French enterprises focus on the product development and niche market Interview with Mr.Christian Guinet,Secretary General of UCMTF(French Textile Machinery Manufacturers’ Association)

Digitalization within a factory or between customers and suppliers will continue to take a bigger and bigger role.Industry 4.0,is already a reality in the factories of our customers.Artificial intel—ligence is no more a dream but a tool to maximize the cost reductions and the metaverse is already developed,even by us as an association,to design virtual presentations.In our R&D departments,we see the developments of digitalization and Artificial Intelligence.For example,to design new equipments we have incredible tools like CATIA which has been developed by a French software company.

Our domestic market is quite small in apparel and home textiles but it is more im—portant and grows fast in technical textiles.These new textiles are everywhere,whether as commodities,mostly in nonwovens,and highly technical markets like in the medical fields or the automotive industry.

Asia and particularly China are very important markets for us.China has been our first market for many years.Unfortu—nately,the pandemic has restrained our marketing efforts in China.I think this is changing very quickly for the better.

We have agents in China who are well introduced;our sales teams are starting to travel again.As they have established personal relationships with their Chinese counterparts,I strongly believe they can go beyond usual business relationships and see how our companies can help their cus—tomers develop new markets and prod—ucts.

These partnerships are really impor—tant as our strategy has always been to have very stable collaborators,continuing education and internal promotion.This is very positive to establish a mutual under—standing relationship with our customers and go beyond the day—to—day business.

Our customers have to adapt more and more quickly to their own markets’demands.They have to offer new products with zero defects and less environmental footprints.Then they need flexible equip—ments and many services from us.Our members have to be agile to design,pro—duce and service the equipments which are needed even for small orders.As they are mostly SME’s,run by real entrepreneurs,they can sustain this strategy.Offering off—shelves equipments for mass markets productions is not our strategy.We are focused on smaller or even niche markets,then we have to be prepared to adapt our equipments to our customers specific needs and have design and production ca—pacities to do this at industrial prices.This has been our strategy for many years now,and this is why most of our customers are long time partners.

ITMA ASIA+CITME is a major event and our companies have plans to partici—pate.They have always done from the firstITMA ASIA in Singapore and then in China.We are a trade association grouping the French textile equipment manufacturers.As such we are a member of Cematex and therefore have an important role in the decision—making process of this European association which owns the ITMA brands including ITMA ASIA.

Chinese textile machinery enterprises may be our competitors but consider—ing we are not on mass markets but on smaller or even niche markets,I do to think they are really interested.Let me give you an example of a niche market because;we are particularly proud of it.Kristian Blum—menfelt,the Norwegian athlete won the Men’s Triathlon Olympic Gold Medal.At that time,I did not know that the Trimtex Skinsuit he was wearing for swimming,cycling and running was made of a fabric designed and produced by the French company Payen.Even more: to dye and finish the fabric,Payen is using a machine from one of our members,Alliance.It dyes and finishes the fabric which incorporates an unusually high percentage of elastane covered polymer.

A highly technical finishing equipment for a highly technical fabric and,at the end of the story,a gold Medal!

I trust that many customers will award us “gold medals” during ITMA ASIA+CITME.It will be an honor and a pleasure to wel—come them on our booths.