Trade shows benefit businesses in numerous ways

September 1, 2008  |  Marketing

Make your next trade show the business opportunity it truly is. By Richard G. Ensman Jr. It’s that time of year: Your mailbox is filling up with those colorful mailings about your upcoming trade show, and you’re not sure whether to go or not. After all, it is expensive. First, there&rsqu…
Read More
Smaller carbon footprints save money and satisfy customers

August 1, 2008  |  Business

Should you measure your carbon footprint and try to reduce it? This isn’t about a sooty trail around the office. It’s about how much carbon dioxide your company pumps into the atmosphere as a result of its electricity consumption, motor vehicle fuel use and other business daily goings-on. Whatev…
Read More
AATCC co-sponsors “Textile Printing: Green & Global”

August 1, 2008  |  Business

The American Association of Textile Chemists & Colorists (AATCC) and [TC]2 are jointly sponsoring “Innovative Textile Printing: Green & Global,” September 17–19 at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel, Durham, N.C., U.S.A. The conference will highlight fresh approaches to textile printing and p…
Read More
Modern technology helps small fabricator shops

August 1, 2008  |  Business, Features

When you walk the aisles of a trade show, it’s hard not to be dazzled by all the newest high-end equipment. There are systems available with truly remarkable capabilities: high-ply CAD-driven cutters with vacuum compression tables; room-sized fabric welders; vision-guided robotic sewing machines. …
Read More
SHOP introduced to U.S. House of Representatives

August 1, 2008  |  Management

According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), of the estimated 47 million Americans without health insurance, more than 28 million are small business owners, their employees and dependents. The Small Business Healthcare Options Program (SHOP Act, H.R. 6210) has been introduced…
Read More
Thompson uses creativity to drive business

August 1, 2008  |  Fabric Structures, Features, Management, Perspective

Cynthia Thompson leverages her creative instincts to build a flourishing tension fabric structures business. “Business owners need to be inventive and fast moving and I think we’ve gotten sluggish,” says Cynthia Thompson, founder and owner of Transformit in Gorham, Maine. “I think we’re lo…
Read More
Molecular manipulation to change the textile industry

July 1, 2008  |  Advanced Textiles, Business, Features

Would you like to have shirts that don’t get dirty? What if the milk that spilled in your minivan never smelled? Wouldn’t it be convenient if the seats in your boat couldn’t mildew? And imagine the value of a surgical mask that actually kills germs, rather than simply preventing them from bein…
Read More
PVC breeds controversy in industrial fabrics industry

July 1, 2008  |  Business, Features

Poor Waldo Semon. Today the inventor would no doubt fly his private jet to his private island, where he would entertain VIPs in just about any industry you could name. But in 1926, when the B.F. Goodrich Co. researcher devised polyvinyl chloride (PVC), his employer had a hard time marketing it. Toda…
Read More
Chism uses technology to improve business

July 1, 2008  |  Business, Features, Management, Perspective

“You’re only as fast as your slowest person or procedure,” says Roy Chism, president of The Chism Co. Inc. in San Antonio, Texas, who doesn’t seem to have a “slow” speed in his process improvement strategies. Since 1988 when he purchased an automated plotter cutter with the serial number…
Read More
Technology gives fabrics the power to act and react

July 1, 2008  |  Advanced Textiles, Business, Products

Adapting shoes to weather conditions Wet feet? Never again. German companies IQTEX and BASF have jointly developed a unique, intelligent system that adapts shoes to suit weather conditions. To make this possible, IQTEX has processed a special superabsorbing fleece from BASF into an innovative ventil…
Read More