Xerium is increasing its capacity in its press felt plants in response to strong global demand from customers for Xerium’s high-end surface sensitive press felts. Press felts carry the paper through the pressing process.
This additional capacity will be coming on line beginning in Q2 2013 and continue through Q4 2014. Xerium is largely capacity constrained with regards to press felt sales growth and, therefore, somewhat hampered in terms of partnering with growing customers, growing areas of the market and growing regions of the world.
The DILO needle loom is a special machine used in the production of high-end surface sensitive felts. These products are used on paper machines, fiber cement machines used in the production of building products and general purpose industrial textile machines. The high-speed, high-density needling capabilities of DILO’s Hyperpunch machine will expand Xerium’s current platform of needling looms used to manufacture Xerium’s most technologically advanced press felts. The DILO machine is on order.
“We are excited to be investing for sales growth and expanding our capacity to make press felts of all types — paper machine press felts, fiber cement products, nonwoven products, and general purpose industrial textiles. Xerium’s ability to grow in these areas has been limited by available capacity. These actions give our customers and sales teams more flexibility to pursue growth plans and additional new products. There are many parts to increasing our global capacity in a high-quality manner and it is a top priority at Xerium. We are expanding our base fabric capabilities, our heat setting capabilities, our needling capabilities, our card making capabilities and our finishing capabilities,” said Harold Bevis, Xerium’s President and CEO.
