The Turkish family-owned company Arikan Mensucat Industry and Trade Inc. was founded in 1993 in KahramanmaraÅŸ, one of the southernmost cities in Turkey. In addition to the traditional textile trade, Arikan was initially involved in yarn production, building a spinning mill, which was followed in 2008 by a knitting mill. A few years later, dyeing and finishing operations were added.

Arikan is one of the oldest companies in the KahramanmaraÅŸ region and has developed into a solid and successful textile company. Today, the family-owned company employs around 1500 people and finishes around 55 tons of knitted fabrics every day. In addition to supplying many well-known Turkish fashion manufacturers, Arikan also supplies international manufacturers in Europe, Russia, the Gulf States, and other international markets.

German machinery manufacturer Brückner has supported Arikan from the beginning and supplied three stenters for the finishing of the high-quality knitted fabric in 2014, when the Turkish company founded its dyeing and finishing plant. Two more lines followed in 2016.

The Brückner brand stands for quality, efficiency, and innovation. What we also appreciate very much is the open exchange, the professional contact with customers and the good service

For decades, Brückner has been a market leader for the finishing of knitted fabric. Special line configurations and technological know-how are necessary to be able to produce a high-quality product, especially for very fine and elastic fabric. 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, by the alternating arrangement of the thermal zones every 1.5 metres, and by the German company’s proven split-flow air system.

Besides these advantages, Brückner says, the machine operators at Arikan also appreciate the easy control of its lines. The visualization, it says, is intuitively designed and offers many intelligent auxiliary systems for optimizing the production process. Also, the excellent accessibility of the line for maintenance and cleaning is also a plus point. In addition, significant energy savings can be achieved with just a few changes to the machine parameters and sophisticated software provides machine operators with valuable information for this purpose.

With all of the aforementioned advantages, the decision to buy 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 fabrics and on their 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 Turkish producers, including Arikan, steam energy is cheap or even available free. With the combined heating system developed by Brückner it is possible to use this steam energy for heating up the dryer, to achieve significant 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 influence 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 requirements and the available resources. Thanks to the development over many years of these combined systems, and to sophisticated software, the changeover to an alternative energy source can nowadays, be carried out without problems.

In recent years, a close friendship has developed between Arikan and Brückner, with the Turkish Brückner agency Inter Tekstil creating the link between the two-family companies.

According to Brückner, production manager Harun Bilginer is very satisfied: "The Brückner brand stands for quality, efficiency and innovation. What we also appreciate very much is the open exchange, the professional 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 knitted fabrics for the world at Arikan.

www.brueckner-textile.com