A strict follower of yoga practices, Ashwani Behl, Director, Janaksons does everything with the conviction, passion and dedication of a Japanese Samurai. Associated with Shima Seiki for more than a decade, Ashwani only recently introduced an advanced Shima Seiki SIG 123SV model in India. Sensing the vacuum in dyeing microfibres made him collaborate with Flainox to bring its advanced dyeing machines into India.
Advising the industry on how to consolidate in these times he says, “Follow the Kaizen system of Japan. Make very high quality products, have the right equipment, and the main thing cut your cost.”
Shima Seiki’s business is mainly from Ludhiana, having sold 200 machines to just one company Oswal in the recent past. “Recently, I am seeing a different segment of buyer emerging for my technology, small players of the industry, they are now wanting to buy computerized technology,” says Ashwani. Ashwani sees the reason lying with the labour shortage. “People are moving to automobile industry which has more money for them. So now a small company who otherwise couldn’t have dreamt of buying a computer machine has no choice but to go for it. Not only does it save labour but also offers much more consistency in quality and timely deliveries.”
Janaksons’ stall attracted a large number of visitors at the fair. He and his son Vaibhav Behl discussed some of the features of their new products.
Shima Seiki – SIG 123SV: Multiple Gauge Intarsia machines
Shima Seiki’s new model SIG 123SV is a variable gauge intarsia machine going up to 30 feeders, which means, one can go up to 30 different colours. At the same time one can also vary the gauge. It can be de-gauged, i.e. if it is a 12 gauge machine one can increase it to 14 and then do one by one knitting and again decrease it to 8 gauges. One doesn’t need to invest in 8, 10, 12 and 14 gauge machines. “The best part is that other machines, if they are intarsia, can do only intarsia, but our machine can do everything. Intarsia, pointelle, cable, shaping, whatever you want,” says Ashwani.
The machine also has a feature called sequential knitting which enables it to make a front, back and sleeve or a front sleeve and back sleeve simultaneously.
The belt speed of this machine is 1.3m/sec which means it can do about 55 front panels of intarsia or 35 complete fronts, backs, and sleeves of basic fully fashion garments in a day. Shima Seiki is complementing this model with another model of theirs for making back and sleeves.
Flainox: A perfect dyeing system for finer fabrics
Flainox is in race with itself in bringing new and improved dyeing system with patented design of steel drum which means less abrasion and better dyeing. Informing StitchWorld about the innovative models of machines, Vaibhav Behl, a young turk of the company says, “We have two kinds of machines. The Atmospheric machines – Flainox NRP Universal Series operate in a temperature range of 95-98ºC. While the other High Temperature machines – Flainox NRP HT operate at 135ºC. The HT machines are meant for microfibers like 100% Polyester”.
The patented design of the polygonal drum in the Flainox NRP Universal Series has three compartments, with shafts and bearing, it is protected by mechanical seals. The single vectorial motor transmission, with inverter self-braking system ensures highest performance level and excellent energy saving capacity. “Around 14-20% rejections happen in the dyeing process. Flainox machines limit such rejections to just 1% due the less abrasion inside the patented drum,” he claims.
The machine runs at 600 RPM and can extract 30-40% of liquor. “The drum is stable during centrifuge due to both the ends of the drum being fixed,” added Vaibhav.
The model has three dozing tanks for liquor and chemicals. The machine has external heat exchanger, which makes the temperature perfectly constant. “As a regular practice, to bring the liquor temperature to a certain point, a temperature slightly higher has to be specified. However, the external heat exchanger in Flainox ensures the exact liquor temperature as specified by the settings,” he adds proudly. The machine comes with a separate computer, which is not attached with the machine just to ensure that during the centrifuge the computer system is not affected.
