Turkey-based Pluvia, one of the prominent players in the field of continuous washing machines globally has joined hands with The Gaurs for the Indian and Sri Lankan market. The Gaurs, as anyone familiar with the Indian textile industry would know is already representing several leading and technically superior global textile machinery manufacturers for India and other South Asian markets.
In an exclusive chat, Mr. Zafer Serttas, CEO of Pluvia spoke in detail about a variety of topics including, Pluvia’s history and growth over the years, its products & solutions, the partnership with THE GAURS and plans for the Indian market, among others.
Here are the edited excerpts.
The establishment of Pluvia makes for interesting reading. It all started in 2004, when a team of 4 engineer colleagues came together with a common mission to serve the textile industry with energy efficiency studies and energy recovery systems. As it is well documented, energy and water consumption in textile mills is the biggest cost issue, besides being a global problem which have the most negative impact on the environment.
“Acting on the principle of contributing to sustainable growth through energy efficiency, this team has taken on the mission that it should have social and environmental targets beyond the objective of reducing the costs of the sector. We thought that, this goal could be easily implemented and spread worldwide, by being indirectly in production processes, by designing and producing efficient machinery which are consuming less energy and water,” Mr. Zafer Serttas explained.
The Pluvia brand, which means ‘waterfall’ was established in 2013. According to Mr. Zafer Serttas, they initially started as an R&D company for textile finishing machinery and were successful in producing textile finishing machines with least water and energy consumption values.
Going global
Adding further he said: “In addition to 20 years of experience focusing on energy efficiency, with the support of an expert technical marketing, production, service and after-sales support teams, we continued to serve the market with the vision of “Having place in the memories as a world brand, producing the world’s least energy and water consuming machinery”. Together with the intensive efforts that started in 2013, Pluvia has contributed to a sustainable environment by producing CE certified, ‘simple, ‘smart’ and efficient machines. Pluvia carries out its activities in Turkey with a modernized factory in Çorlu and a sales and marketing office located in Istanbul.”
By 2016, Pluvia had acquired an important place in the global market by investing in its international sales and marketing activities and has established distributorships in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Vietnam, China and South and North America regions. Pluvia, aims to continue to maintain its presence by designing and producing smart machines for textile industry, together with valuable global partners.
Innovative machinery
Elaborating about the products and solutions offered by the company, Mr Zafer Serttas mentioned: “Today, Pluvia designs and manufactures innovative machines for all needs in continuous washing machines. All these machinery types are unique in design and technology. “
“With Pluvia CircumDye Machines, all washing steps of classical reactive dyed fabrics are carried out in continuous lines, increasing the efficiency of dyeing machines, while saving water and energy. This is a new process technology we offer to the market and met with great interest. Especially dyehouses which have problems with their jet dyeing capacity by installing Circum Dye they can have 40% increase in their production. Thanks to its efficiency, not less than 50% water and steam saving is a plus compared to final washing in conventional machines.”
Continuing further he added: “With Pluvia CircumPrint machines, it is possible to perform an effective washing that can meet the highest fastness values while ensuring the need for dwell time after printing. Circum Print is very similar to Circum Dye but added J-Box chambers to obtain enough dwell time. “
“Pluvia MaximeDrum is the drum washing machine capable of washing almost all types of fabrics and yarns like silk, cotton, viscose, modal, tencel, polyester and blends without crease marks, less peeling, high washing effect and of course with highest possible fastness values. Unlike conventional drum machines, Pluvia design ensures that water passes through the fabric over and over again, thus providing quality of washing” Mr. Zafer Serttas remarked.
India – a key market
Pluvia expands every year and continues its operations in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Vietnam, China and South and North America regions.
Pointing about the importance of the Indian market for the company, Mr. Zafer Serttas said: “India is very important to us. In addition to being one of the countries with the biggest capacity in terms of textile production, India values quality of its products. Also, water is an important issue in India for dyehouses. One of the biggest reasons for our machines to attract attention in India is their very efficient water consumption values. Today, water is more important for dyehouses. Our customers who want to use their water efficiently are interested in our machines and technologies.”
Given that there are other similar technologies available, what makes Pluvia’s machines stand out from the crowd? Listing down the key reasons Mr. Zafer Serttas explained: “Firstly, Pluvia can be called as an engineering company, rather than a textile machinery manufacturer. The Pluvia team focuses to add value to the costumers with their efficiency-oriented products. The design and working principle of Pluvia machines was not affected by other long-standing manufacturers in the industry. Thus, Pluvia managed to establish a new standard, completely different, knowing the shortcomings of the existing ones. “
“The washing systems that are being used for many years, prefer to develop their technology with little touches. However, the end consumer, global clothing brands and dyehouses want technological advancements at a much faster pace. At this point, Pluvia has launched machines that are completely self-designed with a revolutionary approach. With the real production and consumption values we get from the machines running on the field, we can clearly see that this approach has made a difference. For this reason, we can confidently say that we produce the most efficient and innovative continuous washing machines in the world,” he observed.
“For example, in the Circum Dye machine, washing steps of reactive dyed fabrics can be completed with 7-10 l/kg of water. Accordingly, steam consumption decreases to 0.25 to 0.35 kg/kg, as it is directly related with water consumption. These consumption values, and the increase in efficiency in conventional dyeing machines, dramatically shorten the return of investment. Likewise, Circum Print machine consumes 20-30 l/kg of water and 1.5-2.5 kg/kg of steam, while it provides a noticeable increase in fastness values compared to other printed fabric washing systems. In addition, since Pluvia machinery are completely compact and modular, they are always suitable for capacity increase. If a customer wants to increase the capacity, this demand can be met by adding additional chambers to the existing line quickly,” Mr. Zafer Serttas pointed out.
Partnering with THE GAURS
Pluvia started selling its products in India in 2018. “However, we encountered an interest more than we expected. 2019 has been a year of recognition in the Indian market for us. Although 2020 is a difficult year, it is a year that we have serious expectations. We think that the difficulties in the world increase the importance of efficiency and this strengthens the Pluvia brand,” Mr. Zafer Serttas said.
The company has already started making significant inroads into the Indian market. Shri Sai, Victus Dyeing, White House are some of the companies they have already installed their machines and running successfully. The company is also in the process of installing a few more machines with key clients at present.
Sounding excited at the prospect of working with THE GAURS, Mr. Zafer Serttas said: “GAURS is a company that has done well in India for a long time and only works with quality brands. In addition, GAURS provides serious technical support to companies with its fast service and strong technical knowledge. We believe that our recognition will increase rapidly and we will be successful in producing suitable solutions for our potential customers, thanks to the cooperation with GAURS in the Indian market, which we attach great importance.”
Efficient & eco- friendly solutions
Going into details regarding the factors that he foresees driving forward the demand for the company’s products and solutions, Mr. Zafer Serttas stated that today, productivity and efficiency has become a life and death issue for companies. Productivity is important both in terms of production speed and cost control. With the continuous washing machines Pluvia produces, it provides the speed that dyehouses need and it does this with the lowest possible operating cost.
“Especially in wet processes, the biggest cost item is naturally water and steam consumption. We save money on these consumption items with our washing machines, which create considerable differences compared to their equivalents. Of course, while doing this, we ensure that our customers achieve the highest quality desired in their product.”
Continuing further he said: “Nowadays, where water is gaining more and more importance, it is not only a cost issue but also our duty against the earth. We think that the production methods, where water consumption is minimized, will become more important day by day and we try to offer solutions accordingly. The companies we work with also prefer our products due to their cost advantages and environmentalism, and we believe that this preference will continue to increase as our recognition increases.”
How does Pluvia take care of aftersales, service and spares for its customers in India? Is remote troubleshooting possible in the case of their machines?
Responding to this question Mr. Zafer Serttas said: “Pluvia has a team that provides its own service. We are talking about a large and experienced staff that strikes service in machine installations and after installation. We also care about the distributors we work with to be able to serve in their own regions. For this, we ensure that our business partners have service teams and also these teams are fully trained by us.”
“Our machines can be installed easily and quickly. Since we installed our machines on their own installation platforms, it does not require much preparation in the mill where it is installed. Due to its modular structure, it can be modified quickly if capacity increase is desired. Thanks to our state-of-the-art software, all data related to the machine can be followed on the screen. In addition, we can make a diagnosis of the problem and help with the solution by connecting to the machine software from the center online whenever necessary, “he revealed.
An optimistic Mr. Zafer Serttas foresees a vibrant future for the company. Speaking about its future plans he said: “It is very important for us to do our job well. We aim for the machines we produce to be the best in the world and to continue in this way by constantly improving. For this reason, we will never have an idea to turn to other fields other than continuous wet processing machines. This month we are completing the installation of our first continuous bleaching machinery in Turkey. We are very excited to add this machine to our product range, which contains very serious know- how.”