Alon Moshe, CEO, & Co-Founder of Twine Solutions
A recent study shows that traditional textile printing systems use around 93 billion cubic meters of water annually making the textile industry one of the largest consumers of water. According to another report, textile dyeing and treatment are the sources of 17-20 percent of water pollution. Water is the key component used in processes like washing, bleaching, dyeing, rinsing, and scouring. There has been no substitute for dyeing threads and yarns until Twine Solutions, an Israeli start-up developed the world’s first digital waterless thread and yarn dyeing system. Founded in 2015, this company represents the unique Israeli synergy between innovation, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship.
“We developed the TS-1800, which is the world’s first digital waterless thread and yarn dyeing system,” says Alon Moshe, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Twine Solutions. This technology enables the customers to dye desired thread or yarn in any specific color or length within minutes.
State-of-the-Art Technology
The key feature of TS-1800 is without any doubt the advantages it offers to Twine’s customers. The first and foremost benefit is how it helps in speed. The TS-1800 offers a fast sampling and prototyping. Twine Solutions is able to serve their customers faster than any conventional supply chain thereby saving significant R&D time, from weeks to days to just hours. Second, it allows dyeing the exact length you need. No MOQs. No shipping. No extra storage space required. Thirdly and most importantly, this technology helps in becoming sustainable. TS-1800 provides zero water waste and a carbon-neutral approach with no minimum order quantity (MOQ) and optimization for small quantities. Lastly, this technology facilitates boosting creativity since the customers don’t have to compromise on old stock or limited catalog colors; they can now choose any color they want.
Within a short span of time, Twine Solutions was able to revolutionize the sector with TS-1800. But establishing their technology in the industry was not that easy for them. Alon and his team were left with the challenge of educating the industry, who were used to the traditional way of thread/yarn dyeing. Current process allows buying tens of kilograms of dyed yarns with the limitation of choose only colors the suppliers catalog.
When Twine Solutions put forward the liberty of choosing any color they wanted at any length even only 200 grams of thread/yarn, the industry were a bit hesitant with understanding the possibility. Even though, they were intrigued by the idea of not having dead stock, being sustainable, and being free to choose colors, it is still challenging to grasp the implication on supply chain and the day to day logistics. However, Twine Solutions managed to overcome these challenges by spending time with their customers in their production facilities and educating them about the new technology. Needless to say, the company was successful in turning those customers into their spokespeople and began to gain momentum in the market through them.
Above all, customer satisfaction has always been a priority to Twine Solutions, and to ensure this, right after the completion of the TS-1800 beta tests, they established a customer success team with Delta Galil in the north of Israel. The team is composed of highly skilled application engineers who are committed and focused on providing technical support along with customer satisfaction and success.These engineers come with a deep understanding of color and dyeing processes and invest a large portion of their time visiting the customers and maintaining a close relationship with them.
The Eureka Moment
“The eureka moment for Twine started with a towel,” Alon Moshe shares how he and his twin brother Erez Moshe came across the idea that led to the inception of the company. Alon and Erez share a spirit for entrepreneurship and come with decades of experience in the print and software industries. Their passion for color and creativity prompted them to keep an eye out for opportunities to disrupt the industry.
Surprisingly, it was the multi-colored embroidery on a bath towel that invoked the concept of digital color technology in Erez Moshe. It made him think about the possibilities of such a technology and the benefits it could offer to the industry. For instance, with digital technology, an embroiderer could simply stock white thread, dye it in-house and on-demand, and have it ready for immediate use without any hassle. The brothers were able to see the scope of this idea and they proceeded to test it using generic inks and a crude thread mechanism. Interestingly, as budding entrepreneurs, the brothers had an upper hand in this space; their mother happens to be an experienced seamstress and they decided to give her the colored thread to work with. She not only loved selecting her own custom thread colors but also gave the brothers the confidence to move forward with their business idea.
In the meantime, Alon conducted an industry analysis and found out that the industry was in desperate need of sustainable solutions for its supply chains. This provided a huge incentive to develop an eco-friendly technology to address some of these issues. And thus they arrived at the idea of developing a waterless ink/dye in a digital, on-demand process (modeling the idea on digital printing).
Moral and Values
Twine is a fast-moving and innovation-driven company. According to Moshe, there are five key values that have made Twine Solutions become the entity it is today – agility, innovation, quality, respect, and integrity. He also shares how his employees share the same passion for Twine’s technology and how they are helping their clients and society with its ecological benefits. “We are passionate about developing a one-of-a-kind solution that will make a huge impact on this industry,” states Moshe. Besides, the company also takes time off to volunteer and makes sure to take unique educational trips to enrich their knowledge.
Going forward, the company aspires to change the game of the traditional and resource-intensive dyeing process to a digital dyeing technology that meets the changing needs of the fast-paced fashion industry. Moreover, Twine Solutions is constantly exploring new technologies that will allow them to further expand their offerings, support more applications, and reach new customer typecasts.