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Chip Butler III (C), president of Service Thread Manufacturing Co., Charlotte, NC, chats with Bo Thomas (L) of Thomas Textile Co. and Harold Dunragan after the Carolinas Textile Club’s January meeting at the NC Center for Applied Textile Technology. |
By Devin Steele
BELMONT, NC — After several years of gathering in Charlotte, NC, the Carolinas Textile Club is now holding its monthly meeting at the North Carolina Center for Applied Textile Technology’s new facility here.
The club’s January meeting not only was its first at the $3.2 million, 26,000 square foot addition, but also the first “official” event staged in the building, according to the state’s books, although several events took place there during the final phases of completion.
The event was held in the 150-seat auditorium. The building also houses three equipment labs, a physical testing lab and two computer labs.
To kick off “official” activities in the much-anticipated facility, Dr. James Lemons, president of the school and a board member of the Textile Club, invited three of the NCCATT’s “business education partners” to address the group. Those speakers represent companies that have located equipment at the school for training students and outside users.
Billy Tate, director of customer support for Saurer Group, Charlotte, NC, noted that his company for years had a training facility in the NCCATT’s existing facility.
“But when we were offered additional space here in the new building, we decided to move all of our training from South Boulevard (in Charlotte) to this location,” Tate said. “The Schlafhorst rotor spinning and winding equipment that we’ve installed here represents a fairly large portion of the installed base in the U.S. market. So, for the textile school’s purposes, this is a major asset.
“For our customers, this location offers quick access from the interstate, good local accommodations and a much less congested area than South Charlotte.”
Tate added that Saurer has scheduled 15 training sessions, or about 150 training slots, this year.
Randy Chaney, technical director for the Textile Machinery Division of Murata Machinery USA, Inc., Charlotte, NC, added that his company also plans to soon conduct all of its training on its state-of-the-art equipment located at the school.
“Also, since we have the machines over here, when a training class is not going on, we hope to use these as a second lab for Murata and also for sampling for our customers,” he said. “In our lab now those machines are running constantly, five days a week. It would be nice to have a facility off-site that we can also use.”
Murata also will continue to send employees to the school to take such curricula as textile fundamentals and computer training.
Locating equipment at the NCCATT is a new endeavor for Uster Technologies, reported Raul Thomas, textile lab and training manager.
“We see some great synergies here as far as having some of our training classes here and working in conjunction with the school and with the other partners,” he said.
Thomas said his company was grateful to the school for modifying a room in the new building to house a Uster yarn and fabric testing laboratory.
“We believe it’s a win-win situation,” Thomas said. “We have a state-of-the-art laboratory and the center has access to some state-of-the-art laboratory equipment.”
