BarcoVision, with its headquarters in Kortrijk/Belgium, is one of the five business lines of the Barco Group domiciled in Belgium. This Group employs 4,000 employees, earns a sales turnover of almost 700 million EURO, and exports its products and systems all over the world. Operating business of BarcoVision is run through self-contained agencies in Germany, England, Switzerland, Italy and the United States and, beyond this, through agencies in over 50 countries whereas the whole production development is centered in the Kortrijk headquarters.

No matter whether for spinning, weaving, knitting mills or for dyeing and finishing shops – the company has been henceforth developing user-specific solutions for any branch of textile industry for over 35 years thus ensuring improvements in productivity and quality. The most essential products offered by BarcoVision include yarn cleaners for open-end spinning and winding frames, production-data acquisition systems (PDA) for spinning, weaving, knitting, and finishing sectors as well as controllers for textile dyeing machines (Barco Sedo). With an annual sales turnover of 60 million EURO and almost 400 employees, BarcoVision figures among the major suppliers of automation equipment for textile industry.

KnitMaster and KAMCOS^® OPC

The KnitMaster system was specially developed by BarcoVision for knitting and weaving mills. Manufacturers of world-wide reputation, such as EngTex (Sweden), Kufner Textile (Austria), Nettex (South Africa), Pacific Textiles (China) or Milliken (USA), are using this solution everyday to optimally control and supervise their production processes. Thanks to the integration of KAMCOS® into machine equipment of KARL MAYER, the KnitMaster feature can be used in the warp-knitting sector quite easily. As from 2007 ITMA Fair, an integral OPC-interface is offered under KAMCOS® also being supported by Knit Master as standard solution accepted world-wide for data communication between machine controllers and host computer systems. Now, KARL MAYER warp-knitting and Raschel machines can be connected for the first time to the proven BarcoVision system without supplementary data collection hardware. As to obsolete machines, interfacing, for instance, via Data Units is required to make use of the benefits of KnitMaster. Said benefits are extremely versatile.

A graphic operator screen monitor keeps the user permanently informed of the current situation in the warp-knitting shop to ensure instant response to problems and, thus, enhanced efficiency of production. Loopholes and bottlenecks can be quickly detected by the analytic software and, as a consequence of this, production capacities can be used to an optimal extent. Further, KnitMaster offers an interactive software for production planning to optimize the degree of machine utilization, based upon real-time information. The current length of individual warp beams is continuously monitored, and information about the exact length wound-up and time remaining is available at any time. This is of crucial importance for planning work in a textile factory becoming ever more essential against the background of minor quantities ordered and short times of delivery.

The user may define his own calculations and reports without programming experience by means of a report and formula editor.

Further, KnitMaster offers optional modules, for instance, for online supervision of yarn consumption, connection of balances, integration of fabric inspection shops as well as interfacing with PPS-systems.