Leading textile finishing company, Pincroft, reflects on more than three years of partnership with Meech web cleaning systems to boost quality, improve productivity and reduce waste

Based in Lancashire in the north of England, Pincroft has a proud heritage of more than 100 years in the dyeing and finishing of textiles. For the last 25 years it has specialised in the production of workwear fabrics and is acknowledged as a global leader in this field. As a major supplier to the British armed forces as well a range of other industries – Pincroft’s customers demand fabrics finished to the highest possible standard. For more than three years the company has been using Meech VacCleanTM units across multiple production lines to ensure this standard is met.

“We set ourselves an extremely high bar when it comes to quality control,” says Production Manager, Adrian Kirkpatrick. “We work to a rule of no more than ten faults in a fabric roll of 100 metres. In a production environment like ours, small airborne contaminants are an unavoidable fact of life. Dust, lint and loose threads regularly attach themselves to fabrics and this can obviously cause major problems to finished quality as contaminants that are printed or dyed over then leave a blemish or ‘resist mark’ when they later fall off or are removed. If this happens too often, you end up having to reject large quantities of material, and redo jobs. This costs both time and money as well as generating unnecessary waste.”

In order to improve the overall quality of its product offering and to reduce waste, Pincroft, in 2016, invested in Meech’s VacClean web cleaning system. “We looked at a number of different solutions – but ultimately decided that Meech offered the best value for money. We noticed an immediate cost saving and quality improvement after installation and we now operate eight VacClean units across our production lines.”

The benefits have been ongoing, Kirkpatrick says: “The units are compact and easy to use, clean and transport around the plant so we can ensure that they are always providing us with maximum benefit, and Meech remains a pleasure to work with. We’re equally delighted with both quality of their products and the service they provide us with.”

Donald Lewis, Business Development Manager at Meech International says: “Meech’s web cleaning solutions – as well as its static control systems – are widely used and highly regarded in the packaging and converting sectors. Textile finishers experience many of the same challenges when it comes to production quality, but they are often unaware of the solutions that exist to meet these challenges head on. We’re delighted to have been able to help a textile finisher of Pincroft’s standing to improve the quality of the products they produce for their customers and we look forward to continuing to work with them in the years to come.”