Saertex is undertaking a worldwide reorganisation of its capacities for producing technical textiles made of glass and carbon fibres.
Additional capacities for making lightweight carbon fibre fabrics are being created at the two German sites within the company’s global production network. In parallel with this, plant and machinery for producing glass fibre NCFs will be installed at sites in India, South Africa and Turkey in order to adapt the company’s delivery performance to a change in regional demand.
Saertex is reorganising its global network of production sites, which includes 12 plants on five continents, for producing multiaxial non-crimp fabrics made of glass, carbon, aramid and natural fibres. This is a building block on the road to expanding regional supply chains in order to ensure a stable supply of product to wind power, mobility and industrial markets.
“We are investing in the efficiency of our worldwide production facilities to allow us to supply our customers economically and reliably via short distribution channels,” commented Christoph Geyer, CEO at Saertex. “This is how we are adapting our offer to a changing market landscape and making further progress towards achieving our global sustainability goals. We are achieving this on the basis of reducing transport distances by harnessing local delivery capabilities.”
Additional capacity is being added at the company’s headquarters in Saerbeck and at subsidiary TK Industries’ site in Selbitz (both in Germany) for producing multiaxial non-crimp fabrics made of carbon fibres. Moreover, the new range of pultruded planks made of carbon will enter series production there. Preparations for this have almost been completed.
“Saerbeck is not only an innovation centre, but is also the most important and sustainable production site within the group. This is especially true when it comes to technology products in the carbon sector,” said Dietmar Möcke, CTO at Saertex.
The high demand for non-crimp fabrics made of lightweight carbon fibres will be met by installing an additional MAX-5 plant for producing heavy-tow fabrics in Saerbeck.
“We are also implementing an additional production shift at the Selbitz site to create further capacity for this important part of our product range,” commented Möcke.
In turn, production capacities for glass fibre fabric are being expanded at other sites of the family-owned company which operates internationally. The installation of additional multiaxial production machines at the Saertex plants in India, South Africa and Turkey has either already been completed or is in full swing. Construction of the new plant in Mexico has already been successfully completed in recent months, meaning that the Saertex site in Ciudad Juarez can now assume responsibility for supplying wind sector customers in Mexico.
“Despite considerable restrictions caused by the pandemic, we were still able to successfully conclude a key element of our global optimisation measures,” said Möcke. “Depending on needs, we will also utilise the flexibility of our global production network over the longer term in order to adapt our local delivery performance to match demand from our customers.”
