Chairman
Andreas Weber
Director Sales , Marketing & Parts
Senior Vice President
SwissTex Winterthur AG
Schlosstalstrasse 45
8406 Winterthur
Switzerland
T: +41 52 268 69 02
F: +41 52 268 69 68
M: +41 79 629 73 77
andreas.weber@swisstex.ch
www.swisstex.ch
65th Meeting of the Swiss Section of the Textile Institute from 21st of April 2010
We were able to welcome 16 TI members and friends of the Swiss Section in the brandnew showroom and meeting room of Schellenberg Textildruck AG in Fehraltorf, canton of Zurich. With the group there was also a participant from the German Section.
After the 31st Annual General Meeting, Mr. Peter Schellenberg owner of the plant welcomed the group. Two groups were built for a round tour through the plant. The first one was lead by Mr. Schellenberg the other one by his factory manager Mr. Urs Weder.
Schellenberg AG is a family owned business being active as commission finisher and printer for knitwear. By acquiring the activities of Greuter Jersey in 2008 and the circular knitting activities of Tagwerker in 2009, Schellenberg today also runs own circular knitting capacities. Schellenberg has consequently built up added value in terms of verticalisation with a positive influence on quality and process control.
Activities of the Fehraltorf site are bleaching, washing, dyeing, printing, compacting and drying. There are continuous investments into equipment. Main customers are lingerie producers as Calida, ISA or Zimmerli but also knitwear brands as Eterna (sport shirts and polos) or Akris. Schellenberg doesn’t use textile fairs as selling platform but follows the strategy of targeted customer sampling.
Thanks to the very lean Company Organisation, Schellenberg is able to react very fast on customer demands. More than 6’000 stocked samples and a large stock of raw fabrics support fast reaction times.
Schellenberg is very proud on mastering the pad batch process for cellulosic knitwear.
In order to dye non cellulosic knitted fabrics, Schellenberg runs also a large jet dyeing capacity.
Beyond the standard rotary screen printing designs, Schellenberg is able to print with etch technology very delicate designs, allowing highly fashionable specialities.
All dye- and chemical kitchens are equipped with fully automatic dosing systems.
Schellenberg is a pioneer in ecological production processes. The recently installed washing lines from Erbatech cut in half the water consumption with an increase of production performance at the same time. As the one and only knitwear finishing company worldwide, Schellenberg is certified according to Oeko Tex 1000. Effluents are cleaned in the own plant in order to supply the waste water directly to canalisation. A flotation device separates solids from liquids. Solids are pressed and forwarded to the public waste incineration plant. The change from petrol to gaz lead to a CO2 free production. Exhaust gas washing is part of the plant already since the eighties. Heat is consequently recovered by heat exchanger.
The economical crise influenced also Schellenberg’s business. For already 18 months 40 people out of 75 employees totally are working short hours. Even today the orders don’t fill the production capacity. The order queue is at approximately 3 – 4 weeks.
After a very interesting guided tour through the plant, Schellenberg offered generously an apéro. The visitors were impressed and they will not forget so fast this very exciting excursion.
Simon Hugentobler
