITMA Asia + CITME exhibition, this latest Ecotextile Talks podcast welcomes Alex Zucchi, president of CEMATEX, the European federation of textile machinery manufacturers, Jason Kent, CEO of the British Textile Machinery Association, and Richard Slack, managing director of UK-based Fibre Extrusion Technology.
Kent tells our host Phillip Berman how the ITMA brand is regarded as the ‘World Cup’ of the textile industry, bringing together the world’s leading suppliers of specialist manufacturing equipment.
Zucchi agrees, explaining how the role of ITMA is to provide a leading platform for the textile manufacturing supply chain. “It is unique in this sense,” he says. “Putting together the most important manufacturers of textile machinery of the world, there is no other exhibition like that.”
He also notes that with only original equipment manufacturers allowed to attend, ITMA is unique with the amount of live demonstrations of technology that it offers.
“I started in the industry in the mid-80s and back then there were big claims about machine performance and these claims needed to be substantiated,” he tells Berman. “And the only way you could do that was by having a full-size production machine running at production speeds at a physical trade fair.
“So you could put all the claims you wanted on paper, but people could see it with their own eyes – and they can still do that today.”
This is also relevant for Slack, who discusses how ITMA presents the ideal opportunity for manufacturers of specialist equipment such as FET to meet customers looking for higher value, highly technical solutions.
Listen to the podcast to find out:
- How the UK textile equipment sector has evolved from being a supplier of commodity machines to a major provider of specialist and highly technical manufacturing solutions.
- The importance of transparency in the textile machinery supply chain
- How Chinese machinery manufacturers are edging ever closer to a ‘level playing field’ and how European companies are working to stay ‘ahead of the curve’
- The importance of continued investment in research and development
- How textile machinery associations help for their members advance their sustainability agendas.
Subscribe to Ecotextile Talks podcasts and radio shows by following us on Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music. Also, check out our complete podcast archive.
