Indian youth to digitize textile designing
S Nishanth, 23, a B.Tech in Mechatronics, has made an innovation, the Novatex Electrical Cylinder, which simplifies the process of weaving designs on saris and dhotis, eliminating the dependency on thousands of punch cards, which need reconfiguration for every new design.
Nishanth has digitized the ‘Jacquard‘ loom. His innovation in digitizing textile design can help to minimize production costs and save time, which may help revive the struggling handloom sector.
Novatex Technology is all set to manufacture the loom’s digitized version next year, in a tie-up with Sona Incubation Foundation and IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) headed by IIT-M professor, Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala.
Nishanth said, “I faced multiple challenges and failures over the past two years, optimizing the final product. It involved hundreds of major and minor alterations.”
“The latest version is probably the most efficient we have devised, being five times smaller, 10 times faster, and costs only half to manufacture, as compared to the original prototype,” added Nishanth, who has won several awards for his innovations.
An informal chat between Nishanth and his college senior Pranesh in January 2020 on weavers’ problems set him on the course to work out a solution.
Over the next two years, he conceptualized and perfected the Novatex Electrical Cylinder, to digitize the working of a Jacquard’ loom.
“This innovation will find application in the textile industry and will benefit the fashion designers as well as the small weavers in producing more designs at lower cost,” said Chocko Valliappa, vice chairman of Sona Group of Institutions.
“The Sona Group of Institutions has been preparing engineering talent with a key focus on R&D and industry-academia partnership. We are happy to incubate Sona College alumnus Nishanth’s innovative entrepreneurial project at IIT-M IC,” said Jhunjhunwala, also president of IIT-Madras Research Park.
Currently, the usual 7-by-3 inch punch card is described as “a piece of thick cardboard that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions,” to determine specific patterns, help create designs, especially on saris and dhotis, in the power and handloom sector.
However, the whole process is expensive and cumbersome. A single new design requires as many as 2,000 punch cards, each costing Rs.4 a piece totalling Rs.8,000. In the rainy season, the cards tend to absorb moisture and need drying. The cost escalates if more elaborate patterns are preferred.
The IITMIC has incubated 241 startups to date, valued at Rs.11,000 crore, besides generating more than 5,200 jobs over the last eight years.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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Need to share this info with all handloom groups in South & North so that they gain advantage from it.