Interview: Bill Mills on the future of textiles

NWtexnet’s Bill Mills talks textiles

Textiles were once the biggest employer in the Northwest and the hub of the localeconomy. Economist experts agree that the sector continues to show considerable resilience in a competitive global market - one exacerbated in the current global slowdown. Director of NWTexnet (suppliers of research and training) and manager of the NW technical textile cluster for Northwest Regional Development Agency, Bill Mills, talks to thisismanufacturing about tackling the skills gap and how new technologies could ensure that textiles continues to play a pivotal role in the Northwest.

Have textiles always played a significant role in the Northwest?
“Yes, 95% of the UK textile industry is probably in Northeast Lancashire and north Manchester. The industry turns over about £4billion pounds a year and employs about 37 000 people.”

How has the industry outgrown its traditional definition?
“Technical textiles (those textiles whose performance is their paramount attribute) are increasingly seen as a platform technology for other Northwest manufacturing sectors. For example: the quantity of technical textiles now contained in a modern car or a modern aircraft, in interiors and composites in particular; the range of medical end-uses into which textile products go into; smart fabrics and sensor technology for military end-uses.”

What are the big issues for textiles right now?
“The sector has proven to be very resilient during the current recession; this is due to good management, a good balance of products spread across a number of global markets. But the sector cannot stand still, with a rising cost base in Europe, improving skills and developing new profitable products quickly are vital. In the UK we have a shortfall in technically trained textile workers from senior management through to shop floor workers. So our emphasis is to develop additional workforce, give them new skills, encourage new product development and sourcing when companies buy overseas. Skills is a big issue: it’s about getting new entrants into the sector. The average age is 50 plus so there’s nobody to replace the MD’s when they want to retire. The other issue is trying to attract people to the industry given the competition.

What is NWtexnet doing to bridge the skills gap?
“We just got approval for a foundation degree in Advanced Flexible Material (AFM) Project Management at Blackburn college. And other skills development projects include initiatives such as ASAM an in house training scheme we’ve developed with NWDA funding. Manchester University and Bolton certainly have textile specific courses.”

Will new technologies be vital in textiles future?
“Absolutely. Two years ago we decided that we wanted to look at technology that hadn’t yet been developed. We weren’t interested in incremental technology. The main ones are plasma, electrospinning and 3D weaving.

Plasma

“The first is Plasma. Plasma is a proven technology for textiles. You would use it to speed up processing time when you are dying and coating. It uses less water, less chemicals, less waste. After extensive trials on a range of plasma application methods we are now developing a project (funded by NWDA and ERDF) to establish two or three plasma demonstrator facilities in the region. These demonstrators will be free to use by Northwest’s Advanced Flexible Material (AFM) companies to develop and test products with a view to purchasing their own plasma plant.”

Electrospinning

“We plan to build an open access centre for electrospinning in Daresbury, Warrington. The centre will allow AFM companies access to machinery, skilled technicians and testing facilities to help them develop electrospun products: an old technology that has made rapid advances. It would be fantastic for things like filtration, protective clothing, suits that are anti-chemical. The really sexy area for electro spinning (http://www.electrospinning.co.uk/tech.html) is health care: growing human tissue and cells.”

3D weaving

“Using 3D weaving composite structures such as car panels is a nice story because it uses traditional skills and brings us full circle back to textile heritage. Skills and techniques been known for a long time. Composites are essentially glue and fabric squashed together: this process is very labour intensive and had problems with reusability. This new 3D weaving reduces the labour and time taken to process composites. It could drastically change composite supply chains by reducing the cost and time to process and NWtexnet intends to apply for EU funds to develop a project in early 2010.

What effect does sustainability legislation and eco issues have on textiles?
“Huge impact, we are working with a Northwest based environmental support organisation, ENWORKS, to deliver specialist consultants into the textile sector to help companies to maximise their resource efficiency, reduce waste and imbed “cleaner” design processes. There’s an awful lot of money sloshing about for sustainability and environmental cases are good for PR.”

Where is the future of textiles?
“We need to try and sell textiles as a platform technology in that it supplies into auto, bio-chemical and more. People don’t identify with textiles at the moment. And I would like to see the Northwest recognised as a centre of excellence.