Erhardt+Leimer, a leading supplier of guiding, tensioning, and measurement systems, is embracing the opportunity of Innovate Textile & Apparel to emphasise its range of digital solutions for its growing customer base. Giorgia Sonzogni, marketing and communication manager of Erhardt+Leimer Srl located in Italy, explains more.
How is Erhardt+Leimer’s exhibit going at Innovate Textile & Apparel and what do you hope to gain from exhibiting at the show?
The show is going well from our side; this is our first virtual trade show so everything’s new in a positive way for us. In future, we’d like to be more and more digital, so we think this is the best way to start. For sure we hope to gain new contacts from the show or new enquiries from old and loyal customers. As we are an internationally orientated company with different subsidiaries and agents worldwide, we are well known all over the world in the textile market but in our opinion this is a new and digital way to promote our products, know-how, solutions and to reach people who don’t know us.
What is Erhardt+Leimer exhibiting at Innovate Textile & Apparel?
We are promoting our ‘savoir faire’ in the textile and nonwoven industry in regards to nonwovens, drying/tentering, finishing and printing machines, but for sure we can’t show everything in a booth so we invite customers and people who are interested in knowing more about our company and our projects to contact us so we can have a coffee virtually while exchanging our ideas and better understand their needs. We have standard products for the textile industry but we also create and study customised solutions based on customers’ requests.
What measures do you take to ensure your machinery and equipment meet the highest quality standards?
At E+L we pay much attention to suppliers and the quality of material we use to build our machines; the search for suppliers is very detailed and over time we have built a solid circle of reliable suppliers. In addition, we have a specialised engineering team that constantly works on developing machines with new technologies in order to respect our highest quality standards.
Being part of the Italian Pavilions at Innovate Textile & Apparel, what qualities would you say make Italian manufacturers so innovative?
Being part of the Italian Pavilions and of ACIMIT, the Association of Italian Textile Machinery Manufacturers, is very important to us because it underlines our Made In Italy products. Erhardt+Leimer Srl is the italian subsidiary of E+L GmbH and for this reason we sell trading products made in Germany all over Italy but in addition we’re the only subsidiary that produces itself customised machines based on customers’ requests, so it is important to us to underline that our machines are studied and realised in our factory in Bergamo, Italy.
This year has been particularly challenging for the textile industry. What has been your company’s experience of the Covid-19 pandemic and what challenges have you faced?
The Covid-19 pandemic has been and still is a challenge for everybody; our Italian company is located in Bergamo, one of the most affected cities in Italy. The textile industry suffered a decline during these months, and it is still suffering: some customers postponed orders and some do not have money to invest in new technologies.
We’re trying to do our best in order to respect our customers’ difficulties, but for sure this is a hard time for everybody. We’re always at our customers’ disposal putting them and their requests at first place so that together we can find a solution to continue with our projects. We believe in the market opportunities and we hope it will resume to its full potential.
Is there anything you would like to add about your products or services?
At E+L we place great emphasis on service: with a dense service network in all the key industrial nations, we are able to offer our customers a comprehensive range of services – from remote maintenance through to personal, on-site support. Simple, uncomplicated, and whenever customers need us.
We use different tools for our service activities and during the Covid-19 pandemic we’ve improved our systems in order to not leave our customers alone. Since it was not possible to fly to customers’ facilities, we started using smart glasses in order to install our machines at a distance and to provide remote assistance.
To learn more about the services provided by Erhardt+Leimer, visit the company’s booth at Innovate Textile & Apparel.
