Success Story at Harris Tweed Hebrides, UK
High quality fabric is essential for any finisher who wants to ensure consistent quality and resource efficiency. A particularly important quality criterion is straight weft and straight course fabric.
The Situation:
The Scottish tweed manufacturer Harris Tweed Hebrides finishes 100% woolen, handwoven cloth and stands as a world class leader in British luxury cloth with an extensive, high quality product range. The company was looking for a weft-straightening system which, in contrast to the previously used pinwheel system, could not damage the wool.
They finish 100% woolen, handwoven cloth with fabric weights from 260 to 353 g/m² and fabric widths from 750mm up to 1500mm. Each individual tweed is approximately 50m in length.
Goal of the customer:
The customer’s aim and requirement is a precise correction of the weft without usage of pin wheels to produce high quality, straightened fabrics without distortion as well as automatic adaptation on a wide range of weaves and the variations that occur with handwoven fabrics, while maintaining easy, intuitive operation.
The Solution:
Fitted to these needs the well-known German manufacturer PLEVA gives with the automatic weft-straightener SL smart including the unique high-tech traversing camera technology the optimum solution and offers the finisher several advantages.
The user-friendly, self-explanatory interface displays all important information at one glance. This enables to work with maximum efficiency and to react to the complex portfolio with the integrated recipe management for sophisticated straightening. The well-established advanced traversing camera with many measuring points across the fabric width ensures the most accurate straightening. In combination with the fast reaction time of the rollers, it allows best straightening results. Further on, the machine design is fitted to even the harshest working conditions and optimized for easy cleaning and low maintenance.
The Success:
David Stewart, Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd is very satisfied and states: „The SL smart weft-straightener performs very well with our product. The traversing camera is exceptionally accurate and automatically adapts to a wide range of weaves. The system of skew and bow rollers allow precise alteration of the weft without the possibility of damage to the fabric. It requires very little input from the operator and minimal maintenance, resulting in increased productive times. The addition of the touch screen control panel allows the operator to view the current weft position in real-time, ensuring that the fabric is within the accepted parameters. Excellent support from PLEVA team.”
Besides those advantages, also a positive ecological impact is achieved: Due to the first-time-right-principle, only one round through the production line with the fabric is needed to produce directly the aimed result. This saves energy and valuable resources. In addition, due to the higher quality of the goods, there are no more costly readjustments or wasted fabrics and complaints can be reduced drastically. This is not only good for textile finishing companies and customers, but also for the environment.
