Interview with Dr. Harald Weber, VDMA
Dr. Harald Weber (Source: VDMA)
The ITMA, the Olympics of the textile industry, is the place to meet key decision-makers from the top textile and garment producers and leading brand owners, gather market intelligence and forge collaborative partnerships. With over 1,600 exhibitors from 44 countries the fair is completely booked.
Transforming the world of textiles – that is this year's ITMA motto. What is the VDMA’s response to this? What is the motto of your trade show participation?The VDMA enlarged the ITMA topic: “Transforming the World of Textiles: efficient – digital – circular” is the slogan for our activities here in Milan. Efficiency has been around for many years. But the energy challenges once again made it clear that efficiency with regard to energy and raw materials will remain a key issue in many regions of the world. Today’s technologies of the VDMA member companies can save up to 30% of energy compared to what was available 10 to 15 years ago. And further progress will be made, I am sure.
The second big innovative theme is digitalization and automation. The digital networking of machines paves the way for a variety of possible applications, such as a central overview of the status of all machines, order management and the exchange of process information. At the ITMA, visitors can check a web-based demonstrator for digital networking of machines using the OPC UA standard. Standardized interfaces facilitate the integration of different devices. In a first project, the VDMA Textile Machinery has developed the interface specification called OPC UA for Textile Testing Devices. At the ITMA, devices from exhibiting companies, among them the VDMA member Textechno, will use this specification to send live data to a demonstrator. This can be accessed at https://umati.app/overview/itma/.
A further aspect is recycling. The machine manufacturers are working on advanced technology to create high-quality textiles from recycled material. But for creating a circular economy, also design for recycling is very important. This has impact on the used materials so that hard-to-recycle material mixtures need to be substituted with other materials achieving the same functionality.
This is you first ITMA as the new Managing Director of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association. What is your impression of the ITMA 2023? What are the hot topics?
I am deeply impressed by the fair. The visitor figures on the first days have been very encouraging. We have to keep in mind: It is the first international textile machinery exhibition after Covid, bringing together the technology solutions providers with the customers who have had only little personal contact for 3 years if at all. The hot topics are the ones I mentioned before: Digitalization/automation, circularity and still efficiency.
What are the biggest challenges for the textile industry right now?
A big challenge is international relations. Textile machinery manufacturing has benefited greatly from the globalization that started in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The trade conflict between China and the USA and the protectionist tendencies we are now facing are anything but good conditions for an export-oriented industry. These are indeed influences and factors beyond our control. Other general factors that do not only affect the textile and machinery industry are: excessive bureaucracy, regulations that suddenly impose prohibitions and requirements that have not been thought through to their logical conclusion, such as PFAS, a lack of technical openness by politicians in many fields. But despite all the challenges, the companies organized in the VDMA Textile Machinery Association still have the ambition to be leaders and to be at the forefront in terms of quality and technologies.
The interview was conducted by the TextileTechnology team with Dr. Harald Weber, Managing Director of the German Textile Machinery Association (VDMA), Frankfurt/Germany.
