Driving Textile Innovation: Zimmer’s Vision for Asia and India at ITMA ASIA 2025
September 26, 2025 | By Textile Outlook India
Mario Calis, Sales Manager at Zimmer, Austria, discusses the company’s focus on sustainable, resource-efficient technologies, digitalization, and its strong partnership with A.T.E. Enterprises. He also highlights Zimmer’s strategy for Asia and India ahead of ITMA ASIA + CITME Singapore 2025.
Q. As a leading international player in textile engineering, how do you view ITMA ASIA + CITME Singapore 2025 as a platform to showcase innovation and engage with Asian and global markets?
It offers us a wonderful platform to present our technologies in the heart of the Asian textile market. Asia is a huge market for us and a excellent venue to reach the regional customers as well as the global partners. For us, the exhibition is not only a stage to showcase innovation but also a place to gain direct feedback from a dynamic market environment. The exchange with customers and partners is essential for us to drive future developments in a targeted way.
Q. Your collaboration with A.T.E. Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. has been long-standing. How has this partnership helped you strengthen your presence in India and South Asia?
Our long history and partnership with A.T.E. Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. have been one of the reasons for our success in India. A.T.E. has the understanding of the markets, customers, and regional requirements. Through this close collaboration, we have been able to position our machines and solutions effectively while ensuring top-level service and technical support. This has strengthened our market reputation and enabled us to build a solid presence in the region.
Q. What cutting-edge technologies or solutions will your company highlight at ITMA ASIA + CITME 2025, and how do they align with global industry needs?
Our focus will be on energy efficiency. This includes solutions for greater process stability and technologies designed to significantly reduce resource consumption. These technologies directly address global industry needs: delivering higher quality at lower costs, ensuring production flexibility, and driving sustainable manufacturing practices.
Q. Sustainability is at the forefront of the textile industry. How is your company addressing the twin goals of resource efficiency and environmental responsibility through your latest innovations?
Sustainability has a huge priority in our development strategy. All our new projects are designed for energy savings and reduced waste generation. We are introducing solutions that minimize water and chemical usage without compromising product quality. In this way, we help our customers meet environmental requirements while maintaining a strong and economic performance.
Q. How do your technologies support circularity and recycling in textiles—especially in areas like man-made fibres, technical textiles, or waste reduction?
The textile industry faces the challenge of creating true circularity. Our technologies support this by enabling water recycling processes, reducing production waste and finding a place for recycled PET yarns. Our aim is to help shaping a textile value chain where losses are kept to a minimum.
Q. Can you share how your company is advancing digital solutions, automation, and smart factory concepts to enable higher productivity and consistency for textile mills?
Our company is offering camera solutions for an integration in web shops. Customer is ordering a mat/rug in an online shop. The information is going directly to the printing machine, after rowing in this order automatically in the production, the operator knows the size of mat he has to place. Camera is reading the white mat/rug and printing the design. The software is preparing the paperwork for the delivery. Once coming out from the production line, the camera is reading the design and matching with the delivery papers. The mat/rug is delivered to the customer. Similar solutions we have for the printing from the roll.
Q. India is emerging as a global textile hub. What role does India play in your company’s global strategy, and how do you see demand evolving here?
In our market, carpet and heavy textiles, India is evolving into a big player. Unfortunately, the tariff policy USA is having, has created a certain disruption in the business. Other countries are profiting from this situation. India is very much depending on the US market and exporting the most there. A big demand was followed by good machine orders. Today the US administration put all on hold.
The biggest risk we see here is that some companies think they could buy cheaper machines somewhere else. Accepting the risk of low quality. The most of manufacturers are going to be kicked out of business because of the lower quality they could offer.
Q. What permanent shifts in buyer expectations or supply chain models have you observed post-Covid, and how are your solutions enabling manufacturers to adapt?
We’ve realized manufacturers were trying to diversify and add new products to their portfolio. Specially in the carpet business. India is very much focused on hand-tufted and hand-knotted carpet. Handcrafted carpet is having a very long history in India and this is very much recognized in the world. In our opinion, this shouldn’t disappear but has to be complemented with machine made. In a time of crisis, manufacturers need to offer a wider range of products to the buyers. Unfortunately, this trend we’ve seen during Covid, to add machine made, is almost stopped. Next crisis is coming and India is not prepared.
Q. Are you exploring any joint research, co-innovation, or technology-transfer initiatives with A.T.E. or Indian industry players to better serve this market?
Water is a big issue in the textile world. India is focusing, like the whole world, into saving water and zero discharge. ATE is having a big expertise in this field. On each project we’re working together, we add this expertise for the customer to be online with Indian regulations.
We encourage our customers to attend workshops we make at our site in Austria. Know-how is very important and makes the difference between one manufacturer and the other. Last workshop was made in August 2025. A company from Panipat, India was attending for a week in our premises.
Q. What message would you like to share with Indian textile entrepreneurs, policymakers, and stakeholders as they prepare to engage with your technologies at ITMA ASIA + CITME Singapore 2025?
A country can grow only with industry and industry will grow only with the latest technology. The textile industry in India needs to keep pace with countries like China and Turkiye. Production machines in the highest quality and with the latest technology are a must. ITMA ASIA + CITME Singapore 2025 are a good place to interact with Zimmer Maschinenbau GmbH and see our latest developments in the field of carpet/towel, camouflage and pigment printing.
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