£6 Million Boost Gives Region’s Textile Manufacturers a Cutting Edge

13/08/2009

Yorkshire’s textile manufacturers are set to become world leaders thanks to a £6milllion investment from Yorkshire Forward and the European Regional Development Fund.

Weaving aircraft components and anti-counterfeiting for the fashion industry are just two focuses of the Textile Innovation Programme, which will provide practical and financial backing for manufacturers to work with experts from universities and research organisations to create new high-value, ‘high tech’ products.

The programme, which is being run through Textile Centre of Excellence in Huddersfield, follows a series of feasibility studies conducted earlier this year. The Centre’s Managing Director, Bill Macbeth explains how the Programme will significantly increase the region’s capacity to operate in the Advanced Materials sector. 

“The value of the technical textiles market, which covers a wide range of sectors including medical, engineering, construction, automotive and aerospace has grown to an estimated £30 billion.

“New technologies, coupled with increasing environmental concerns are opening up major opportunities for companies that can create lighter, stronger components, and materials that can sense and adjust to their environment.”

Boeing is currently developing its new 787 which is to be made of woven carbon fibre and laminates. The Textile Innovation Programme’s feasibility studies demonstrated weave aircraft components can outperform titanium and aluminium, and the potential market opportunity for these strong, lightweight woven components is vast.

Another area where the Programme is set to make an early impact is anti-counterfeiting. Currently the high quality textile and fashion markets along with other key regional sectors like pharmaceuticals are facing a growing crisis, where counterfeit products are accounting for up to 10% of sales.

Bill Macbeth continued; “Our companies provide cloth for the most famous fashion houses across the world, and counterfeiting can seriously damage those brands and revenues. It’s even more serious in other sectors of course, where counterfeit medical products kill thousands of people every year.”

The Centre is already working with ADNAS, an American company based at Stony Brook University in New York, and succeeded in impregnating fabrics with botanical DNA, so they can be authenticated with 100% accuracy using the same testing methods used by forensic labs for criminal investigations. 

Jim Farmery, Assistant Director of Business at Yorkshire Forward commented; “Yorkshire Forward is very pleased to invest in new platform technologies that will foster growth and, ultimately, reap positive economic benefits to the Yorkshire business community, and the UK and European public at large. SigNature DNA is a true platform technology that has exciting and practical applications that extend to multiple industry sectors.

The Textile Innovation Programme will also support a wide range of environmental improvement activities through the University of Leeds, which will allow manufacturers to use more environmentally friendly chemicals in wool processing and reduce the use of power and water at all stages of production. 

The issue of textile and clothing waste recycling will also receive a major investment boost as the Programme will bring together key environmental organisations to focus on a problem that has exploded with the advent of cheap clothing imports. 

Other applications from the programme include the use of nano and plasma technologies to produce fabrics which are self-cleaning, conductive fibres to make ‘smart’ clothing that can monitor the wearer’s body functions and dressings that monitor wounds, prevent infection and deliver medication.

Ends

For more information contact:
Bill Macbeth, Textile Centre of Excellence, Huddersfield
01484 346500
bill.macbeth@textile-training.com

Notes for Editors

The Huddersfield and District Textile Training Company was established in 1976 to unite the local textile industry in a shared approach to professional, equitable and high-quality training. In 1999 the company established the Textile Centre of Excellence, a £2 million development located in Leeds Road Huddersfield, providing a wide range of ‘state of the art’ textile and clothing training and production facilities including:

- a technical workshop for carding, spinning, warping and weaving operations
- a research and product-testing laboratory
- a fully equipped clothing studio
- information technology training suites
- award winning multi-media meeting and conferencing facilities

The 20,000 sq. ft. Centre offers quality assured, flexible training at all levels from introductory courses and Modern Apprenticeships to training for technicians and managers.  A range of professional services is also offered including Occupational Health, Environmental and Health and Safety services provided by the Centre’s in-house expert team. The Centre, which employs 32 staff is a BS EN ISO 9001: 2000 Standard company and is a recognised ‘Investor in People’.   The Centre has over 60 member companies and, even though the sector continues to experience a decline in some areas, membership is rising.

ADNAS/APDN
APDN sells patented DNA security solutions to protect products, brands and intellectual property from counterfeiting and diversion. SigNature DNA is a botanical mark used to authenticate products in a unique manner that essentially cannot be copied. APDN also provides BioMaterial GenoTyping™ by detecting genomic DNA in natural materials to authenticate finished products. Both technologies protect brands and products in a wide range of industries and provide a forensic chain of evidence that can be used to prosecute perpetrators. To learn more, go to www.adnas.com where APDN routinely posts all press releases.

Yorkshire Forward
Yorkshire Forward is the Regional Development Agency behind the economic regeneration of Yorkshire and Humber. It aims to make a positive difference by investing in jobs, improving towns and cities, and in supporting businesses throughout the region.

Yorkshire Forward’s investment across the region is maximised by attracting European Regional Development Funding.

For further information, images or to arrange an interview, please contact Laura Scholey, Press Manager on 0113 3949540 or email laura.scholey@yorkshire-forward.com