The Exacta linking machine brand has been a worldwide reference in the knitting industry for over sixty years.
Manufactured by Electa, these knitting and hosiery linking machines are traditional machines for fast imitation linking and saucer sewing machines for making sleeves and sides of diminished knitwear. The company, on the strength of its experience in this very distinctive niche of the textile industry, continues to this day to make an important contribution to research and innovation. Numerous practical and technologically advanced solutions, attested by European patents extended to other countries of the world, have allowed the company to perfect the prerogatives of the machines, adapting them to the changing needs that fashion imposes, from year to year, and more importantly to the demand for high quality and fast production times. Ever Elettronica is a historical partner for Exacta.
Now in its third generation, the company was founded in '47; then the business developed with momentum precisely because of the great demand for this type of product.
"The linking machines perfectly join knitted flaps produced on straight or circular lines and apply edges, collars, pockets for quality products," stresses Alessio Sangaletti, one of the company's three partners along with his brother Riccardo and Michele Peloggio. "Those who rim the products achieve perfection. Until the 1970s no other techniques for assembling knitted fabric were in use. As the cost of labor increased, linking always remained a 'symbol' of a high-quality product, while for other less important products very dense stitching [a way to lock the knit bushings] was used, but it had negative thickness and lacked looseness and elasticity as the garment sunk in."
More than sixty years of specialized work, directed toward always doing the best, have made the Exacta brand a synonym for the more generic 'linking machine' - just as the name Jeep now generically indicates, in common parlance, an off-road vehicle, even one of another brand. "Our machines are known, in demand, and exported all over the world," Sangaletti remarks. "Our end customers are mainly knitters: despite the crisis fortunately Italy continues to have the absolute best brands and to make high-quality garments, processing a very precious cashmere as well as, of course, other natural fibers, for the pleasure of the wearer."
The textile industry in recent years is in severe crisis, yet there is no shortage of demand. "Other countries that stand out in orders are mainly the emerging ones, such as Brazil in particular and South America, as well as China of course, where we are present with technicians and salespeople. This is a country of enormous size, with low personnel costs and many business opportunities to compete globally," Sangaletti specifies. "Here they generally prefer domestically produced machines, which can cost up to 10 times less than ours. However the large industrialists see in the special features of our more sophisticated machines the possibility of facilitating the work of the operators, thus reducing the cost of the product, which is why we manage to be present in this generally so difficult market."
Linking machines are slow but very high-precision machines; they have always been essentially mechanical and the vast majority still are today. Electronics, however, you just can't do without if you want to solve certain requirements. And to apply electronics it is also important to meet the right partner, who has the technologies specifically suited to the purpose and who has already had similar experiences.
The meeting with Ever Elettronica enabled Electa to create the Exacta Stoptronic linking machine, a machine that not only links but is also able to close the chain stitch with anti-unraveling stitches. Thanks to devices such as stepper motors and related intelligent drives, as well as software developed by Ever Elettronica, it was possible to eliminate the final chainstitching which was otherwise done manually, with considerably high costs in terms of personnel and logistics. The garment indeed had to be moved from one department to another for this final processing, or even outsourced to a subcontractor outside the company. Some knitting mills liked the new resharpening machines so much that they went so far as to replace the entire fleet of traditional machines with the Stoptronic model - equipped, of course, with Ever's electronics.
"Our corporate philosophy is devoted to seeking reliable and serious partners as a means of growth and development for the company, but also for the internationalization of our brands," Sangaletti concludes. "For this reason we chose Ever Elettronica, which has always been attentive and willing to go along with our ideas to best apply the electronics they have developed to our mechanics."