Supplying the ring spinning industry worldwide with high-quality spinning rings and ring travellers for almost 7 decades from their headquarters in Mönchengladbach, Reiners + Fürst was founded in 1945 by Walter Reiners and Stefan Fürst.
R+F is ready for celebrating their 70th anniversary next year coinciding with the upcoming ITMA, in the hands of Benjamin Reiners, who represents the 4th generation in this family-run business. Generating an annual turnover of 15 million Euros, this innovation driven company has been standing with its core values for high quality, reliability and sustainability for many years. Customers all over the world confidently rely on the confirmed advantages of R+F’s high-end quality products and service Made in Germany. “Since spinning rings and ring travellers very much define the yarn quality and also the productivity of the machine is very much dependent on these products basically, these are crucial parts of the ring spinning machinery. Principally, this is also the main reason why we are still producing in Germany,” says Benjamin Reiners. Although R+F provides also the ring spinning machine manufacturers with its spinning rings and travellers, the company’s main focus is the spinning mills and spinners, whom they sell almost 90% of their products directly.
REINERS + FÜRST IN THE TURKISH MARKET
“Since many of our customers are based in Far East Asia, Turkey is of utmost importance and a major market for us with a considerable spinning industry, which is also one of the closest countries to Germany and the easiest one to travel and reach our customer base. We have very good customers in Turkey. We also have some customers here in Germany, but the number is very limited. When we started our company back in 1945, even in the 60s or so, we had about 40 customers just in Mönchengladbach where we don’t currently have any,” says the head of R+F.
SUSTAINABILITY & REINERS + FÜRST
R+F always pursues attempts not only to reduce their products’ impact on the environment, but also to take care of their production site and to care for less energy consuming processes as well. Environmental protection has always been given top priority by R+F. “Environment is very important and it does not matter if the environment is in Germany, in Turkey or anywhere else in the world. We all have to care of our environment. We only have one,” emphasizes the head of R+F. “The environment does not really have a prize right now. We use it up since it is free basically. Therefore we do not really take that much care of it unfortunately, as we should because people are not yet so aware of the environment as a key factor for future. At R+F, we are trying to place maximum interest and importance on environment. We have been focusing on the environment already for a long time,” adds Benjamin Reiners. A member of the Blue Competence Initiative of VDMA, R+F performed a study base on comparison of their products with products having shorter lifetimes and less productivity. Consequently, they found out that it is possible to prevent the disposal of around 50 tons less steel each year in case of the achievement of the prolongation of the life time of the spinning rings by 20%, which also helps to reduce the environ mental impact by 40 tons of CO2 per year. Another aspect they proved with this research is the longer lifetime the spinning rings and travellers have, the more energy resources could be saved. “This is a win-win situation. It is positive for the end customer. I think, if the product lasts longer, it is good for the environment, as well,” points out Reiners.
AN IMPRESSIVE CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY MODEL
R+F have recently awarded with “Energy Masters Award 2014” by econique in the category “building” thanks to their achievement of implementing a new heating system in their company that reduced their use of oil by far. “We do not use oil for heating any more. Instead we are now using the heat that is being produced by our machines and ovens to heat our premises. In the winter months we needed Daily up to 1000 liters of heating oil to heat our whole company. Now it is not oil any more. So, this is not only much better for the environment, but it is also good for us since we have reduced the costs for the heating up to 65%,” says Benjamin Reiners. “If the product would be very environmentally friendly, but more expensive or less productive for the end customer, he would rather not buy it. The product has to give the same productivity at least for the same price in comparison to any other product for the end customer to prefer it. Sustainability must not cost anything for the end customer. It is such a bad trade-off sometimes,” adds Reiners.
DILEMMA OF FIBERS REGARDING SUSTAINABILITY
As a component manufacturer for an industry, which mainly natural fibers are being spun, Benjamin Reiners believes to keep a good mixture of natural fibers and man-made fibers. “The industry of growing cotton is also very important for many countries. If it is done right it is also sustainable and it is also good industry. The same counts for man-made fibers as well. Both have the right of being promoted basically,” points out Benjamin Reiners.
COMPONENTS FOR STABLE YARN QUALITY
R+F spinning systems enables the spinners to consistently produce the highest yarn quality from raw materials – within a single cop, from spindle to spindle, and from one machine to the next. “I think the most important thing about R+F is that we can provide very high quality very con stantly. Each traveller or each spinning ring perspindle produces quality wise exactly the same yarn with almost 0 differentiation between cops to cops. This is a very crucial key point that is very difficult to maintain for the yarn manufacturer. Consider a spinner having one ring frame with 1000 spindles and 980 of them are doing a good job and 20 of them, which spread all over the frame, are not operating properly. Consequently, that would result with the loss in average quality and decrease in the average production. The spinner would also need additional employees to be able to keep consistency of the products. Overall, it would not help much for the spinner. In this case of the spinner, a 1000 of the spindles have to be good, not 980,” stresses Reiners. This also gives the spinner the availability to achieve a better price/ performance ratio. Availability of considerable stock in the market, fast delivery, quick and reliable service are some of the other major key points that makes R+F a unique manufacturer of components in the world ring spinning market. “As our products are very dependable, the mill managers can well organize their employees. They would need fewer employees with our products compared to other products with less productivity. They would be able to produce a lot more yarn than compared to any competitor’s product with the same number of employees thanks to the lifetime of our rings and travelers. A certain R+F ring and traveller combination lasts at least up to 2 to 3 times longer than anybody else’s product. This gives a very big advantage to the customer, “ points out Reiners. “Although our products are more expensive than the competitors’, it pays off very much in the end and makes our customers competitive global players in the field of yarn producers. This is really a win-win situation for both the yarn manufacturers and us,” concludes the 4th generation owner and managing director of R+F.
