Fearless Continuous Intelligent Investor : Only Recipe of Sucess.

Finally, I crack this code, which separates luck from designed success. While to be successful in life, one needs to have loads of luck , but one thing, which is guaranteed to give success is the subject line.

It is a  pity that no biz school has ever taught its subject that success is clearly a product of Intelligent fearless continuous investments. It is only those who see the opportunities and are ready to take the risk fearlessly and invest their heart , body , soul and wealth into it will succeed sooner or later.

Not all investments give optimum yields, but that is why, I added the word , Intelligent. The intelligence of a person will validate an opportunity and make him invest and await his returns.

Within the corporate world, there are hundreds of cases, which  have shown growth with continuous investments and on the other side, there are so many companies, who take up follower ship rolls and only give average returns to its shareholders.

Investment needs courage and ability to lose money and even face a total loss, but sooner or later, such a person will succeed. However, those who wait for others to take the risk and look at others for inspiration usually end up  either in mediocrity or totally wiped out. Look at, what happened to Nokia, Kodak, Sony etc etc. These were very large profitable, but complacent non innovative and risk averse organizations.

Now investment has to be continuous, which is to say, each day and , whether in small packets or big scale. But it is sometimes, the investment of your money as a resource, and the other time, it is time or efforts into the project. But they key investment is always the wealth, without which nothing matters. Investing on hope, efforts and wishful thinking is like super imagination. But putting your money into it is the real test of an investor.

Routine jobs are for routine people and need standard operating procedures. These are not the skills of Top managers, however, so many of them are only involved in managing daily chores of routine events. This is seen all the more in the Textile Industry.

Top management is about exploring new opportunities, new technologies, new ventures, new systems, new products, new projects and everything which has risk associated with it and is unforeseen and unknown. Then putting sense into all of it and maneuvering intelligently all the asymmetries and taking it new heights. This is called fearless Investor .

What is the big deal, if you are managing the assets of a running company or adding some more machines or incrementally improving on the biz.  We already see, now a young man of 30 something already makes millions of dollars using his intelligence and can be from any part of the world. But these people are clear innovators and clear risk takers and fearless investors.  They take a plunge and have only one desire :

" Give Me Wings : Let Me Fly"

Twisting with 10 inches pot

Some years back , I wrote about TFO to have 8inches feed packages as one prime input to reduce the power and today after many years, the Industry  is switching to 8 inches.


Now, the smartest people in the Industry will go a step forward and change this to 10 inches feed packages and use only 90mm pot on the TFO.

With 90mm pot, one can go to speeds upto 18,000 rpm and with servo motors on the take up, now there is no issues of take up cam limitations.  As the dia of balloon drops from 145 mm Pot to 90mm pot, which is around 61`% lower, proportionately the power drops around 50%. Higher speeds will incrementally increase the power cost, but the higher productivity is anytime more profitable.

With Mantex tubes and 90mm pot, the package can be still around 1.2 kgs knotless. For sewing thread, this is like a killer technology. Where you now need only half the nos of machines to produce the same qty and yet the power cost is still the same as double the machines.

If you go down further to 75mm pot, than you reach speeds of around 19000 rpm and take around 950 gms package as input and 1. 89 kgs final package.

The design of the TFO substantially changes , but I will not give the design inputs here, Let the Industry learn from its own experiences.

All these are only for Technology oriented Specialist and not for everyone. Only the smartest companies, who make quick changes get the best advantage out of it.

10 inches precision Doubler winders from Peass and a new design of TFO and the world of twisting changes for ever.

Mantex Innovates Worlds First RFID Tagged Ring Tube

Mantex RFID Tagged Ring Tubes

No more head ache of controlling Ring Tubes. Monitor each piece and track its location.

Track your production Rate.

Track the count and keep it sorted.

Ideal of mill processing multiple counts.

Great for Mills doing colored yarns.

Minimizes the inventory and waste.

Check Humidity and temperature around the tubes.

Unique identification of each tube.

Life cycle studies.

Measure yarn breaks on individual bobbins.

Design zero break yarn packages.

Mantex Carbon Ring Spinning Tubes : Financial Engineering?

 Mantex Carbon Ring Spinning Tube is an awesome spinning utility and has caught the fancy of each spinner around the world. However, when it comes to trying the same , many technicians struggle with the price of the product.

Now, the irony is that a Technical man is not trained to be a finance person and finance person is not trained to be a technical person.  However, interestingly in the Industry, the jobs are such defined that each one wants to try his hand on other jobs without having the expertise of it. An accountant tries to become an engineer and an engineer tries to show his financial acumen and both screw up heavily.

The Mantex carbon ring spinning tube is around USD 2.00 per peice and a generic tube is around 30 cents a peice. So for any technical person, the price to price ratio of around 7 times higher. Now unless you are a finance or a economics graduate, it is difficult for a technical man to understand that money is only a resource, which is exploited to make more money. If we don't know, how to exploit this resource, any price paid is high. It does not really matter, if the product is 2 or 3$, but what matters is how fast it supports the growth of money or accelerates the returns or what you say as Return on capital employed.

If you buy money from bank at 6% and the product returns a capital of 125% in one year, then you have be to brain damaged to not switch your complete plant to such a product. In short , you are screwing the opportunity to get very large returns , because you feel , why to pay 7 times higher price for a product, which you bought till yesterday for almost free.

Interestingly, technician struggles ,when he has to pay 7 time higher price for a novel product. Not because, he does not love the product, but because he feels insecure and shaky and guilty in increasing the cost of production, . Something, which he learnt from the first day to reduce the cost was being a hero and increasing cost was considered criminal in a commercial set up.

Now, the moral dilemma can only be addressed, if the man is first taught the difference between investment and cost. Capital and Revenue expenditure. Returns and Taxes. In short , the financial engineering of the product. But finance is a  very deep subject and takes many many years to understand and master. So, why not just leave the finance part to the fiance guy and just stick to the technical part of the product.

But each technical man tries to get into prices ,without understanding the returns and resources created by the opportunity .He than invariably finds his heroism in either selecting the cheapest product or delays the investment and shows the management that he is saving the company thousands of dollar, though actually screwing the company and biz.

It is such a simple and easy explanation : Say, you buy a house and the house is USD 100k. Now you go to bank and borrow money at say 6 % to buy this house. So, total cost of the house is now USD 106k.  Now, you choose to rent this house for say USD 125K per year. Practially, you get back the complete USD 106K invested and also get back another bonus of USD 19k. This is becuase, you are a smart ass, who could find an opportunity in the market to rent his house at such a price and get his returns back.

In short, it was the returns, which mattered and not the cost of the product. If the return was only USD 25 k and say, the cost of money was 1%, yet it was more expensive. Therefore price is not a threshold criterion. But returns created from the opportunity is the final number . Does the product create enough returns to be viable and attractive and profitable. Money, we can always buy from the bank.

Let us now look at Mantex Carbon Ring Spinning Tubes
Price of USD 2.00 per peice
Key deliverable s

1. 4% Power saving and 20% cop content.
2. 1% increase in production as higher avg speed for larger cop content
3. 2% improvement in auto coner efficiency .
4. 0.5% improvement in Ring frame efficiency .

Net result is payback of 9 months . Or Return on capital employed is 125%.

Now, if a technical man delays installation of Mantex carbon tubes in the spinning plant, or is not able to standardize the product, he is practically screwing the company of very large profit resource. 

In short, one could buy money from bank at 6% and get 119% higher returns by exploiting that money via this product from his current biz. This is called Financial Engineering or Financial genius.

Those companies, who will understand this simple equation fast will quickly make money, others will do it slowly. But this is the future, no one can ignore it. Like it or dislike it. Delay it or start it, but how can you ignore 119% return on capital employed ?

Further, if you are Finance guru, than you classify the product as revenue expenditure and write off the cost within the first year itself and get 100% tax rebate. Practically, it is tax which is paying for your product and your cost is zero. And if you classify it as a capital product, yet, you get 25% depreciation benefit.  

By delaying the non usage of such a utility is only either on account of laziness of the management or incompetence. For me ,this is simple Science and the commerce does not matter.

Mantex carbon tubes an example of Quantum Mechanics and Applied Materials.

Parachute on Plane

My last blog on parachute on Plane and a company had designed a plane with parachute landing for emergency purposes.

Herein the video. Some day, I hope all planes will have parachutes to save planes from disaster.

Air Asia Plane and Taiwan Plane fall: Wish these had Parachutes

In one of my earlier post

http://mantexag.blogspot.com/2014/03/airplane-parachutes-lesson-from.html

I wrote about Parachutes to be installed on the top of planes. Both these accidents were such, which could have saved lives, if the parachute thing was a reality.

The plane parachutes are a very simple solution and in case of emergency situations, the possibility of plane landing softly is greatly enhanced.

Cannot understand, why Boeing and Airbus cannot have this simple solution. It is too big a thing for me to try it out, but I will finally design something and try on some small plane soon.

Let me sent an offical email to Airbus and Boeing till then with complete drawing of my system.

Hope, others can join me in this call to the aviation industry. Hundreds of safety procedures followed , but the most important and dangerous part , which can be simply installed is ignored.

Insan Sandang Indonesia becomes the First Company To Go For Sustainable Carbon Utilities for Twisting

Insan Sandang has chosen to use the Carbon Utilities for their Twisting Department in their new spinning project.

Mr Teddy, the Director, wants " Sustainability" as an integral part of his new venture and therefore chose the Carbon Tubes against Plastic Tubes for the Twisting Unit. Further, he awaits the standardization of the Ring Tubes in Carbon and would switch to these to make the complete plant free of Plastics.

Mr Mitra, the CEO of the company claimed that besides the " Sustainability" factor, the company will be to get 2.5 kgs knotless packages on TFO with the Carbon Tubes and this gets them 4% advantage over conventional utilities.

Insan Sandang becomes the first Textile company in the world to go the Carbon Utilities way . It will lead the Industry into a new era of Micro- structures for Materials in Motion with sustainable and cost efficient Advanced Materials.

I hope within the next 5 years, this becomes viral and a standard industry practice. The textile Industry will then enter the new era of Advanced Materials.

Twisting With Small Pots : Less Capital, Lower Operational Cost : Thx To My Patented Carbon Tubes

Never Twist with a pot dia of more then 120mm again. Kiss the bigger pots a good bye. And if you have larger pots on TFO, time to change the spindle to 120mm pots.

Till now, the 120 mm pot could hold only 850 gms of yarn and hence was non compliant with the market requirement of 1.89kgs cones with one knot.

Precision Assembly Winder with Mantex Carbon Tubes

  But this gets resolved with two solutions.

1. Using a Precision Winder to getting a better density of the yarn.
2. Using Carbon Tubes , which shaves off 5 mm thickness of the plastic tubes and give the extra room to give higher content.

Now you can get 1.1 kgs with 38 mm tubes on Precision Winder for 120mm pot diameter. Thereby giving 1.89Kgs++ packages with one knot, which are standard in the market. Though, if you are a little smart, you can get 1.2 kgs knot less on the 38mm tubes, but will need to manipulate the traverse to be around 160mm or a little more.

In fact, it given an opportunity for the machine maker to go down on the spindle size to be only 115mm, with a pot of 120 mm, which will give 950 gms as the pay load.

For Sewing Thread makers, this is a boon. They can take one to one 1200 gms knotless dyepackages directly on the TFO and no need to rewind on soft cone winders.

This practically means, the Investment in TFO project comes down by 25%.
Because, when you use a smaller pot of only 125mm ( VTS 10), the speeds go up by 25%. 

Say, if you want to put a plant of 40 TFOs, then one would actually get the same production as that of 150mm pot dia with only 30 TFOs of  125mm pot dia. And not only that, since, the pot is smaller, the operational cost comes down by 20 to 25% . Eg 40 TFOS of 160 mm pot dia will need USD250 per spl x 160 spls per machine x 40 machines = USD1.6 Million. And investments in drum assy winders : USD600 X 160 Spls x 4 machines ( Taking 1 spl of assy winder = 10 spls of Drum winder ) say USD400k. Total of TFO + Assy Winder = USD 2 million.
Now, take a 120 mm pot TFO, the nos of machines required only 30 for exactly the same production : 30 x USD 200 per spl x 160 spls = USD 960K, Plus Precision Assy winder : 4 machines x 100 spindles x USD1600 =  USD 640K. Total of USD 960K+ 640k = USD1.6 million Against USD2 million of large pot dia machines.  Which is 25% lower overall investement, besides the savings on the knotters, blowers, cables, space etc etc.

Now, if you have 40 TFOs , then all it takes is replacing the pot to 120 mm from , whatever pot size is there on the current TFO, And you sell off 10 machines and from the sales proceeds , fund the conversion of the other 30 machines to 120mm pot .

Power is a function of spindle size and the balloon in TFO. However, one has to find an optimum speeds for power savings as beyond a certain speed the power again goes up exponentially. Therefore, technically though 120 mm pots can go upto speeds of 14500 rpm. But the best speeds would be around 12,500 rpm. Which is still 25 to 30% against the big pots speeds of 9000 rpm.

Lower Capital For Same Production

As per above chart, the total investment comes down by 25%. Infact, the investment in TFO comes down to almost 66% of the original investment. However, one has to invest a little higher into Precision Assembly winders against Drum Winders. If you can get a good deal for the precision winders, then the investement becomes almost 40% lower then the large pot TFO with drum winders.

The savings are 

Power savings upto 25%.
Labor saving
Space Saving
Utility Saving
Trolleys, knotters, etc etc

Changing from large pot to 120 mm pot is very simple. Needs only spindle change. However, to get the real deliverable, one needs to have a precision winder or invest into a new precision winder.


This marks the end of Drum Assembly winders and opens the new chapter of small pots for Twisting. However, to get 1 kgs payload on the tube, only would be possible with my tubes. Thereby giving more then 1.89 kgs with one knot.

My 3rd Patent : Eco centres for Yarn Dyeing

Frome Cones To Eco Centres . From 19th Century to Digitial Age.

Plastic Out, 

Eco Centres

 15 to 25% Less Water Usage in Dyeing

Eco Centres For High Temperature Dyeing

Eco Centres In Action 

If you care for Enviroment, you will choose Eco Centres For Dyeing.

70,00 Kilo litres of Water Saved Per Year in 10 TPD yarn Dyeing Plant with Eco Centres

The mindless usage of water in the Yarn Dyeing Industry is more on account of incompetence in the Industry rather then the need of the Industry. Like I have written earlier in my blog on " Yarn Dyeing Machines : Fraud of the Century ". Where most dyers refused to use their knowledge of technology and simply follow the practices of 19th century.

Let us see, how a simple product, where in the potential energy changes to kinetic energy on compression brings about 15 to 25% reduction in water and hence all the related savings of power, chemicals, labor, space etc etc.

The compression of the Eco Centres provides room for additional loading of yarn onto the same spindle. Thereby using the same water, chemicals, energy, labor, you are now dyeing additional 25%. This translates to profit of USD1 Million per year for 10 TPD yarn dyeing plant.

The New Patented Eco centre licks away all the issues of the old metal dyesprings.

1. It provides covers to the ends, so no yarn slippage on the ends and hence no wastage.
2. It protects the ends of the dyesprings, so longer life of a dyespring.
3. It gives room for the dye centre on the winding machine so the drum and the dyecentre do not foul with one another.
4. It provides uniformity of compression.
5. The slip clips on the dye centre ensures that the initial winding of the yarn is perfect.
6. The Unwinding Caps ensure that the yarn unwinds till the last layer.
7. The Life of the eco centre is 5 years with the right kind of hydro.
8. The open space provides the free flow of liquor. So , no poor dyeing in the initial layers
9. The compression provides the uniformity of dyeing by equalization of density.
10. For coarser counts less then 20s, there is no other way, but to use mantex eco centres for dyeing. Even after precision winding.

My 2nd Patent: Physics of Yarn Dyeing/ Density Measurement And Sorting of Soft Packages.

Because Yarn Dyeing is a Physio-Chemical Process. The Physics of Dyeing is as important as Chemistry of Dyeing.

The Physics of Dyeing Comes by managing the Uniformity of Density achieved by:

1. Angle of Wind, which ensures the same number of layers from top to the bottom of the package.
2. The Shape of the package, which has to be cylindrical and compressible. Compression is the only phenomenon which ensures that the unevenness of the soft packages from precision winder is neutralized.

However, there is still no such practical system, which measures and sorts out the density range of the soft packages as required for good dyeing.

Herein my Solution

Co-ordinates For Volume

The imaging technology captures the volume if the soft package via a camera.

The Soft Package is placed in position and the machine started. The Pusher arm pushes it under the DMS, where the camera captures the volume and the weighing machine under, captures the weight.

The Density is then worked out by the computer and the sorting program pushes the soft packages into bins.

The Off Density packages , viz above are pushed into one bin, the below in another bin and those within the range come straight to the end bin.

This way the dyer can then dye, the above range soft packages together and the below in another lot, without the need of rewinding. Also, the RFT percentage improves on account of the correct physics of yarn dyeing.

DMS In Action At Sewing Thread Plant.

The production rate is around 6 nos per minute or say around 10 tons per day.

Currently under Beta Testing and should be available to market in another 3 months time. Expression of Interest is welcome.

My 3 Patents This Year : Carbon Spinning Tubes; Spinning will never be the same Again.

This year, I took 3 patents, two in area of dyeing and one in spinning. Let me start first with the Mother of all the 3 patents viz : "Carbon Spinning Tubes "

What happened to Light Bulbs in the last decade will be the same model, which will take place for Ring Tubes with my invention. Ten years from now, there will be only my tubes for ring spinning and no other tubes. This will be my legacy, the world will remember for a very long time to come. InshaAllah!

For the last 3 years, I had been struggling to make carbon composite spinning tubes and then with the help of a Japanese company ( Which does not want to be identified at this stage ) the product was Prototyped.

Patented Carbon Composite Spinning Tubes

What is the difference between the Normal Ring Tube and Carbon Spinning Tubes

Carbon Ring Tubes in Action

There are 4 very Significant changes that take place in the spinning industry with my this patent.

1. The weight of the tube comes down from 42 gms to only 8 gms on a 7 inches tube giving major power saving upto 9%
2. The wall thickness of the tube is only 0.5mm against the wall thickness of 2.5 mm of current tubes. Which means, practically you take 40 to  55% higher content per tube and therefore higher efficiency on the Ring Frames and and higher efficiency on the Auto Coner.
3. The wall thickness allows a yarn spinning on 42mm ring dia to change to 38 mm ring dia and take 11.5% minimum higher productivity.
4. Which also means, that, if the machine is now with 38mm ring dia, the pitch of the spindles reduces and hence in the same space, one gets more number of spindles and hence higher productivity per ring frame and lower utility cost of suction and blower fans and humidity fans. A gain in 10% spindles per ring frame means for each 10 machines, one machine is already less .

The tubes are now under Beta Testing in 3 countries and the first results are  very encouraging. I got my patent in Feb 2014 and the PCT has been filed for the Global Patent.

This would mark the first ever carbon composite product to be brought into Textile Industry by someone. 

The next product being tested by me is the tube for TFO, wherein the 38 x43x 170mm Tube is being changed to only 37.5mm OD. Giving a room of 5 mm for the extra yarn. This will change the whole concept of TFO and the spindle size of 100 mm and 120 mm will become the universal pot size with contents as same , which now goes into 135 mm and 145 mm pot dia. Look for my next post on these trials.

Spinning and Twisting will never be the same. One small step for Atul, one big leap for Spinning.

Airplane Parachutes : Lesson from Malaysian MH 370

Someday, the black box will be recovered and they mystery of the flight landing in middle of nowhere resolved. Having taken more then a 1000 flights in my life, I have never felt very safe in a plane and always took the emergency seat or the seat next to the front door. There are many a flights, where I felt, I had to kiss good bye to everyone and luckily nothing happened. But in flying, as soon as the plane rocks, the first feeling is that of the last stage, as the chance of survival is minimal.

Here as a Textile Expert, I cannot stop myself designing a solution for falling planes.

All, it takes a a parachute of the size of Boeing/ Airbus or whichever plane, embedded on the top of the body of the plane, which can either be manually opened or programmed to automatically open against certain set of failures.

Which means, there will be two very large parachutes, one on the wings and another one on the top body running parallel to it and secured in place with hooks. The two parachutes , like a plus sign, will keep the plane in balance while floating down.

Though, planes are already designed to glide for around 30 to 40 mins, in case of an engine failure, yet the mechanism of its safe landing during accident is altogether missing. For air force jets, parachutes are fitted behind for fast braking, the same principles applies for slow landing of a failed plane in mid air.

The parachutes can be made out of simple carbon fabric to keep the weightlessness. Same for its ropes. The whole parachute will not be more then 50 kgs, but a very key part of safety in aviation. The cost of this will not be more then a few thousand dollars per plane.

The plane of course, if it lands on sea, should have the equipment to move as sea planes. And if it lands on ground, then to have cushion padding on the bottom part of the body. This can be a simple non woven material as that of polyurethane. Infact, the padding itself will allow the plane to float on sea, then to sink, so it acts as a double purpose.

Another issue is about the plane rocking in turbulence. Actually, if you see outside the window, there is no turbulence around. But the plane still rocks. The reason is the density of the air changes suddenly and the plane struggles to move in the changed density. Same as you were to drive a car on sandy road. However, if there were equipment's, which could monitor the density of air for the next 50 miles or whatever miles required for the plane to maneuver itself. The plane can accordingly steer itself above or below that air pocket. This simply need a electromagnetic wave to pass through air as in case of a radar and capture the distortion.

The big challenge is still to make it land at a slow speed. The current speeds of landing have been a cause of many an accidents ,as more accidents have been seen on ground then in air.
The landing speeds simply cannot be more then 50 to 60 miles per hour. While for a take off, it is understandable, that it needs high speeds to get the winds to follow Bernoulli`s equation. But for landing, the plane has to get into the gliding mode in its last phase of landing.

On the fire on the planes, it should be mandatory to have all the inner-walls and upholstery made out of Flame Retardant Fabrics. The fuel tank should be detachable. 

Rest, I hope, soon there will be a textile band, which will be fitted on the head of the pilot and will monitor his mind in real time, lest he takes it for a joy ride into middle of sea. Any deviation from the normal route should automatically alert the ATC .

At the end, what  is a plane, simple two engines on a wing. Rest is all like a bus. Canadian University has now designed a plane, which you can pedal and fly it up in air. No engines.

Hope, we see the changes coming soon.

Carbon Comes : Carbon Conquers.

Organic Chemistry has only three elements viz Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. How nature manipulates these three elements to offer mankind innumerable such products, which are coherently and incoherently embedded in everything around us. It is only in Textiles now for the first time that the importance of these three as individual elements is being exploited to render products, which will shape the world around us.

Whether individually or compounded with a resin, each of these will form the basis of High Technology in the coming years.

Du Pont was the only company, which kept investing into Life Sciences products and exploited symmetrically the carbon chains bonded with other elements to make unique products, whether it was polyesters or fluropolymers. 

When I first learnt about Carbon fibres at University, I could never relate anything around me which was made out of these fibres. It was therefore thought to be a impractical technology. But after 25 years, it has suddenly taken the world by a storm.

Look at aircraft engines, car bodies, wind mills, sports equipment's, helmets and wherever weight is an issue.

It is only another 5 years, when I see that almost all machines will be 50% composite by weight and most of it will be simply carbon fibre. And the biggest breakthrough will happen , when the transmission gears, cams and belting etc gets converted to a carbon composite.

Imagine your huge Ring Frame of 1080 spindles will not weigh more then 100 kgs, with carbon body, carbon spindles, carbon drafting systems and in place of aprons and cots, the carbon nano tubes. Further imagine the traveler will not slide on the ring, but will have magelev drive to have speeds beyond imagination. The Dyeing machine of 2  tons capacity will weigh less then 100 kgs with carbon laminate body. A complete sulzer weaving machine with carbon body, carbon healds, carbon take up beams will weigh less then 100 kgs and in all the above cases, the power consumption will be fraction of what is it now.

The simplest solutions will come in Civil Engineering, where a house can built with carbon laminates, windows, doors etc within few hours and the roofing will be from ETFE film. All you need is to take with you one roll of ETFE film to a disaster zone, put in some carbon rods and cover it up with ETFE film and your house is ready. Further, if the ETFE film is embedded with silicon solar cells, then use your lap top and if you know, how to manipulate frequencies, set up a free internet connection and stream with the world.

Invest into your carbon composites now or be left behind. It is time to seriously study carbon fibre and its downstream.

China: The Price Keeper of The World!

I started travelling in China in early 90s and since then I have seen China changing from dilipated factories and outdated machines to a modern developed nation. My early memories of the textile mill in Shanghai was so pathetic that I could have not believed that the mill was running with zero quality systems and if the yarn got wound on the cone, it was already an acceptable product. Extremely bad working conditions, broken walls, broken ceilings, stinking bathrooms and work was done very casually.

And same, I saw in Tianjin, Beijing, Ningbo, Dalian. However, as time passed and I kept visiting more mills, the change was seen year after year. The Shanghai mill disappeared and came a flourishing office complex. Same with most mills in Beijing.  Nicer and bigger textile complex came up in Ningbo, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou. Investments came up with modern machines from Europe and work standards came to International standards.

Now, ofcourse, China has become a leader in Textiles and not just textiles, almost everything under the sun comes out of China. However, the best part is not just about the production capacities, but also the quality has systematically improved.  Given that it has advantage of Economies of Sale, the prices are always attractive. The results is that today China has set the standards of Prices for all the products in the world.

If today, I offer a yarn or machine or fabric or clothing, the first thing people check is , how the price compares against Prices from China.

China has a magnet of Price and without marketing efforts, customers search for their supply chains within China and usually find a suitable supplier. No other country in the world has been so much successful in creating such a huge market for its products and services in such a short time of 20 years.

Despite the language barrier, China is a nice place to do biz. People are generally very nice and very hospitable and they try their best to offer a product or service, which would meet your acceptance.

For me, I am quite happy that for almost everything under the sun, not just textiles, the prices are kept in control by the Chinese, otherwise, these multinationals would take away all my little earnings with their fancy prices. Now to be competitive, everyone has to keep his prices very close to the Chinese prices.

Chinese companies are taking over giant companies in US, UK, Europe and at this rate, they will easily take over from Japan as the second largest economy in the world.

Good job China!

Mathematics of Hydroextraction

Basket Type Hydro

 Water removal from Textile Packages has always been a challanging task. In the 70s, it was only the basket type hydroextactor, where textile packages where horizontally kept and basket rotated on its axis to centrifuge the water. The improvement over the years was to have a spindle on which the yarn packages were loaded and then the basket spins.

Water removal from textile packages is again dependent upon the moistre regain and the abosorption properties of the yarn. In case of polyester, it can be 90% moistre removal and in case of cotton, it can be only 50% and viscose only 30%.

The interesting part of this technology was the mathematics, which shows the moistre removal rate and percentage of residual moistre.

Centrifugal Acceleration Governs The Rate Of Water Removal From Porous Package,

 This Also Defines When The Equilibrium Stage

Is Reached Between Surface Tension And Centrifugal Forces

The Governing Equation

C= 4o(2)f (2) r

Where f is the frequency of rotation of centrifuge

Within Bracket shows, to the power of the preceeding symbol

Variation of Centrifugal Acceleration is Cause For Terminal Retention of Water in a Package

Retention is Time Dependent : Water before escaping from Package should Move Through It To Outside Surface

Rate of Movement Depends Upon 

Balance Between Viscous Flow Forces

And

Accelerating Centrifugal Force And Restraining Capillary Forces

Large Capillaries Empty First and Small Capillaries Empty With Difficulty

The Mass of Retention In Capillary is Given By the Equation

Ahs = ltCosq / C

Where A  is the Area of capillary, l the peripheral length of capillary, h the height to which the capillary is filled with water, s is viscosity of the liquid, t , the surface tension and q the contact angle, C , the centrifuge acceleration.

Hence Mass Retention is Inversely Proportional To Centrifuge Acceleration

As C is increased, more capillaries opened and a stage is reached, when capillary retention is proportional to 1/ C

At any point in the Package, the rate of Movement of Moisture (u) in a centrifugal gravitation force (C) 

Is Given By    u = CK

Where K is the Permeability of the package

This is the maximum amount of water, that can be removed by Centrifugal Field Against Capillary Forces

In case of Cotton, it is 45%

Polyester Textured , it is 90 to 94%

 Acrylic : 90%

Nylon : 90%

Viscose : 30%

Polyester Sewing Thread : 90%

Based on the Above Numbers, it is now possible to Calculate the Spinning Time To Achieve the Equilibrium Stage For Hydro with speed variable.

Conclusion For Basket Hydroextractors

During Hydroextraction, water migrates from the Porous Package In Direction of Centrifugal Field. Rate of movement depending mainly on the Porous Structure of the Package, the water retention and the field strength.

As larger pores empty, retention reduces and rate of flow declines until balance is reached when capillary forces retain moisture within the material against the influence of the centrifugal forces.

As per Theory, the Porosity of Package and Pore Size Distribution is an important element of Hydro-extractors. Current Hydro-extraction system does not provide the element of squeezing the water initially out of the package and creating enough porosity within the package for easy removal of water.

Axis Type Hydroextractor

Unlike Basket Hydro , where at the Radial End of Basket, the Packages move with Basket.

The Axis Spinning spins the Packages on its own Axis.

In Basket Hydro, the Effect of variation of Centrifugal Field was insignificant for Moisture Retention.

In Axial Spinning, the centrifugal acceleration depends upon the spinning speed and also depends upon the size of the package.

Larger the Package, Greater The Acceleration

Maximum Acceleration At Outside 

Cmax = 4p(2)f(2)R0

Where f is freq. of rev, R0 is OD of Package

Within Bracket shows to the Power of Pie or f 

Where as the Average Acceleration within the package is given by

 Cav = Cmax 2/3 ( R1/R0  + R0/ R1+R0)

Where R1 is the ID of package

As OD of Package Increases, Avg and Max acceleration Increase for a Given Speed 

Acceleration Increases as Rate of Rotation Increases

But interestingly from the equation, as OD increases, the Cav reduces and hence the Water Retention in Packages Become Higher

Technically, one would expect that Retention Of Moisture In Axis spinning packages should be lower then Basket Hydro

But In Real Life Experiments it was seen that the Small Packages Dried 

More Then Large Packages exactly following the equation

This is explained as below

Moisture Is Distributed Evenly Through The Package

High Retention Zone Occurs At Outside Surface, 

Most Remote From Centrifugal Axis

Spot The Large Molecules At The End Of Package after Hydroextaction

Caused By Migrating Molecules To End Of Package Under Centrifugal Field

But Unable To Escape On Account of Surface Tension Forces

Result is Crooked Packages

For Same Value Of Cmax , effect of each zone retention on overall retention of moisture  will be Proportional to

Package Circumference / Cross Sectional Area

That is

R0/ C ( R0 (2) - R1(2))

Retained Water can be Divided Into Two Parts

That Dispersed Throughout the Porus Material

That Held At Or Near The Outside Surface

Rate Of Equilibrium In This Case Depends Upon

Porous Structure

Field Strength Within Package

Conclusion

Axis Type Hydroextractor Has A Major Shortcoming In Fluid Separation From Textile Material

Correction To System

It was First Done By Dr Frauchiger in Switzerland

Who Designed Package Holding And Pressing To Break The Boundary Layer And Break the Surface Tension to allow the large molecules removal.

Hydro with Fingers

Optimal Hydro,Compliant with Technology.

 In short, the Axis type Hydro has a major shortcoming and gives oval shaped packages. Yet is the most popular hydro sold in the world , because of its productivity.
The Dr Frauchiger hydro also has a high productivity, but extremely expensive machine, but worth the investment.

Markets are, where People Are!

China and India both have huge population.  Both these countries also have a huge area and both are one of the most ancient civilizations on planet earth.

The combined population of these two countries would be say 2.7 billion. The global population of 7 billion has around 40% people from India and China.  And to this number, if I was to add further the Chinese from Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia etc, it would easily come to 50% of the global population to be Chinese or Indians. Which means 1 out of every 2 persons in the world is now either an Indian or a Chinese.

Interestingly, both these communities have seen new found wealth and both have almost the same middle class attitude towards spending wealth to get a taste of better life.  The ever increasing middle class is creating markets for goods and services for almost anything and everything.  Never before has the economy seen such an expansion like in the last decade.

But it is not the spending habits of the people, which is changing the economy of these countries, but the magnitude of the number of people. Spending in Europe or US or North America could be many times higher then Asia, but the total number of people are too small to be be aggregated to show an improvement of GDP more then 1%.

The American and European brands regularly see more growth in China and India, then the rest of the world. The markets for almost each and every product has zoomed in these Asian markets. Imagine, if only 1% of the total population in China or India was a multimillionaire then it already had more millionaires then the total population of the full country like Belgium, Switzerland, Holland etc.

For whatever it is worth the largest markets for almost everything will now remain as India and China for the next many decades. Both these countries also have typical behavioral pattern in purchasing. Either they buy the most expensive or they buy the least expensive.  Markets are generally driven by perceptions and less by evaluation or value offerings.

Markets are, where People Are!

3D Printed Yarn

It is only in my last post that I wrote about 3D garments and now is already available a 3D yarn printer.

Tim Elmore got successfully funded by Kickstarter and has come out with a  very novel invention, wherein a  ABS yarn is extruded out of a 3D printer . Though only of 1.75 mm and 3 mm dia, but it is a good start.  This becomes the proof of concept that the future will be small yarn printing machines, which will roll out enough yarn for a small company with very low investment.

All it would need is feeding of a chip and out comes the yarn. Further, with master batches, one can have colors as desired.

It will not really take long, before other polymers like Polyester, Poly-amide , PP get into this application. Further, if the take up winder can be made to rotate on its axis, the yarn can come in twisted state. The thru put of the machine is small and hence slow speed winding and very easy possibility of twist insertion at the time of direct extrusion. May be there will be a need of an intermediate roller, where the cooled down yarn takes a wrap, before going to the take up twister.

The current invention of Tim gives a thruput of 2.5 to 5 Lbs per day,  but with a scaled up model, this can be very much increased. Have a look at Tim`s Invention

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/833191773/filastruder-a-robust-inexpensive-filament-extruder

Again it is a Mechanical Engineer who is coming out with Textile solutions and as usual the textile community is slow in catching up with new inventions.

In the next 10 years, this machine will become the most popular machine with most weavers and knitters as they don't have to depend upon the yarn supplies anymore from distant countries. Shove in the polymer and you are up and running . Attach a 3D knitting machine and pops out a ready to wear garment. May be the local retail branded showroom will become the garment factory giving fresh hot, ready to wear garments.

Textile 3 D Printers

The Polyester and Nylon chip makers should feel extremely pleased that it is only now a matter of time before a 3 D Printer application will be rolled out for people to have their own garments printed out of a machine.

All it would take is a polyester chip, which will be fed to the printer and then the software makes a garment, which will be as your size. You can always scan your own body for the measurement and key in the details.

Few hours later, out comes the ready to wear garment.  What more, it will be as per your design and colors. Because the 3 D Printer can also put in a kind of Jacquard design and colors as per your choice.

You view the garment on your screen and approve for its shape, size, colors and everything else and out comes the garment. No stitching, no washing, no dyeing , no other fuss.

The first will be the easy garments like socks, stockings, gloves , inner wear and it will then go to all the complex garments.

For your next party, you will visit a garment printer and view various designs and press the start button.

Interestingly, the Adidas shoe is the first 3 D shoe, which gets out of such a mold. However, I still don't know, if it is a printed product or molded product. But at-least the thread makers have lost their Nylon bonded thread market forever now.

But you could well print your own sports shoe in few hours.

Polyester chips are around USD1 a kg and a garment normally is not more then 400 gms. Which makes the material cost as 40 cents and then the inks around another 50 cents and thereafter the printing cost.

With say less then USD5, you will now have a nice colorful 3D garment .

The only challenge will be to give the crimp to the extruding polymer. But a 3D printer can also give a crimping effect .

For applications like tents, hose pipes, geo textiles, agro textiles, etc, the printer can print the polyester along with the metal.

It is an interesting world in Textiles waiting to explore.

Non Woven Garments

Time has come, where the Non Woven Garments will flood the market.

Some of the easy applications are

Socks
Stockings
Inner Wear
Sports wear
Han kerchief
Napkins
Towels
Home Furnishing like Curtains
Non Woven carpets
Wipes
Hygiene products
Medical Applications like Buds and Dressings
Interlinings
Special will be Composites, where carbon fiber will get mixed up with non woven fibers for structural applications .


And the list is limited to the Imagination of the person.

The manufacturing will be simple as there will be a simple mold  where the non woven fibers will be placed and locked up.

Thereafter, Ink Jet printed and you are up and running.

Whole New Market is now ready to get Branded Non Wovens.

Art Of Essential Questioning

 Last night a friend of mine said I had overtones of Management Guru in my talks with friends and customers etc. He was not actually the first one to say this. There are quite a lot of people to tell me this.

I started auditing the issue and discovered that it was a part of my training to keep questioning till I had a satisfactory answers. And this I had learnt in my last job, where each of the projects and proposals and manufacturing and marketing issues were grilled and super grilled and in a big forum and one had to be ready with all the correct answers. Lest one was asked to go back and do his homework and then again present the case.

The same was part of my Management Education, where each presentation was ruthlessly questioned by the peers and the professors alike.

Guess, that is where I picked up the " Art Of Essential Questioning" .

The way our schooling is that most of us never go through interactive questioning in the class for many many fears and above all the fear of asking a very stupid question. The system carries on till the last technical degree .

Then you enter a job and asking questions to considered lack of skill and knowledge. No one ever questions anything around him for good order sake. Boss knows the Best.

The net result is that, when you start questioning these technicians or managers and they don't really have a satisfactory answer, because they themselves never ask the difficult questions either to their own self or subordinates or to their superiors or the suppliers or for that matter anywhere. Then they take an offensive stand against you for either being arrogant or trying to teach them management or intruding into their business. It is not considered awakening of rationality or finding the right answer.

A smart marketing guy goes answering questions all his life. He learns by sitting on the other side of the table, all his life.  He gets an opportunity to see and capture hundreds of new methods, machines processes on account of his accessibility to clients biz.  And it is only the smartest companies, who take the information from the marketer and exploit the same into their biz. But the smartest companies first ask , one hundred relevant questions. Unfortunately, this art of Essential Questioning does not exist at all.

Each time, I have a meeting with my client, where I am selling million dollar machines or projects, I ask the clients to keep the questionnaire ready and also give them the FAQ list to draw the question list. Yet, most unfortunately, rarely do clients have the right questions.

I was given a consulting assignment by a very renowned International Textile Company, where they wanted me to develop a Global market of Greige sewing thread . I then opened the market of Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japan and Brazil for them within 3 months. But since they themselves did not go through the process of first doing the right homework , by asking the right questions. The whole effort and Euro 200,000 was lost . Of-course when I snubbed them, I was rated arrogant and teaching them management.

When I go to sell the machines, none of the customer ever draws out a list, asking

• Deliverable s of the Machine : How do they compare with International market demands.
• Flexibility of the Machine: What flexibilities does the machine have to cater to the changing needs of market.
• Design of the Machine : Does it save space, power, labor against other offerings . 
• Critical components : What are the critical components of the machine and where are these sourced from.
• Failure rate :  Normally, what parts fail and what is the failure rate. How much was your spares sales in the last three years?
• Competencies : How many Graduate engineers you employ and how many Diplomas and how many fitters etc.
• Capabilities :  Does anyone have a masters degree and does any one have a Ph.D in the core capabilities of the product being made by the company. Or the company is just a Topo master of copying and offloading the machines in the market.
• Experience : How many years of experience does the company have in making that product.
• Technology : Quiz the company on technology issues and see, if they know rightly, what current technologies are being used . Why another technology should not be used against the current offering of the supplier.
• Infrastructre : What kind of machines do they have for making the product. In a certain town in India, there are 10 TFO makers and not one of them has one single machine to make any part of the machine. But outsource the full machine , pack and sell. Great Biz model, but very poor product delivery against a company, which makes all the critical components and tests religiously all the outsourced parts.
• Quality : What kind of quality systems are used as visual online inspection for full lot ? The kind of test done to pass a product ? The Management systems and practices etc. Mind ISO9000 series is a totally useless certification and it is a total waste of time to have one or recognize one. 
• What is the total capital employed in the biz. If public company ,ask for the balance sheet to see, if it strong enough or a paper tiger.
• How many employees are in the biz.
• Who are your top 10 customers. What machines and how many spindles have been sold to them.
• Competition :  How they compare themselves with the nearest competitor in all the above. How many of the competitors have gone bankrupt in the last few years and why.
• Factory Visit : Will he allow the factory to be seen. This is the most important part to evaluate a supplier. Because more and more companies do not have any factory nowdays ,or they have a very poor factory, but come up with Big marketing talks. I lost an order of 30K springs in Europe to a company in India. I asked the supplier to visit that factor and my factory. After visiting, the order was transferred to me. 
• Lastly, the most important is the residual value of the machine after 5 years. Technology is changing at a very fast pace and hence imminently, one would budget for usage of machine not more then 5 years. Therefore to calculate the DCF, one needs to know the residual value of the machine.
• Comparison of performance of a machine to machine working after  3 years. New machine, all work well , but it is only after 2 years, one gets to know the exact performance issues. I had one used Swiss coiling machine which worked for 30 years and then I bought a New Indian coiling machine at one third the price. After 2 years, the machine was all junk. Initially  everything worked well, but as time passed, one after another thing started failing. Finally machine was scrapped. Did not even get any residual value out of it.

There are hundreds of questions, which one first has to address, before investing into a product.

But most interesting is not about the questionnaire on purchasing.  Like I wrote in my last post that Top Level Textile company Material Manager was only interested in the cheapest price, irrespective of what product quality, you were delivering . After I told him that we use a Rs1 crore( USD200k)  coiling machine to make a very precise Dyespring for you, He remarked. " I don't care, if you sit in a five star and make something for me " I was shocked. Now, when I explained to him the importance of technology to get precision in product and it comes with a certain price.  I was immediately rated arrogant and teaching him management.

On my dear friend, I happen to discover that he was investing into a product line, which could be well taken by others with core competencies and at half the price and questioned him on it. He did not like this and ultimately of-course, he did have a good convincing argument that his investment into the product line was worth the effort. But not before rating me arrogant and Management Guru Overtones. This one is dedicated to all my dear friends, whom I question for the value of questioning.

The irony is that when you tell someone that there is more then what he knows and he needs to get to the right perspective by doing his homework. Immediately, the illiteracy of the person fights back with personal remarks .

I love criticism and open to people coming and telling me that there are still unanswered questions in your product or proposal or offerings. But never ever have I rated anyone Arrogant, or teaching me management, if I did not have an answer to his question. Infact, I had great respect for him that he was one, who did open a blind spot of mine.

Therefore, while " Art of Essential Questioning " is important to arrive at key decisions and these questions can be gruesome and most difficult, but be sure that the other person does not start feeling like a mickey mouse, because he did not have an answer. Then he will certainly get back to you with retort-ion of arrogant , teaching management, too big for his shoes etc etc.

No wonder, I am rated arrogant by so many of my own contemporaries , because I never stop putting up difficult questions and of-course difficult questions don't get you many friends . But not asking difficult questions does ruin many a biz , many a jobs and much of time and sucks away resources, because prudence was not exercised at the first place. Choice is yours. Rate others arrogant or take it as an unanswered or partly answered valid question.

I would say, I am aggressive and I changed to aggression at much later age in my life. I found it was far more helpful to manage things, then with compromises.  Most compromises fail and are only sub optimal temporary solutions. In one of my earlier blog , I had written about the 50: 50 Managers, who are neither here , nor there.  Sometimes, this aggression is subtly taken as arrogance. Let there be this positive jealousy, but let the courage of conviction flow.