Chairman
Andreas Weber
Director Sales , Marketing & Parts
Senior Vice President
SwissTex Winterthur AG
Schlosstalstrasse 45
8406 Winterthur
Switzerland
T: +41 52 268 69 02
F: +41 52 268 69 68
M: +41 79 629 73 77
andreas.weber@swisstex.ch
www.swisstex.ch
68th Meeting of the Swiss Section of the Textile Institute from 20 October 2011
We could welcome 16 TI members and friends of the Swiss Section in a conference room of Autoneum in Winterthur, even one member of the German Section. This time we were invited by the textile machine manufacturer SwissTex for which our Chairman Andreas Weber is engaged as head of sales and marketing.
After introducing words from our Chairman, the CEO of SwissTex, Mr. André Lienert welcomed the group. He presented an impressing company profile. For a guided visit we were divided into three groups, leaded by Mr. André Lienert (CEO), Andreas Weber (Head of Sales and Marketing) and Mr. Heinrich Brüngger (Project Management).
SwissTex has its roots with the former filament activities of the Swiss spinning machinery specialist Rieter. SwissTex was born in 2006 when Rieter sold its filament spinning activities to Bavaria Industriekapital AG in Munich . Bavaria Industriekaptial itself was founded as an industrial private equity holding in 2003. The majority is hold by private hands. The company is quoted at the Frankfurt stock exchange. 2010 the holding consisted out of 13 industrial companies in the segments machines and systems, manufacturing and engineering and industrial services. 2010 they achieved a total turnover of 638 mn Euro.
SwissTex today also builds a group of companies. SwissTex consists out of SwissTex Winterthur AG, SwissTex France SAS in Valence , which became member of the group in 2010 and the new Swiss Filament in Winterthur . Within the last two years, the group had to digest an enormous growth in turnover, what continuously challenges the company structure. Large contracts in Egypt and Belarus were responsible for this comfortable situation.
The Winterthur site today engages about 110 employees. Beside the French site there are a sales and service setups in China and in the US .
The product portfolio consists out of spinning machines, texturizing devices, cabling-, twisting-, and winding machines for the production of BCF yarns, industrial- and tyre cord yarns made from polyamide, polypropylene and polyester for the use in carpets, home textiles, automotive textiles, tyre cord, ropes and other technical textiles.
The site in Winterthur consists out of the assembly line of components and devices for the spinning machines, which are sourced with an important share in Switzerland . An own trial spinning line and an updated laboratory allow the development of new yarns, customer specific yarn development and the test of new devices and machines.
Beside the assembly line and the trial spinning department also the product development, the sales department, service and administration are domiciled at the head quarter in Winterthur .
Due to the competent guides through the site we got an impressive idea about the assembly line, the reconditioning of used machines and last but not least the trial equipment.
Most important customer requirements as optimal yarn quality, flexibility and versatility of the machines, plant efficiency and economical production are met with the SwissTex key competences process technology, key components, process design and engineering, production and sourcing as well as with an efficient after sales service.
In order to cover customer needs even better in the future and to be different from competition, Swiss Filament was born in 2010, a programme which foresees to sell special yarns in minimal quantities directly to SwissTex customers, an activity which could lead to later machinery sales. Therefore the trial and development department was equipped with additional textile competence.
At ITMA in Barcelona this year a large variety of new machines could be presented as a new spinning machine for carpet yarns, a new tyre cord cabling machine and a universal twisting machine with single spindle drive which allows even the twisting of finer yarn counts.
SwissTex looks positively into the future and is working to achieve the target to master all applications in the field of filament yarns in order to influence actively the quality.
After the guided tour, SwissTex generously offered an aperitif. Each participant was equipped with a SwissTex filament bag containing the latest company magazine, a memory stick with Textile Institute logo, two cotton spindles made of chocolate from a local well known pastry shop and some brochures as souvenir. We would like to thank Mr. Lienert and his team for this exciting afternoon.
PS: Just after the event Mr. Lienert joined as a member of the Textile Institute.
The 2012 events are already scheduled.
We are looking forward to welcome numerous participants:
March 13 2012: 33. AGM und 69th meeting with Tersuisse in Emmenbrücke
October 23 2012: 70th meeting with Retech in Meisterschwanden
The Textile Institute
Swiss Section
Simon Hugentobler
