Yarn Dyeing : Kiss RF Dryers Good Bye!

Technology has taken a new turn now. High Pressure Drying takes over from RF or steam drying.
All it takes a blast of Hot high pressure to remove moisture from the package and one gets nice and dried packages . This is the same old Pressure  Dryer , which has now become viable as RF dryers and hydro prices have soared. Only that now customers are viewing Pressure Dryer as a more friendlier system of drying .

This would mean, end of Centrifugal Hydro extractors and End of RF Dryers. No more pulling out packages from the yarn dyeing machine and loading on centrifuge and extracting 50 or more percent of water and then drying with Radio Frequency.

The energy cost of drying with high pressure dryers may be much lower then the combined energy used in Hydro and RF. Though , I am still searching, how much energy actually goes into it .However, the deliverable' s with pressure drying are much much better viz

Very Low Investment compared to Hydro And RF Dryer.
Atleast 15 to 20 workers reduced. ( For 10 TPD Plant )
Lower Energy consumption
No handling of packages any more
No damage of package in Hydro
No shape distortion in Hydro
No yellowness in RF Dryer
Lower Throughput Time
Efficient system
Heat Recovery
Space Saving


These are already too many deliverable' s of this  technology.

Currently, the machine makers are charging a huge sum for this equipment. However, if you are a smart engineer , you can design this system by yourself at 25% of the offer cost from machine makers. As usual, the current machine design as offered by the dyeing machine maker has bugs.  The dryer does not need a SS vessel. Air circulation does not need SS tanks. No compressor of any size has its air tank made out of SS. The water and the heat from the dried packages can rust the wall of the dryer and hence the inner wall can at best have an SS sheet lining or use some composites which are water and heat resistant.

Since, it is a simple technology, sooner or later, most people will understand and this will mark the end of Hydro and RF dryers.

This also means the return to the Mantex Dyesprings as Dyeing Center. Since the biggest hassle with metal springs was always the burn out rate in hydro extractors. Now that issues is resolved forever.

Those who will still not use compressed metal spring  package centers will only keep their cost of dyeing 25 to 40% higher on account of poor education and poor technical skills. Somehow the Winding machine makers do not know, how to manage a  mantex dyespring to run at high speeds and are misleading the yarn dyers to avoid metal springs for dyeing.

One has to be a big fool to ignore that each dye lot made on precision winders with plastic dyetubes results into a capacity under utilization of 25 to 40%.  It is like an airline, which takes 40% empty seats, because some supplier goes and tells him that quality of flight will be much nicer ,if he keeps the load lower.

 In fact, if only precision winding makers had sense, they would have found that with precision winding on dyesprings, the payload into dyeing machine improves both horizontally and vertically. Horizontally as now within the same diameter, they would pack more yarn and vertically, because packages will be compressed 25 to 40% . Overall payload will go up by 40% in case of cotton yarns and 60% in case of Texturized Yarns.  This would automatically justify higher investment against drum winders, which are generic competitor to Precision winders. But like I have written before, much of the machine makers themselves do not know about Textiles and the Industry ofcoarse refuses to use common sense . If Dyesprings dyed well for 50 years and that too with random winders, then surely it will have a far higher quality advantage with precision winders and will still give the higher thruput value to the dyer.

Companies Like Arvind Mills, Ashima , Mafatlal, Garuda Cotex , Abhishek, Welspun, Winsome, Anlima Yarns, ( B.Desh)  and hundred others for decades used Dyesprings on Precision Winders. And these are Global scale companies with very high quality and very strong work culture. But there are still some dyers, who get trapped into the plastic dyetubes for precision winders.

In any manufacturing set up, the throughput decides the final cost of manufacturing and any technology, which inhibits the thruput can never make profit sense . Do you own maths and see, that any plastic dyetube user loses more then USD1 million per year on account of under utilizing the capacity of dyeing machine. Only because some joker , somewhere in the world went and taught the dyer that plastic dyetubes give better results and the dyer as a flock of sheep followed him , without actually doing his own maths and quality evaluation.

We are not set of technologist or engineers, who have been taught to question and probe and research and then take intelligent decisions. We only take infantile pleasure in doing something, which others are also doing and believe that we are smart . Not realizing that it is this inefficiency which has bought today the Industry in Europe and US to a stage of non competitiveness against Asia and not the labor cost alone. And it is this inefficiency which is the biggest weakness of the big companies, that is being exploited by the small dyers, who manage to keep their cost lower and making the big companies run for their money.  I met a small dyer in Panipat this April and he said, it was because of the metal dyesprings, he could dye in a 200 kgs machine a lot of 300 kgs random wound packages, where as others were dyeing around 200 kgs with precision wound plastic dyetubes. The money flow had made him so rich that from a 2 ton dyer, he was now going into a 10 ton yarn dyeing plant.

Anyway, time to Kiss RF Dryers and Plastic Bobbins Good Bye Forever.

Spider Web - Online Mill Management!

 Spiderweb   uses the software of OLAP and Data Mining. Many IT companies provide this software and it was relatively easy to plug in this system to any kind of machines and equipments in a mill. Rieter has come out with this solution and has called it Spiderweb. I don't know, if Spiderweb is generic for the software or it is the Brand of Rieter.

Secondly, with wireless IP being available so cheaply, the data can be monitored remotely even sitting in head offices several cities or countries away.

Interestingly, it also alarms the users, if the quality parameters deviates and this keeps the quality on auto check mode.

More important is the use of the raw data into meaningful interpretation of

Power Guzzlers equipment's and the changes done to cut the energy usage .
 Machine breakdowns and historical cost associated with it.
Quality linked to fiber input quality, machine variables, changes in accessories or any subjective control which needs to be monitored online in real time.
Efficiency monitoring in real time .

One could go a step forward and make changes online from a remote location to change speeds or parameters of the machine.

Now with only Robots missing from the scene, the whole mill can be  remote controlled from any location and run fully with artifical intelligence. Though can handling robots are now available in the market and hence soon we will already have cans being handled by robots. Rest is all about threading in on various machines. I reckon a gang of 15 to 20 workers will be already enough to run a spinning plant of 25K spindles.

The system is very simple and any mill can design it by themselves, if they have a good IT department. A sensor linked to the top rollers of all the machines gives the productivity and a sensor linked to the quality gadgets monitors the quality in real time. This data is then used by the OLAP software ( Online Data Processing )

Those vending ERP solutions for Textiles should make use of this opportunity and capture this very large market.

The system can work on any equipment , whether it is knitting or dyeing or spinning or weaving.

Further, Image processing data will soon take over the quality screening in real time .

Yarn Package Size - 8 Inches Must And Legislated

Have you ever seen a container or truck being loaded with Yarn?

The packaging of yarn is either in cartons, or in bales or in Pallets. And the way , the cartons or bales or pallets are designed , not for the optimum shipment cost, but for optimum handling and storage . This causes a huge burden of extra freight charges which the buyer pays on account of usual lazy thinking of the Industry.

There is never an attempt to find out, the best size of the carton, which will fit the container or truck and  usually the truck carries thin air on account of lower loading from the design of cartons.

Anyway, assuming that the cartons do fill up the load of the truck. There is still the big correction, which the Industry needs to make on the size of the cone.

The 6 inches take up cones were suitable for the Industry in the 18th century and the whole trade was limited to small volumes and small cones and the weight of the cones was around few ounces. Since then the Industry has scaled up, but the cone size still stands in time. Though, now the cones are of 1.89 kgs . However, what is sacrosanct of 1.89 kgs.  There are some who would go in to take 2.5 ks on 6 inches traverse.

It is about time that the Industry switches to 8 inches traverse and takes delivery of yarn in larger packages of 3 kgs +. The large packages bring

Efficiency to the spinners
Efficiency to the weavers
A wobbling 60% higher loading per container
Hence higher sales value per container
Higher Cash Flow by 60% per container.

Imagine, a buyer who takes 100 containers per month in Americas from Asia, now will only need 50 containers for the same volume of supplies.

The annual savings of customers, who import large volumes can be as much as 50% total cost of freight.

Eg Freight from Asia to South America : USD 4000 Per container average.
If importer imports 200 containers per month : Cost : 200 x $4000 = $ 800,000
Savings with just importing 8 inches packages : 60% : $ 480,000
Saving per year                                                             : $ 6 Million 


Does any mill have scope to profit $6 million otherwise.


And what does it need to bring about this change : Simple addition of 8 inches rewinders for existing spinning mills and for new mills to order only Auto Coners with 8 inches drum. A time, will come, when all of it moves to jumbo cones of10 inches. However, let it first take this small step forward.

It is about time, Schlafhorst and Murata look at 8 inches auto coner seriously. The time of 6 inches traverse is gone.

The filament Industry works only on 8 inches and 10 inches and there is no reason, why spun industry cannot take a clue from other substrates.

The lazy thinkers in the Industry will still find many excuses to remain in their comfort zone. Innovators will win.

Does Spun Yarn Need Assembling/ Doubling ? No

Why is that  2 to 3 yarns of single end are assembled and then doubled before taking into the Twisting Machine ?

Say, 40s yarn of 2 ends are assembled and then made 40s/2 and made 20s count and twisted with desired twist.  Why not simply spin 20s count and give the desired twist. Much higher productivity on 20s and say the same result in twisting as 40s/2.

Assuming, there was comparatively lower strength or lower uniformity. But then for double yarns, these are still acceptable limits.

In the Filament Industry, yarns are directly twisted say 150 denier is directly twisted to 200 TPM or 300 or 600 TPM as the case may be . Only in certain cases, where plied yarns are required for special applications, the plied yarns are used like in Nylon Sewing Threads.

Generally speaking, atleast for coarse yarns, there is no need of assembling and then twisting. These can be directly spun and directly twisted. Much lower cost of manufacturing and almost the same results.

Will we stand up and start questioning our systems and methods laid out in the 18th century.

Can Management

Card Cans or Drawing Cans have to be typically identified with either colors or a colored thread wound around it for count identification.

As the Technology moved forward, none of the can makers worked on putting up a small LCD display showing the count of the sliver packed into it.

LCD display cost less then a Dollar , however, makes the can a more smarter entity in the spinning block. The LCD could have a numeral entry under it and it could either be remote entered with the count or press entered.

A further generation of can will any case have a motorized system, which will drive it to the lazing bay automatically on getting packed . It will also show the Number of meters of sliver or kgs of sliver packed into it , so at any given time the work in process is fully controlled.

All it needs is a Infra Red control points which will guide it to the destination from the control room.

Spinning will be control room managed, where the production chief manages most inputs on a screen and gets a visual display in real time of all the machines and quality graphs . The maintenance chief gets the error reports of machines and power consumption in real time.

Future of Spinning needs to be redefined. However, unless the industry pushes the machine makers to factor these demands, it will never happen in short time.

Composite Spindles

Last week, I was travelling and within my many international flights,  I was thinking if the Engine of the aircraft now had carbon reinforced blades and the seats were now changed from Aluminum to Carbon reinforced composites and so was the body. The whole thing  made the plane more lighter and increased the fuel efficiency by 25%. How is that the Spindle in the Ring Frame was not a potential target of carbon reinforcement.

Studies show that 40% of the total power in a Ring Frame comes from the weight of the spindle. If spindle weight can be reduced from 1 kg to 600 gms ,the power consumption will drop to half.

All it takes is a carbon composite of Spindle with the Aluminum and you have a power saver spindle. Same applies for Drums in a winding machine. Both are power guzzlers.

The composite industry is also not mature enough to target large volume products. It is working on high value applications like wind mill blades, air craft application, formula 1 car body applications etc. However, all those areas, where there is large volume, the composite industry is missing out. All of them take pride in putting up pictures of Airbus, Formula Cars , Wind Mill Blades and get infantile pleasure. All these applications have very low volumes and make little business sense. The real meat in composites is in rotary applications, whether spindles of Textile or Drilling Equipments or Drums etc etc.

The generic product manufacturers have very little capability of making composites. Textile Machine makers have always been oblivious to factoring new technologies, till the whole world already was into it.

I recently wrote to a carbon fibre maker in US to help me develop a carbon fibre composite for textile application and after the first email, he never got back to me. The suppliers also have very limited knowledge on the application areas.

Nevertheless, it is the future of rotary equipment's and fuel saving.

Legacy of Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs left us today, but perhaps will go into the history books as another college drop out, who created a Legendary Global Brand in computers and consumer electronics.

Only in my very last blog " Carding machines...." I had written about when the Textile Industry will start thinking like iPad and iPhones and now I have to come back and salute this extraordinary person who changed the whole world of computers . If only Textile Industry had the visionaries as that of the " Apple", we would have been into another world by now.

Last week, I was at ITMA and the owner of a large Textile machine maker commented that I was now a owner of a company and I should wear a proper business suit, as I was dressed in a T shirt and Trousers. I told him, has he seen " Steve Jobs" ever in his life time wearing a Suit , even when he was launching his products globally. Or had he seen Bill Gates wearing a suit or lately Obama in suit. He agreed and confirmed that perhaps, he was not concurrent.

The fact is that the whole Textile Industry is non concurrent. Because we still believe that the 18th century suits are suitable for 21st century. Conventionally yes, but if you are " Apple" then you are miles ahead of your time.

The " i " in Apple meant two things, first, it was " me " and second it was " Eye" . "Me the visionary". It outclassed itself in the computer world to consumer electronics and the music industry.

The fact remains that in Textiles, there are umpteen such opportunities which are available, but we don't have an " i " here.

I was telling " Muller " at the show that their Ribbon Dyeing machine was an excellent example of a yarn dyeing machine. Wherein the yarn got dyed, dried and wound in one single operation and with speeds of 20 meters per minute and several hundred yarns being wound at one time. The productivity was good enough. It needs no boilers, water which is one third of the conventional vessel and much lower power and a dryer, which is not a power guzzler. A wonderful integrated yarn dyeing machine.
" Muller" told me that yes, they did work on yarn dyeing machine , but did not succeed in marketing.

This is where " Apple " was legendary . iPad is simply an extension of laptop with touch screen. " Muller " still does not have an " Apple " in it to see that opportunity.

Whatever be the case " Steve Jobs" needs to be saluted for the way he outclassed the competition. The design and deliverable s of each of its product lines was unique , though the applications were as regular as other available products.

I only hope that there are visionaries in the Textile area, who get motivated out of " Steve " and bring something extraordinary to the market.

Carding Machines : Stick It On The Wall !

Carding machines were designed with the large cylinder and more cylinder and yet more cylinders to get the channelization ( Parallel) effect and a sliver form. In case of synthetic Fibres, actually there is no lint or short fibres ( Minimal) and hence carding would be generally construed as the operation of hank reduction and sliver formation.

Actually, it does not need this arrangement anymore for synthetic yarn manufacturing.

The whole Carding operation can be condensed with the Air Chutes of blow room and the output will be a sliver condensing out as an icecream filling the cans.

The Cylinder does not need to be this huge. In the Chute exit there can be multiple small cylinders running one after another, which would channelize the fibres and get the desired hank. And at the exit there will be a condenser filling the slivers into a can.

The number of chute outlets can be anyway increased to as many as you wish. The number of small cylinders can be 2 or 3 and will be only as big as say 12 to 16 inches both in diameter and width . These cylinders will be planted on the wall as the fibre exits . One has to conceive the idea same as what happens with spinnerittes for Polyester and Nylon fibres.

The chute will act like a manifold wherein the desired level of fiber with vacuum suction ideally gets pumped into the cylinders, which are sticking to the wall . And on repeated combing with the cylinders, the output is then condensed and slivered out.

This will be a huge saving in power as the new cylinders will work only with 0.5 HP motors , and huge saving of space as the cylinders will stick to the wall and hence no floor space required. No operators required as the system will work on automation. Each sliver will have a certain fixed length so that at the desired length , the can exits and new can enters. The filled up can moves into the lazing bay . The cost of making such a carding machine will be 10 times less then the conventional card and the operational cost will be fractional of the current cost.

In place of card clothing changes, perhaps the whole cylinder can be changed every few years. The Maintenance will be easy, as one will be able to detach the cylinders and take them out at any time. The back area cleaning will be automatic by pneumatic suction.

As and when I get time, I will make a drawing and post it here. But this is the new machine for 21st century.

Repeatedly, I have written that machine makers are lazy thinkers and they can only incrementally improve on what is available. But never design something altogether new and revolutionary. The current machine was designed sometimes in the 18th century and was best suitable for slow sleep lap feeding. Where a large lap had to to move through a similar size drum, but when the lap itself got eliminated, where is the justification of still using large cylinders? The feed control gets the desired hank and combing via cylinders gets the parallel effect and then you simply condense and move it out. All it takes is a small cylinders doing the needful.

When will the Industry start thinking like iPads and iPhones and Smart solutions. The world has moved so much ahead.

No Copying of my design allowed without my due permission.

Polyester spun waxed or Incompetent Technicians.

How much an Industry works like a fool can be seen from the simple fact that even the best of the technologist working in the mills don't try to recall the basic chemistry that they learnt at High School.

I was yesterday looking at the imports into US on spun yarns and interestingly all the polyester spun yarn imported for knitting has the Term : " Polyester spun waxed for knitting "

If one has learnt his basic textiles correctly, then he knows that wax is a paraffin compound and actually has no lubrication effect whatsoever on polyester. In fact wax will not even stick to polyester spun or filament yarns . If wax works for cotton does not mean that it is also the lubricant for polyester.

Polyester is basically " Petroleum" converted into fibre and all man made fibers , the only lubricant is white oil with additives for anti splash, cohesiveness and heat dissipation.

The filament Industry religiously uses the white oil based lubricants, however, when it comes to the spun yarn Industry, the concept of lubricants is not matured. All cotton spinning variables are generally extended onto other fibre substrates without any thought on the basic chemistry of the polymer.

Interestingly wax is non water soluble and generally needs ether or benzene for washing out. The same polyester after knitting, when goes into dyeing, now will have undissolved wax which will inhibit the dyeing process and is one of the cause of shade variations. Though to my mind, wax will actually never get picked up at the yarn application stage itself, so one generally does not get these problems of undissolved wax in dyeing. In cotton dyeing, one of the biggest challenge is to dissolve the wax, before dyeing. The inner wax inside the cotton fibre is a major inhibitor in the dyeing process.

In the spun yarn Industry, while the cotton is subjected to Moisture Regain and maximized with water content to profit by selling water on yarn prices. The polyester spun yarn industry has been slow in realizing that there is hidden profit, when they oil the spun yarns via lubricators against waxing. All it takes is a small lubrication device to be installed on the winding machines and it does the needful.

The result is that the yarn is well lubricated, hence the yarn hairiness automatically improves , the performance on knitting machine then can be guaranteed to bring about higher speeds. These mill then can charge a premium for such a lubricant and profit double by selling oil at price of yarn .

I have made some oils which show remarkably performance on polyester and its blends and will soon launch globally.

Head Vs Heart, Management Attributes of West Vs East.

The over riding decision in case of an Eastern Business is something which points to the Socialistic pattern of economy. Where as the Western Business, the decision making largely engaged in shareholders wealth maximization.

Most Managers in Asia would take a decision, which would favor the social well being of individuals and teams, then the best interest of the organization. Say, if an employee is marginally contributing to the organization and can be best eliminated, the managers in the East would do it as the very very last priority and await that somehow the employee leaves the organization on his own self. Where as in the West, without blinking his eyes, the manager would sack the joker out.

Whenever decision influencing the personal welfare of people in the organization is concerned, most managers try to play Robin Hood in the Eastern World. Where as in the Western World, it would be take it or leave it policy.

The major reason being the environmental influence of these managers. Most in the East, grow up seeing poverty and hardship lives, for the lowest strata of the society and hence take oversight of weakness on almost all issues of productivity , quality etc. But this then creates a very mediocre organization in terms of its deliverable. In India, the Trade Unions took major advantage of this weakness and became so strong that they were never bothered about productivity, quality or discipline. Many an organizations closed down as they could not handle the conflicts with these trade unions.

In short, any oversight of people skill finally results into creation of a Bad Apple, which then goes in to spoil the whole basket.

The best results are achieved by giving 3 clear chance to the defaulters and after that the person is shunted out.

East works with the Heart and West works with the Head.