Innovation Award: Random Acts Of Innovation

量子组内部的外观揭示了一种非常不同的纺织公司。

By James M. Borneman, Editor In Chief

Quantum Group及其五个姊妹公司提供了完整的纺织解决方案菜单 - 末端纺织品制造,由添加剂主机,单丝和多丝纱线挤出,纹理,扭曲,编织,编织,机械重新设计和自动化。

When asked about the creation of these individual companies rather than creating operating divisions of The Quantum Group, Company founder Jeff Bruner explained: “I own 100-percent of The Quantum Group. But these individual sister companies allow key employees and industry partners to participate with Quantum in ownership.” This is a concept Bruner says provides motivation and opportunity for all parties involved.

另一个区别是缺乏销售力。With the exception of one fiber sales person, the companies rely on long-term relationships and word-of-mouth for new business. “People just come to us with their problems,” Bruner explained. With no interest in competing on price or participating in price compression or product commoditization, the companies are focused on helping clients achieve market differentiation. Quantum often is requested to be the problem solver and improve or invent a solution. Also, when it creates a solution, because most of the processes require modified equipment, the company often becomes a contract manufacturer as well.

量子组and its sister companies offer a variety of textile solutions from additive masterbatches to monofilament and multifilament yarn extrusion, texturing, twisting, knitting, weaving, and machinery reengineering and automation.

Making R&D Successful

大多数研发(R&D)合同始于Quantum或一家姊妹公司,要求客户的愿望清单将其与竞争区分开来。然后,开始工程解决方案的过程。

Rather than a typical textile operation that invests in a capability — like a weave room for example — and then develops products using that capability and takes them to market, Quantum operates in reverse order.

布鲁纳说:“通常,我们试图为客户提供纺织解决方案。”他举了一个制造商的例子,该制造商生产绳子修剪器并希望改进产品。布鲁纳说:“因此,我们问公司要改善的财产是什么?”“然后,我们开始思考和挠头,看看我们能做什么。该公司的愿望清单包括较长的持久,更大的灵活性,高速鞭打并超越竞争对手时的热量。我们还必须弄清楚他们的设备的功能是什么 - 直到万事设备。他们可以以0.5%或5%或10%的饲料喂食吗?然后,我们设计了一个实验,以尝试降低摩擦系数的不同材料,并改善了传热。这些可能与鞋类或座椅织物中使用的材料相同,因为这些添加剂在满足某些要求之间有很多交叉。”

Innovation All Day Long

This type of R&D is at the core of Quantum and its sister companies. It is typical for them to come up with a theory or a hypothesis, invest in the equipment or formulation necessary to make the product — hopefully the equipment is used — then modify it and install it. Equipment often is installed and dedicated to one customer as needed.

Quantum even has refurbished and modified shuttle looms because this technology allows them to exploit the unique characteristics of this old weaving process. The shuttle loom’s woven selvage allows the company to weave tubular fabrics some of which are used as belts in various industries.

“我们将管子编织成非常精确的尺寸,我们的客户将其融入皮带。Bruner说:“皮带被美国和日本邮政服务用作饲料腰带,该饲料带供应字母和包裹,越过邮政编码的光学扫描仪,” Bruner说。

“We make various dimensions of tubes for a long-time customer that coats and slits the tubes into belts to supply a variety of end-uses including belts to drive the drum in copy machines, printers and even the beater brush on vacuum cleaners.”

Auxetic Yarns

似乎每个公司都有一个值得探索的创新故事。燃烧器解释说,即使在扭曲之类的过程中,也有创新。在一种情况下,量子会产生一种辅助纱,这是一种围绕弹性核心包裹的高强度纱线。纱线提供给生产用作爆炸窗帘的织物的编织器。随着爆炸的释放,纱线会拉长并吸收能量,而纱线的高强度组件保持了织物的完整性。

In another instance, Quantum was approached by a medical company to perform some twisting with a very clean environment requirement. “So we bought a machine for them, and installed it in its own room with its own HVAC,” Bruner said. “And we only run their product on it. If they pay for it, we’ll run it as they need product whether it is 2 percent, 10 percent or 90 percent of the time. We have to give them what they want, when they want it.”

Uranium — Really?

布鲁纳最近与田纳西州橡树岭的橡树岭国家实验室一起完成了一个有趣的项目。

“Oak Ridge was having some handwoven samples made at Philadelphia University and they needed to scale up and figure out if the fabric they developed could be successfully made on a machine, and it required a shuttle weaving machine,” Bruner said. “So we set up a dedicated shuttle-weaving machine to weave these very special yarns — made using treated high-surface-area filaments — designed to absorb free uranium in the ocean. The fabric produced looks like sea kelp but it is woven on a Draper weaving machine.”

The fabric is an olefin so it’s lighter than water and floats. Bruner said there is approximately 3.3 parts per billion of free uranium distributed throughout the world’s oceans, and most major countries are looking for ways to harvest that uranium.

布鲁纳说:“根据能源部的说法,铀足以在接下来的几百年里为每个人提供电力。”

After the fabric is exposed to the seawater, it is harvested and chemically processed to extract the uranium.
“You don’t have to mine anything,” Bruner said. “You float these fabrics made from a special polymer spun into a unique cross-section. Imagine the fabrics floating like a kelp bed,” he added.

修改和自动化
Quantum及其姊妹公司通过添加内部工程进行翻新,修改和自动化纺织流程来扩展其功能。

布鲁纳(Bruner)描述了一个项目,其中Quantum的内部工程改造了复杂的窗户制造过程。布鲁纳说:“我们正在为一家公司编织专门的窗户屏幕。”“然后,我们将布料运送到公司进行粘结处理。从那里开始运送到另一家公司进行热集。然后,将其发送给另一家公司,以将其切入窗户所需的尺寸。

“当房屋市场放缓时,该业务对我们的客户来说还不够大。因此,我们考虑了这一点,现在量子编织,键,热集和缝隙 - 一项操作。现在,我们是主要的窗户和门制造商的供应商。”布鲁纳补充说。

屏幕织物也非常独特,因为它是由荧光聚合物纤维制成的。该公司称,与传统筛查相比,这种纤维可提供更大的光传输和优越的紫外线阻力。


Quantum具有强大的工程功能,包括翻新,修改和自动化纺织机械以及过程,包括在重建之前和之后显示的此齿轮盒上执行的零件重新调节。

It’s About People

When asked about the key to Quantum’s innovation and success, it was clear that curious and capable people are at the center of the operations. “I just want people to be happy with challenges — people who enjoy solving people’s and companies’ problems,” Bruner said.

对Quantum的高点的评论表明,是否与通用汽车,赫尔曼·米勒,米多克斯医疗和名单合作 - 量子集团及其姊妹公司都有光明的未来。布鲁纳说:“只要有问题要解决,我相信量子可以提供解决方案。”


量子组
姊妹公司

Protextiles专门从事编织管状textiles using refurbished and customized Draper and C&K looms. Largely serving the belting industry, Protextiles weaves a variety of man-made and natural fibers to achieve the client’s specification. Protextiles also has twisting and warping capabilities, and weaves tire cord fabric.

Knitmastersproduces 2-D and 3-D knitted functional technical fabrics.
Utilizing state of the art computerized processes and design, Knitmasters offers a broad range of knitting capabilities and flexible processes including
circular- and flat-knitting equipment.

纤维extrudes and texturizes man-made turf thatch yarns. It has the capability to process polypropylene, nylon 6, polyethylene and polyester, as well as other resins, extruding round, oval, S-shaped and C-shaped cross sections and engineering performance using a variety of additives including ultraviolet (UV) stabilizers, static reducers and flame retardants.

三合会聚合​​物specializes in compounding masterbatches for a broad number of products in the plastic and fiber businesses. A masterbatch is a concentrated formulation of colorants or functional additives. Such additives are engineered to affect the performance of the final product when added to the polymer prior to extrusion or injection molding. Triad can engineer any number of properties, from enhancing UV performance to adding antimicrobial properties and magnetic additives.

A recent start-up,Trident Fiberswas established to manufacture polyester yarns specifically for the production of medical implants.


November/December 2015