Italian textile machinery manufacturers presented advanced textile solutions at ITM 2022 on June 14-18. Italian companies, which made their weight felt with their green labelled technologies at the exhibition, came together with numerous visitors from the global market as well as Türkiye. The Association of Italian Textile Machinery Manufacturers (ACIMIT) President Alessandro Zucchi made evaluations of the exhibition and underlined close cooperation with the Turkish textile industry, in an exclusive interview with Textilegence.
Zucchi stated that approximately 130 Italian textile machinery manufacturers participated in ITM 2022 and explained that more than 360 Italian companies will participate in the world’s largest textile machinery exhibition, ITMA, to be held in Milan in June 2023 and that they will show their main achievements there.
Zucchi emphasized that Türkiye is an important market and said that they make textile exports to Italy and also trust Italian technologies in production and prefer them. Zucchi, pointing out that Italian textile machinery manufacturers are in a competitive position in Türkiye, especially in the finishing and weaving segments, also mentioned that Türkiye continued uninterrupted production during the pandemic, and this was strong support for the textile industry.
Italian textile machinery manufacturers take digitalization one step further
Alessandro Zucchi explained that as Italian textile machinery manufacturers, they were significantly affected by the pandemic in 2020, and said that they learned that the meetings they held over the internet were very useful in this process and that they could maintain their relations with their customers while significantly reducing travel around the world. In addition, he disclosed that ITMA organizer is preparing a virtual show where the exhibitors will be able to contact permanently their customers during the exhibition and in between ITMA exhibitions. Zucchi, on the other hand, emphasized that face-to-face human contact cannot be compared with any other method and added that ITM 2022 confirms this.
“Strong government support will increase investments”
Stating that the concepts of digitalization and Industry 4.0 are very important, Alessandro Zucchi also underlined that, like all other issues, these also require investment. He pointed out that the investment opportunities of enterprises of different sizes will naturally differ and disclosed that they are lucky to receive strong government support and this paves the way for SMEs to step into the world of digitalization and Industry 4.0. Noting that investments in digitalization have increased, Zucchi emphasized the need for technical staff in this field.
“We will break new ground again by making our machines 100% recyclable”
The beginning of Italian textile machinery manufacturers’ works on sustainability date back to about 10 years ago. Alessandro Zucchi relayed that they have been thinking about sustainability as ACIMIT since 2011 and reminded that they were the first to develop the Green Label. Underlining that this is an important certification issued by an independent certification third party, Rina S.p.A., which enables companies to strongly reduce all energy consumption, he said; “So Italian machinery since 2011 has been improved. To put it in numbers, the technology innovations implemented by companies involved in the Green Label project translate into a reduction in energy consumption of about 84%.
Zucchi emphasizing that the data described on the label are reliable, said that they clearly indicate how much the consumption of energy, water, chemicals, etc. and CO2 footprint of each machine will be. He expressed that everyone is talking about sustainability today and added that they were asked questions about creating labels from other Countries due to their long-standing experience in this field.
Zucchi stated that ACIMIT also carries out different studies on sustainability and explained that as an association, it is working to reach a level where 99% of their machines will be produced from 100% recyclable materials. Zucchi shared the details of the study as follows: “This is not an easy job. There are a lot of complex plastics. We are currently working in this direction to also drastically reduce non-recyclable components. Thus, soon, we will have the first companies that will already be certified. I think we will break new ground again by making our machines 100% recyclable within a year.”
Referring to the importance of cost and convenience in recyclable machinery, Zucchi stated that in this sense, different materials other than plastic should be combined in order to prevent machine prices from going up too much. In addition, he stated that a lot of machines are still dyed with solvent-based chemicals and said; “But this is the first thing we have to avoid. Everything has to be done in a water-based and non-polluting way.”
“Best will be showcased at ITMA 2023”
Alessandro Zucchi concluded his words by emphasizing the importance of ITMA 2023 and said; “This will be the largest ITMA ever, with approximately 120,000 square metres of booth area. There are almost 1500 companies all over the world and 360 companies from Italy. That is why this is the real place where the best textile technologies around the world will be showcased.”