Bilateral international agreement signed for coating grammage improvement in finishing lines for woven, tufted and needle-punched carpets and artificial grass.
Vandewiele's daughter company Bejimac, specialist in textile finishing machines, established a structural collaboration with Hammer-IMS on quality control of latex coating. This agreement fits in the shared vision of Vandewiele, Bejimac and Hammer-IMS to digitalize the finishing lines for carpets in which accurate, adaptive measurement plays an essential role. Hammer-IMS dedicatedly integrates its non-nuclear technology for measuring coating grammage into Vandewiele-Bejimac finishing lines. Thanks to the real-time measurement and automatic system adaptation of these smart systems, carpet manufacturers maintain highest product quality while reducing the usage and scrap of expensive latex material. The collaboration agreement stipulates that Vandewiele sells and distributes its Hammer-IMS enabled finishing lines. This resellership covers the entire world, except EU, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland.
Over the years Vandewiele has gained a number of strong brands. Bejimac is a brand associated with the Paulus family, already for four generations. Bejimac accumulated over a century of experience and know-how in textile finishing and particularly in carpet finishing. Today, Jean-Loïc Paulus, Managing Director, leads the company together with his father Jean-Marc Paulus, Senior Technical Manager. In Vandewiele-Bejimac’s textile finishing machinery, it is important to closely monitor the process of applying and gluing the latex coating underneath the pre-produced fabrics. "The purpose is to reduce waste, recurrent expenses from customer side and continues our works towards the autonomous back coating machine".
Consistent quality in latex coating
Hammer-IMS, a leading specialist in quality and process control, customizes and integrates its non-nuclear verification technology into the latex coating process inside Vandewiele-Bejimac carpet finishing lines. Tom Redant, Technical Manager of Hammer-IMS: "The grammage measurements occur through our proprietary M-Ray electromagnetic wave technology, which is harmless for people and environment. Measuring before and after the latex coating is applied, enables us to monitor coating grammage in real time and drive the feedback loop to effectuate adaptive latex adjustments. This approach maintains high quality and consistency in latex thickness and homogeneity across carpet width and length."
"The quality control developed by Hammer-IMS is expected to fit our Bejimac carpet finishing lines", says Jean-Loïc Paulus, Managing Director of Bejimac. "The renowned finishing technology of Bejimac combined with real-time control of the latex grammage by Hammer-IMS is unique and ensures state-of-the-art carpet products. The robust M-Ray technology is accurate and eco-friendly, and helps to save carpet manufacturers considerable amounts of expensive latex material, which is difficult to recycle."
Combining the best of both worlds
Thomas Beauduin, Group Coordinator of Vandewiele: "The bilateral international agreement between Hammer-IMS and Vandewiele combines the best of both worlds. It enables carpet manufacturers to produce premium 2D and 3D carpet products containing better controlled latex coating. At the same time, they benefit from reduced latex usage and scrap."
The agreement is the first milestone in a broader, long-term collaboration. Both companies believe in jointly digitalizing the finishing lines for 2D and 3D carpets. Thomas Beauduin: "Smart finishing lines enable manufacturers to more precisely tune this critical production stage through accurate, adaptive coating measurement. Equally interesting is that Hammer-IMS has significant experience with tufted carpets. This will lead to a next-generation line of Vandewiele machines, which operate up to three times faster and will be demonstrated at ITMA in Milan in June".
Noël Deferm, General Manager of Hammer-IMS: "We are proud to have set up a distributorship agreement with Vandewiele, a world leader in innovative textile systems. We look forward to seeing our integrated and customized quality control perform in many international carpet finishing lines of Vandewiele. With Hammer-IMS, we are fully committed to successfully collaborate with Vandewiele for many years to come."
