Future-Ready Fabrics: Santex Rimar Group’s Strategic Blend of Italian Precision and Global Responsiveness
June 01, 2025 | By Textile Outlook India
Santex Rimar Group is driving the future of textile machinery through sustainable innovation, digitalization, and customer-focused solutions. In this exclusive interview, CEO Simone Rancan highlights the company’s strategic priorities, India-focused approach, and how Italian engineering continues to empower global textile transformation amid evolving industry challenges.
Q. Reflecting on 2024, how would you summarize the year for Santex Rimar Group? What were the most noteworthy technological innovations introduced during this period?
For many of our customers around the world, it was a year of deep restructuring. The business environment was challenging and there was great uncertainty about the future because of the well-known geopolitical issues. So, customers were especially focused on operational efficiency. Therefore, during the year, we actively proposed new options to enable customers to prioritize machines and plants targeted at reducing operating costs.
Q. Sustainability remains a critical focus. What advancements has Santex Rimar Group achieved in energy efficiency, water conservation, and environmental sustainability with your latest product developments?
Santex Rimar has always been a reference for the market in terms of energy consumption and sustainability. The premium quality of our projects and machines translates into lower energy consumption per kilo of material processed. This is achieved by reducing those factors with a negative impact on sustainability. Embracing sustainability also has the positive consequence of reducing both waste and energy consumption. We have also made great strides in developing software that optimizes machine performance in order to achieve these goals.
Q. Digital transformation is reshaping the textile machinery sector. How has Santex Rimar Group embraced digitalization and automation, and what measurable benefits have these brought to your customers and the industry?
Digitalization and automation have been key topics in the industry for many years. And Santex Rimar has always brought its clients the best-available solutions for digitalization. This commitment has required strong investments in our own engineering, as well as cooperation with partners active in digital production technologies. We are extremely satisfied with the results achieved here. The level of automation is also increasing. We note that our clients are continuously choosing machines and plants with our more advanced automation concepts. This brings the end-user maximum consistency in output quality levels, as well as the possibility to operate processes with reduced personnel.
Q. India is a key global textile hub. What is your strategy for the Indian market and are there any upcoming products or tailored solutions specifically designed for Indian manufacturers?India, both as a domestic and as an exporting market in textile will be more and more a textile hub. As Santex Rimar we have a stable presence in India since more than 25 years, we have been based in the South and this year we decided to open our site as well in the North. In order not to miss the opportunities our local structure, mainly Service and Sales, has been tasked more and more to enlarge the interaction with the local customers and bring back to our HQ the development proposal for the equipment in a way that it can best suit the India specific requirements. We already implemented several options which can now be selected by our clients, and we are happy with the progresses we are doing.
Q. Customer-centric innovation is vital for long-term success. How does Santex Rimar Group incorporate customer feedback into its R&D processes, and what steps have been taken to enhance the user experience of your technologies?
Our Global Service team represents our eyes and ears in the market. We are very proud of this worldwide network, which is vital in bringing feedback from customers. These responses are discussed and analyzed internally by our engineering and sales teams. The interface with latest PLC technologies helps a lot in this process. We have achieved extremely satisfying results, for example in the application of compacting technologies, thanks to this approach, and we will continue in other areas as well.
Q. Technical textiles are gaining momentum globally. How is Santex Rimar Group aligning its technologies to meet the specific requirements of sectors like automotive, medical, or protective fabrics?
Santex Rimar Group has had technical textiles in its DNA from the start, with a specific division including the Cavitec and Isotex brands. We are thus well positioned to cope with an emerging demand for these types of machinery and plants. So, we do not actually have to ‘follow’ a technical textile – as we have already been in it for more than 30 years, and are eager to share our extensive knowledge with customers. In fact, technical textiles production doesn’t only need machinery and plants, it also requires tailor-made solutions to be really effective. And this area is one of our great strengths.
Q. As a global player with strong roots in Italy, how do you balance your Italian engineering legacy with the evolving demands of international customers in emerging markets?
Well, it’s a real advantage to be absorbing technical requests and demands from markets outside our home country. These ideas are integrated in our long engineering history, leading the product development processes. Santex Rimar has been doing business in India for 30 years and in China for more than 20, with our owned organizations. And we have always paid great attention to suggestions coming in from our teams around the world. It is not by chance that our Group is in a strong position and continuing to make progress more than 60 years from its beginning. We wouldn’t have achieved any of this if we had not kept constantly in touch with new markets.
Q. Skilled workforce development is crucial in high-tech manufacturing. What initiatives has Santex Rimar Group taken to train operators, technicians and clients in efficiently using your advanced machinery?
We place great big importance on our Service Team, not only for providing top-quality assistance to our clients but also for its role in managing training. Increasingly, we offer our clients the chance to train their workforce during a new plant installation. At the same time, we are developing our software to allow customers to input simple instructions to our machines, while the software handles the most complex settings. This is a huge advantage in shortening training time for operators.
Q. Looking ahead to 2025, what are Santex Rimar Group’s strategic priorities and expectations? Can you offer any insights into upcoming product launches or anticipated technological breakthroughs?
The year 2025 will still be one of uncertainty, for us and the customers. In such an environment, we need to focus on bringing short-term and effective advantages to our clients to help them through this difficult period. Our technological advances are thus mainly focused on software improvements and digitalization. These are the kind of improvements that can be implemented quickly, once developed, not only on new machines but also on existing machines and plants. In this way we achieve a double target, enhancing the new products and giving clients the chance to improve what they already have.
#TAGS sustainable innovation, digitalization, and customer-focused solutions, sustainability, SANTACOMPACT, Automation