E-learning for textiles

1)      What kind of company are you?

We are an SME with 8 people, who weave, knit and braid narrow fabric, mostly elastic. We have a specific smart textile portfolio which are high end bands with added value. At the moment this forms some 5% of our turn over.

 Example products:

2)      Please provide the most interesting example of technical / smart textiles that you have.

We work together with companies that are searching for narrow fabric solutions for their applications. Over the years we have built up a large experience with smart textile connectors. One of our products is a LED band, for which we developed a dedicated pick and place machine. Our experience allows us to create this band in the form factor a customer wants (thickness, width, ...) with e-yarn positioned in a way that allows easy soldering. We produce such band with 2, 3, 4 or more e-yarns embedded depending on the requirement of the customer.

 

3)      How did you promote or put your product on the market?

We are in the B2B market, so deliver a semi-finished product. Businesses typically are searching for a band, and then due to our presence in media, expositions, find us to prototype the idea and deliver the product to them for use in their products. We don’t have specific promotion otherwise.

We see a growing understanding of the possibilities of integrating smart textiles in products. Originally people were thinking it would break or fail easily, but as more products are introduced, the confidence grows. The market is still small however. For example, when we need threads, I normally have 5 agents I can call for quotes, but in e-textiles that is not the case. Not all products are stable yet, so there is a risk of material no longer being available. Prices of e-textiles also come at a premium. The evolution is hence not very fast.

 

4)      What requirements do your customers most request? (EC Certifications, washing etc.)

As a B2B we help develop our part of the product with the customer. Certification and washing is part of the end product and is the responsibility of the customer.

Testing of our narrow fabrics is also very difficult as most standard test protocols require larger fabric samples than we make for the customers. Washing clearly is a concern, but if only raw bands are bought from us we will indicate that washing is not allowed.

The biggest requirement is hence helping the customer in research for their product. We learned a lot in a couple of bigger projects with research institutions, but now most research is internal for specific applications requested by customers.

 

5)      What is the competition in your market for smart textiles?

The market is very splintered, so hard to say. For us the biggest competition would be the big groups like Nike that make their own bands. But although that is competition, they also drive the market forward towards more smart textiles, more customized products, and smaller runs, which then is also good for us.

 

6)      What is your advice to new smart textile companies?

My first advice to entrepreneurs is to dare to take the leap. That is the first step. Next, focus on a single concrete product. It is good to have more than one idea, but keep it in the drawer, and focus on only one thing. Finally, don’t do everything yourself. Use B2B suppliers like Elasta to help in developing parts which are the expertise of the supplier. The integrated development of your product/idea will remain your property as suppliers will focus only on their part.

 

7)      Do you agree in sharing some of these experiences for educational purposes?

Yes, we can share some bands. As we don’t do finished products, things like the fully finalized LED band are at the moment a demonstrator of which we don’t have a lot. Previously we had a heart-beat sensor band demonstrator but unfortunately we can’t share that.

Video narrow fabric production: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mYyTr2x6eZAKJx0YcuBTJ8D6WrygUkGB