The Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) continues to encourage the optimisation of the use of industrial technology to boost the competitiveness of the national manufacturing sector. It is anticipated that through these steps, the country’s manufacturing industry will contribute positively to economic growth.
“In order to continue to make changes, it is necessary to apply and take advantage of the latest technology,” said the Head of Standardisation and Industrial Services Policy Agency (BSKJI) of the Ministry of Industry, Doddy Rahadi in Jakarta.
Specifically, the use of innovation and technology is been strongly recommended to the textile and textile products (TPT) industry in efforts to make it more competitive and efficient.
To manage the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the textile industry is developing textile materials with special functions for medical use. As the demand for textile products that have anti-bacterial and anti-viral functions continues to increase, the industry is striving to meet expectations.
To bolster these specific needs, Doddy revealed that the Textile Centre (BBT Bandung) has launched a melt spinning laboratory facility. He confirmed that this facility can be used by the national textile industry to assist in the efforts to develop raw materials for yarn with special functions, including for medical purposes. “Material development will have an impact on increasing the competitiveness of the national textile and textile products industry,” he emphasised.
Melt spinning technology can design yarn with special functions that are directly embedded in the fibre. With the fibre engineering process deploying melt spinning technology, functional textile products can be produced that have higher durability than the chemical refinement results.
“We are preparing melt spinning to support the industry. We invite the industry to take advantage of this technology and equipment. One of the advantages is being able to find the best material as desired,” he said. The application of melt spinning technology also aims to support the import substitution of textile raw materials and functional textile products.
Director of the Textile, Leather and Alas Kak iThe Ministry of Industry, Elis Masitoh, appreciated the accelerated procurement of melt spinning equipment for industrial technology development. “We have high hopes for BBT Bandung to become a bridge of innovation for the textile industry and textile products in developing their products. ”
The Head of BBT Bandung, Wibowo Dwi Hartoto, said that they were ready to contribute in conducting a study on the standardisation of functional textile products as well as serving the industry in testing the quality of the products produced. They have made headway in testing services in the medical textile product segment. BBT Bandung in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) has established a medical mask testing laboratory facility.
Testing can be done in laboratories that include test bacteria filtration efficiency (BFE), particle filtration efficiency (PFE), breathing resistance, synthetic blood penetration test and splash resistance, differential pressure, and flammability. “This facility is prepared to answer the challenge of creating quality and adequate textile products, such as during a pandemic like this,” Wibowo said.
He added that the mask testing laboratory at BBT Bandung refers to parameters recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and has been identically adopted by the National Standardisation Agency for Indonesia to become the Indonesian National Standard (SNI), namely SNI.
Image credit: https://kemenperin.go.id
