#Knitting & Hosiery
Turag goes vertical and selects Monforts for new mill
A key element in the fitting out of the mill, which is located on the outskirts of Dhaka in the South Panishail district, was the installation of a Monforts Montex JV stenter, supplied by Monforts representative, Bengal Technological Corporation Ltd. With the stenter installed, Turag is now undertaking knitting, dyeing, sewing, printing, finishing and garment manufacture.
“We have used top quality machinery from Europe for all the processes, and we needed the Monforts stenter for the flexibility it gives us in fabrics handling,” says Mr D S Hemantha, General Manager for textiles production, who commissioned the production mill.
“The stenter needs to handle all natural materials, together with chemically treated fabrics and materials such as 100% polyester, and we also need particularly high-temperature finishing. All this of course has to be of the best quality, because our entire business is for export, mainly to Europe.”
Turag was already an established name in the export markets, having been founded in 1998, although it had remained a small-scale garment manufacturer until the decision to expand into textiles production.
Now occupying an area of 39,623 m2 (426,500 ft²), the factory employs a workforce of 1,900.
Turag is best known for producing casual and sportswear with a variety of patterns and sizes of knit fabrics which are finished with different functions, such as wicking, moisture management, anti-bacterial, and mosquito-proof. The company works with special yarns such as polyester, micro-polyester, modal, bamboo cotton, Polyamide Tactel, Coolmax and Suplex.
Mr Hemantha, who spent much of his career working in the textiles and garments sector in the United Kingdom, says that the intention of making the mill a vertically integrated one was to better control supplies, quality and cost.
“To go from a single garment production unit to a fully integrated mill is an enormous step,” he says. “We had to start by constructing the buildings, which illustrates how new everything is. But we had extremely efficient support from Monforts and Bengal Technological, both in installation and in training, and the mill is now working very effectively.”
The Montex stenter features a wide range of energy saving solutions providing reduced running costs, improved efficiency and productivity, and has an integrated heat recovery system fitted as standard. Energy saving, says Mr Hemantha, is a very important aspect of textiles production in Bangladesh because of uncertainty of the power supply, and as backup to the main supply Turag has installed two generator sets, one powered by gas and the other by diesel. The Montex is handling approximately 10 tonnes of fabric per day, working usually at the rate of 26 days per month, the remainder being holiday or downtime for maintenance.
Mr Hemantha says that it can handle fabrics up to 240 cm in width, although the most usual widths range from 172 to 200 cm. The weight of the fabrics handled ranges from 180 to 320 g/m2. He said that the flexibility of the Montex allows them to undertake small runs and to work with their customers on developing new product lines, often niche products that will have a limited production run.
Turag is a 100% supplier to the export market, with Germany taking between 30 and 40% of output, and France and Sweden also representing significant markets. Small quantities are going to the United Kingdom and Japan.
