SMART technologies invisibly but firmly and long ago became part of our everyday life. Due to global tendency to automate the system of accounting of ready-made textile articles, a great number of home and medical textile articles ordered at Tirotex must contain electronic chips.

Recently, the international textile market has begun to actively combat counterfeit products. Conscientious manufacturers intend to seriously press the "shadow businesses" causing an unhealthy competitive struggle and compromising consumers’ confidence in the quality of the original product. To this end, well-known world-famous brands place orders for microchipped products. With the help of chips, information about the manufacturer and supplier of the goods is encoded in order to trace the goods from the moment of their “birth” to the counter. Thus, there are additional levers of control over the goods - when crossing borders, during transportation and at the point of sale. Moreover, the chip does not spoil the appearance of the product at all, since sophisticated "secret technologies" allow you to sew it into the hem ad make it invisible. This kind of “excise stamp” has additional functions, since the unique identifier carries information about the product itself — the product number, its article number, the number of washes passed, the recommended method and the temperature mode of washing, which, by the way, can be “read” by a modern washing machines.

Although the technology is quite developed, these chips are usually sewn in only by hand. As about 50% of all finished products at Tirotex are manufactured with a chip at the request of customers, it is clear that the capacities of manual sewing machines are not enough. It should be noted that earlier, about 12 years ago, a new division was created at the sewing production - a section of automated sewing lines, where 9 automated units of Canadian company Automatex were installed to make flat sheets, pillowcases, duvet covers, fitted sheets, medical cloths, kitchen towels and tablecloths. Today, an absolutely new, already the tenth, automated sewing line from the same manufacturer (a recognized world leader in the production of textile equipment) has been installed and pit in operation at Tirotex. The line is served by only two operators, which reduces the cost of manual operations requiring 18 people per shift.

Andrey Mezhinsky, General Director of Tirotex, said: “A new automated sewing line is a kind of special order, with its own characteristics and complexity of technological execution. The possibility of automatic production of items with chips will allow us to partially unload manual sewing lines, thereby reducing labor costs, and secondly, we will be able to fulfill this range of orders within a shorter period of time. This is a complex with a sewing and folding lines which comprises practically a complete cycle of production of products with chips and the possibility of attaching two types of labels — loop-shaped and a flag-shaped. There is also a seam detector which ensures quality by discarding non-grade products. The line allows to check quality, sew and fold at the same time. The line can produce up to 5 sheets with a width of 150 cm to 330 cm per 1 minute, which is up to 2,400 pieces per shift, depending on the size. It is a guaranteed increase of production volumes at least by 300 to 350 thousand meters of fabric per month.”

The sales director of Canadian company ES Automatex Solution AB, Stefan Persson, who was personally present at the actuation of the line, said: “We have been working closely with Tirotex for a long time. There are already 9 automated sewing lines installed at the sewing factory, and today another one has been put in operation. Our company fulfilled all obligations on time, provided technical support during installation, putting in operation, training of Tirotex’ workers who will continue to work on this line. We highly value the partnership established between us and express hope for further mutually beneficial cooperation.”