The leading principle of the Neuenhauser Group includes close exchange with its customers. It develops and implements
optimally tailored solutions for its customers to help them save time, money and energy. All companies of the Neuenhauser Group offer innovation based on trusting communication. The Group is active in a couple of business segments, of which the Textile Machinery Division is presenting about 20% of the group turnover. The Textile Machinery Division of the group includes the winding department, automation, overhead travelling cleaner, material handling equipment, warp beams and the Rosink departments.
Highlighting his company’s performance in major global markets in 2017, Mr. Wilhelm Langius, General Manager, Textile Machinery Division, Neuenhauser Maschinenbau GmbH, said: “It has been a very good year for the textile machinery division of our group. All members were over the target and order income for supply in 2018 also has been very good. The interesting thing for 2017 from our point of view is the diversification of different products and brands in different markets.”
Counting the overall turnover, China is still the top ranking market, but in general, other markets gained higher percentage. A milestone project in China was the installation of a fully automatic package handling system for a new spinning mill set up near the city of Guilin for a Hong Kong-based international operating Textile Group. This automatic system consists of package conveying from spinning department to palletizing, vacuum steaming, optionally de-palletizing, box packing, weighing, labelling and ready for shipment, all connected to customers ERP system.
India is a very good market for the Neuenhauser Group, but in 2017 we saw the spinning machinery market a little slower, and weaving machinery market increase. Nevertheless one of the biggest projects in 2017 was the installation of a fully automatic roving bobbin transport system supplied by Sohler-Neuenhauser at the spinning mill of Himatsingka.
Interesting was also the development in Bangladesh in the weaving sector, where we could supply several mills with winding units (Neuenhauser) and Genkinger transport equipment. Another new and promising market was Uzbekistan. Here the group was able to supply complete automation for two spinning mills and also Neuenhauser Rosink workshop equipment was delivered.”
While there have been innovations with a couple of existing products, in terms of efficiency increase, major innovations took 
place in the area of automation. In 2017 Neuenhauser launched a new automatic cardboard box packing machine for yarn packages. Especially the automatic box erecting unit uses an absolutely new concept avoiding interruptions as other existing designs show. Another new product was the Neuenhauser QCS (Quality Control System) for yarn packages. This system is usually integrated in automatic yarn package transport systems. It controls the quality of packages by cameras for example in terms of diameter, material mixture, blend/color and so on. In comparison to human quality control, this unit never gets tired and guarantees a repeatable quality standard.
Industry 4.0
“Many of our machines are equipped with interfaces allowing data transfer. But most important is Industry 4.0 for our automation equipment. While automatic transfer of goods between the production processes is already a part of Industry 4.0, data collection and transfer is more interesting. Today we have interfaces to the production machines, telling when, for example, a yarn package is ready for transport and we collect it and bring it to automatic packing. We also have interfaces to customers ERP system, so that we can print the requested labels on the box and the ERP system can book the goods into inventory.
The next step in Industry 4.0 will mean that we do not only carry the goods but also its collected data. Today spinning and winding machines monitors the production of each good and collects all the data for this single good. But when a product leaves the machine that data gets lost. Presently interfaces to transfer such data do not exist or are not properly working. Also standards of interfaces for the different machine makers need to be defined. This matter is on progress, but certainly needs some more time”, explained Mr. Wilhelm Langius.
The Neuenhauser Group’s Textile Machinery Division has grown in the past with a few acquisitions. The division makes such acquisitions when a company product fits into its strategy. “We are concentrating on ancillary equipment with a certain niche market position. But in this market the brand should rank among the top when quality, performance and technology is concerned. Further, such a company and product should be complementary to the existing ones. When a customer builds a new factory, we would like to be able to offer all our products for his project.
In the weaving industry we have for example the motto “around the weaving machine”. We can offer our warp beams from 
Scholze Germany and when the warp has been converted to fabric we have the Neuenhauser Maschinenbau batch winder. Genkinger is able to supply the right transport equipment for warp beams and for cloth rolls. Finally Sohler-Neuenhauser manufactures the overhead cleaner to take care of a clean environment around the weaving machine.”
Indian market
As for the Indian market, it is very important for Neuenhauser. In the past years it has always ranked in top 3. In automation, it has customers like Welspun, Nitin, Trident, RSWM and Himatsingka. Here the company has supplied fully automatic roving bobbin transport systems and also package transport, palletizing, box packing, etc. In the weaving area it has Welspun, Trident and PeeVee. These customers have the company’s fabric winding units and also Genkinger transport equipment.
Presently, Neuenhauser has several service technicians in India, but no assembly or manufacturing. In the short term the manufacturer has no plans of setting up a facility here, but in the long run they are very well aware that local presence is needed.
Energy efficiency
Energy efficiency always has been a main factor Neuenhauser has looked at. In automation and in batch winding machines power consumption is generally low. Nevertheless the company uses latest IEE classified drives. Energy efficiency plays a big role for the travelling cleaner products as well. Air ventilation fans always are among the biggest power consumers. For the Sohler-Neuenhauser travelling cleaners, it keeps up with strict European IEE classification for motors and fans. Further Neuenhauser has optimized its units to achieve good cleaning results by using less power than other products available in the market.
Lack of skilled manpower is another major issue faced by the textile industry. Machinery manufacturers are increasing the level of automation in their machines due to this. The industry is not only suffering from lack of skilled manpower, but suffers from a general lack of manpower. In fast growing economies like India and China there is quite a big demand for manpower. In the past the textile industry has always been a labour intensive industry and still is.
However, today people look for better working conditions than the spinning or weavings mills with a quite noisy and humid environment can offer. Besides lack of manpower, the factories also fight with high fluctuation, which does not only require higher costs for training, but also increases the chance of human errors.
Neuenhauser’s answer to this is to automate the production logistic, which means an automated material flow between the several production steps. For example, in spinning, the automated transport of cans from drawing to roving, transport of roving bobbins from roving to spinning and finally the transport and packing of yarn packages to be ready for shipment. With this automation, manual transportation can be replaced. Automation in these areas additionally has the advantage of taking human errors out of the production process and to come to a controlled material flow.
Growth in 2018
Discussing about his company’s growth this year Mr. Langius said: “Globally we expect 2018 to be on the same level as 2017 in terms of sales of textile machinery. As mentioned before, 2017 has been a good year. Of course we cannot foresee political influences which may have effect on the growth short or middle term, but generally we see a growth for our group, especially in the areas, where production efficiency increase and automation is involved. With a growth in the world population and increasing welfare of developing countries the demand for textile goods will increase, not only in the apparel sector but also in other areas like home textiles and the big field of technical textiles. In India we expect a business increase for our group compared to 2017, especially in the weaving sector. We see also an increasing demand for automation.”