The Turkish family-owned company ARIKAN Mensucat Industry and Trade Inc. was founded in 1993 and is located in Kahramanmaras, one of the southernmost cities of the country. In addition to the classic textile trade, ARIKAN was involved in yarn production in the early days and initially built a spinning mill. This was followed in 2008 by the construction of a knitting mill, and a few years later the dyeing and finishing divisions were added. In the Kahramanmaras region, ARIKAN is one of the oldest companies ever and has been developed into a solid and successful textile company. Today, the family-owned company employs around 1,500 people and finishes around 55 tons of knitwear every day. In addition to many well-known Turkish fashion manufacturers, ARIKAN also supplies international manufacturers in Europe, Russia, the Gulf States and other leading international mar-kets.

The German machinery manufacturer BRüCKNER supported the Turkish company from the very be-ginning. From the foundation of the dyeing and finishing plant, BRüCKNER supplied three stenters for the finishing of the high-quality knitted fabric in 2014. Two more lines followed in 2016. For dec-ades, BRüCKNER has been the market leader for the finishing of knitted fabric. Especially for very fine and elastic fabric, special line configurations and technological know-how are necessary to be able to produce a high-quality end product. During the drying and heat-setting process, for example, extremely accurate and uniform temperature distribution over the entire length and width of the dryer is essential. In the BRüCKNER stenter this is achieved, among other things, by the alternating arrangement of the thermal zones every 1.5 meters and by the proven split-flow air system.

One of the many BRüCKNER stenters at ARIKAN

Besides these advantages, the machine operators at ARIKAN also appreciate the easy control of BRüCKNER lines. The visualization is intuitively designed and offers many intelligent auxiliary sys-tems for an optimized production process. Also the very good accessibility of the line for mainte-nance and cleaning is also a plus point. In addition, significant energy savings can be achieved with just a few changes to the machine parameters. Sophisticated software provides machine operators with valuable information for this purpose.

With all these advantages, the decision for another BRüCKNER stenter in 2019 was an easy one to make. The management at ARIKAN attaches great importance to energy saving, especially in the fabric finishing department. The drying process is one of the most energy-intensive in the entire process chain, therefore the biggest savings can be made here. These have a direct impact on the manufacturing costs of the textiles and thus on competitiveness in the market. In the meantime, talks are already in progress for another BRüCKNER line which will include a very special feature: a combined heating system for the dryer. For many customers - and so also for ARIKAN in Turkey - e.g. steam energy is available free or very cheap. With the combined heating system developed by BRüCKNER it is possible to use this steam energy for heating up the dryer and thus to achieve sig-nificant savings. If the available steam is not sufficient for a running process, it is automatically switched over to gas heating. This mode of operation does not only have an effect on the energy costs, but also makes a considerable contribution to environmental protection. BRüCKNER has been offering combined heating systems for many years, depending on the customer's require-ments and the available resources. Thanks to the development over many years of these combined systems and to a sophisticated software, the changeover to another energy source is nowadays car-ried out without any problems.

During the last years a close friendship has developed between the companies ARIKAN and BRüCK-NER. The Turkish BRüCKNER agency INTER TEKSTIL is always the link between the two family com-panies.

Production manager Harun Bilginer

Production manager Harun Bilginer (Photo) is very satisfied: "The BRüCKNER brand stands for quali-ty, efficiency and innovation. What we also appreciate very much is the open exchange, the profes-sional contact with customers and the good service. Of course, the representative in many countries also plays an important role. With INTER TEKSTIL BRüCKNER is well represented in Turkey. We feel very well looked after, they simply take care. This is not a matter of course."

Soon when the latest line has been put into operation, a total of seven BRüCKNER stenters will produce high-quality knitwear for the whole world at ARIKAN.