Soorty Denim, a leading, Karachi headquartered denim producer, has significantly slashed its denim finishing costs as a result of the installation of Pakistan’s first Monforts Eco-Applicator.

The improvement has been verified by an in-depth sustainable production study carried out with Archroma, the Switzerland based multi-national organisation that was created from the textiles, paper and emulsions businesses of chemicals giant Clariant.

Denim leader

Soorty is a major producer of denim fabric and jeans, now employing some 22,000 people across its operations, which are centred around Karachi in Pakistan, and with a new, award-winning garment making-up department and office in Bangladesh, as well as a design studio in Amsterdam. Among its prestigious clients are C&A, Calvin Klein, Dorothy Perkins, Esprit, H&M, Lee, Mango, Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Tailor and Zara.

“Between 70-80% of our manufactured denim is being converted into finished pairs of jeans,” said General Manager Alam Mazhari. This equates to over 2.4 million pairs of jeans a month, but Soorty has big plans for the coming years. A systematic expansion programme saw the installation of a Monforts Montex stenter along with a Monforts sanforizing range installed in 2006. A repeat order for both machines for a second finishing line followed in 2009. 

Today Soorty is in the process of commissioning its third Montex stenter and sanforizing range. Once fully running, the company’s finished woven denim capacity will be increased to a monthly 5.5 million metres.

Eco-Applicator

The Eco-Applicator has been designed to enable the extremely precise application of functional finishes to fabrics and dry them in an extremely efficient and compact single-stage unit. It is designed to offer significant energy savings with reduced liquor application. The multi-functional and multi-purpose process is said to ensure the lowest energy input for consecutive drying to its minimal liquor application.

It has been developed to apply a liquor to one side of the fabric; to both sides of the fabric; a different liquor to either side of the fabric; or to apply two different liquors consecutively to a single side of the fabric.  

All of the Monforts installations have been arranged and overseen by local agent Al-Ameen Trading Corporation. “The benefits of Eco-Applicator were pretty clear from the start, but nobody wanted to be the pioneer in Pakistan until Mr Mazhari became totally convinced of the terrific savings that could be achieved and finally ordered a machine in late 2014,” said KM Basit, of Al-Ameen.

Monforized Award

Earlier this year, Soorty was presented with the Monforized Certificate at the Igatex textile machinery show in Lahore, in recognition of its work in successfully integrating the Eco-Applicator into one of its existing finishing lines, and also carrying out an exhaustive study of its potential, including the One Way Programme with Archroma.

This is a three-step programme involving product selection based on eco-standards, process short-listing based on environmental focus, and a solution selection based on cost and eco-benefit calculations.

www.monforts.com