India is gradually coming up with its own engineered hot air seam sealing machines amidst rising demand of PPE kits in the domestic medical industry.

The latest development is ‘Sealking’ hot air seam sealing machine, which is a result of an initiative of three garment manufacturing companies – TAS Textiles, Triknit and Origin Textiles – and one engineering company – Race Tools – based in Tirupur (Tamil Nadu).

Markedly, the domestically manufactured machine Sealking is not just suitable for PPE coveralls but can also be used for activewear garment category as PPE is considered to be a seasonal category as of now and the manufacturers have to look beyond PPE products for long-term sustainability of businesses.

The factory where these machines are being manufactured is located near Chinniyampalayam Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. The daily Sealking machine manufacturing capacity of the factory is 10 machines.

Boosting ‘Make in India’ concept, the machine costs as low as Rs. 1.5 lakhs plus GST, whereas the imported machines cost around Rs. 2.5 lakhs to Rs 5 lakhs. Sealking machine can seal 6.5 metres to 7 metres long seam per minute and the temperature can go up to 400 degree Celsius.

It’s worth mentioning here that seam sealing has to be done straight and continuously without stopping the process with adequate pressure, temperature and speed control. Therefore, Sealking machine is equipped with all necessary control mechanism.

The only difference between an imported seam sealing machine and Sealking is cutter. The cutter is used to automatically cut the tape at the end of sealing process which is not given in Sealking machines; however the cutters can be added if manufacturing companies want to customise the machines and use cutters in the machines.

“When we add the application of cutter, the prices go up by some thousands rupees which is not affordable for small scale manufacturers in these tough times. Those who want to add cutter, we can add it in the later stage as currently we are keeping it simple and affordable so majority of the factories can use it for the main purpose which is seam sealing. Some Italian machines give more features in their seam sealing machine and cost around Rs. 8 lakhs but these are multi-purpose machines and we are keeping our machines specifically for coverall and activewear products,” told P. Thiruvasakamani, Director, TAS Textiles exclusively to Apparel Resources.