Introduction: By the Time a Defective Roll Reaches Your Customer, It’s Already Too Late
In the textile industry, mistakes are expensive. Not just financially — reputationally. A defective fabric roll that slips through production and reaches a brand can destroy a relationship built over years in a matter of days.
In 2026, the global fabric inspection equipment market has reached nearly $2 billion in value, growing at over 6.5 percent annually. Major brands no longer accept manual quality control. ESG standards have tightened. European and American buyers want documentation, data, and traceability — not verbal assurances.
The result is that fabric quality control machinery has moved from a luxury to an operational necessity. At Kohan Textile Journal, we closely follow the companies building this equipment. This is our list of the top 10 companies in the world holding the fabric quality control market in 2026.
1. Serkon Teknoloji — Turkey
Website: www.serkon.ai | Email: sales@serkonteknoloji.com
Istanbul-based Serkon Teknoloji has built one of the most talked-about AI-powered fabric quality control platforms in the global textile market. Their flagship product, the Serkon.AI Q2, operates on a plug-in principle — meaning it can be integrated directly onto existing fabric inspection machines without requiring manufacturers to overhaul their entire production line or retrain their teams from scratch.
The Serkon.AI system uses deep vision technology to detect defects such as snarling, holes, and broken needles at production speeds of up to 50 meters per minute. The QBar.AI software interface displays defect maps in real time across both X and Y axes and generates instant reports. The Colortron add-on module enables inline color inspection with spectrometric precision down to ΔE 0.05 at a scanning speed of 100 measurements per second. With third-party software integration capability and a plug-in approach that significantly reduces initial investment, Serkon is a smart choice for mills that want to enter the world of AI-powered inspection without a complete operational revolution.
2. Mahlo GmbH — Germany
Website: www.mahlo.com | Email: info@mahlo.com
Family-owned since its founding in 1945 in Bavaria, Mahlo GmbH is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of measurement, control, and automation systems for textile finishing and web processing. With over 250 employees, five international subsidiaries, and more than 70 agencies across 100 countries, Mahlo combines deep German engineering heritage with a genuinely global operational reach.
Their Qualiscan QMS-12 is a traversing quality control system capable of simultaneously measuring basis weight, coating weight, thickness, and moisture across a running fabric web — delivering continuous cross-machine direction profiling that eliminates guesswork from the finishing process. Their Orthopac weft straightening systems are trusted by major global textile brands for correcting distortions in virtually all types of woven and knitted fabrics. For mills where finishing quality matters as much as defect detection, Mahlo offers one of the most complete and reliable product ranges available on the market today.
3. SODIFA ESCA — France
Website: www.sodifa-esca.fr | Email: info@sodifa-esca.com
SODIFA ESCA is one of the most recognized names in fabric inspection and cutting machinery in Europe, holding a particularly strong position in the Portuguese, Spanish, and French markets. This Portuguese company produces a wide range of fabric inspection machines covering everything from small workshops to large industrial facilities.
Their flagship products include the ESCA 835 and ESCA 850 series — tension-free fabric inspection machines designed for delicate and sensitive fabric types — as well as the 807 VE, a combined inspection and measurement machine that integrates quality control data with precise length measurement. Flexible design, ease of operation, and competitive pricing have made SODIFA ESCA a popular choice for mid-sized European mills looking for reliable inspection equipment backed by close, responsive support.
4. Testa Group — Italy
Website: www.testagroup.eu| Email: info@testagroup.it
Italy’s Testa Group has earned a strong reputation in the global textile machinery market for its integrated approach to fabric inspection, cutting, and packaging — a combination that allows mills to reduce waste and streamline end-of-line operations within a single connected workflow. Testa’s systems are designed to handle the full spectrum of fabric types, from heavy denim to delicate knitwear.
Their AI-powered ST-Thinkor automated visual inspection system — presented at ITMA 2023 in Milan — operates at speeds of up to 60 meters per minute with automatic defect marking, 24-hour unmanned operation capability, and deep learning algorithms that improve detection precision over time. The system can be incorporated as a flexible upgrade onto various types of existing inspection machines, making it a natural choice for mills that want to experience intelligent automation without replacing their entire infrastructure.
5. Xavis — South Korea
Website: www.xavis.co.kr | Email: xavis@xavis.co.kr
Xavis is one of Asia’s most respected names in automated fabric inspection, offering a range of systems for detecting holes, stains, tears, weaving defects, and surface irregularities across a wide variety of fabric types and production speeds. The company has been a trusted supplier to major South Korean textile manufacturers for years and has progressively expanded its international customer base across Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Xavis inspection systems combine optical sensing technology with proprietary detection algorithms developed through years of collaboration with real production environments — giving their products a field-tested reliability that goes beyond what the technical specifications on paper can fully convey. In a market where European and Turkish players dominate the premium segment, Xavis represents a compelling option with proven technology and competitive pricing. Their growing presence at international textile machinery exhibitions signals a company ready to compete at a global level.
6. Suntech Machinery — China
Website: www.suntech-machinery.com | Email: info@suntech-machinery.com
Suntech Machinery is one of China’s largest manufacturers of fabric inspection machines, offering a wide range of equipment for knitted, woven, and nonwoven fabric types. The ST-KFIM-01 for wide knitted fabrics, the ST-WFIM for woven fabrics, and the ST-FIM as a universal inspection machine are among the company’s core offerings.
Suntech’s advanced lighting systems reveal even the smallest defects, while integrated coding devices mark defect points directly on the fabric for faster correction. The combination of Chinese competitive pricing and improving product quality has made Suntech one of the most popular choices for Asian mills taking their first steps into inspection automation. Active presence at ITMA and CITME exhibitions signals that Suntech has ambitions well beyond its domestic market.
7. BMSvision — Belgium
Website: www.bmsvision.com | Email: sales@bmsvision.com
BMSvision, rooted in the Barco group and active in the textile industry since 1975, is one of Europe’s most respected companies in fabric inspection systems and textile MES solutions. Their flagship product Cyclops is an automated camera-based fabric inspection system installed directly on the weaving machine, detecting warp, weft, and point defects in real time during the weaving process itself.
Read more:Â Connect with the Future: Discover BMSvision at ITMA ASIA+CITME 2025
Cyclops’s key advantage is that the moment a continuous defect is identified, the machine stops — preventing further production of defective fabric and catching the problem at the exact moment it occurs rather than after the roll is complete. BMSvision today has a presence in over 50 countries, and its strong after-sales service network is one of the primary reasons for its enduring popularity among European weaving mills.
8. Shelton Vision Systems — UK
Website: www.sheltonvision.com | Email: sales@sheltonvision.co.uk
Shelton Vision Systems’ flagship product WebSPECTOR is one of the most advanced automated fabric inspection systems available on the global market. WebSPECTOR uses line-scan camera arrays — typically in two or three viewing angles with different lighting positions — to maximize defect detection accuracy across fabrics of varying colors and surface structures.
The system is capable of detecting defects as small as 0.1 millimeters at production speeds of up to 1,000 meters per minute — making it one of the fastest fabric inspection systems available anywhere in the market today. WebSPECTOR is applicable at every stage of fabric production from greige to finished goods, and integrates seamlessly with marking and cutting software. Shelton holds a particularly strong position in the technical textiles, industrial fabrics, and premium apparel markets in North America.
9. Smartex — Portugal
Website: www.smartex.ai | Email: info@smartex.ai
Founded in 2018 by Gilberto Loureiro, António Rocha, and Paulo Ribeiro in Porto, Portugal, Smartex is one of the most exciting textile technology companies in the world right now. The founding idea was simple but revolutionary: instead of inspecting fabric after production, why not detect defects at the exact moment they occur — inside the circular knitting machine itself? That single insight is what separates Smartex from virtually every other player on this list.
The Smartex CORE system installs cameras and machine vision systems directly inside circular knitting machines, monitoring fabric within 10 centimeters of the point of production. AI analyzes images in real time and can identify defects smaller than one millimeter that are invisible to the human eye. When a continuous defect is detected, the machine stops immediately. Smartex LOOP assigns each fabric roll a unique digital identity, enabling complete supply chain traceability. Smartex FACT is a factory management platform that integrates quality data, machine performance metrics, and automatic roll grading into a single dashboard. With installations in over 90 factories worldwide — including Ekoten in Turkey and Tintex in Portugal — and recognition by the European Commission as a key Industry 4.0 technology, Smartex is proving that the future of fabric quality control starts from inside the machine.
10. Keyence — Japan
Website: www.keyence.com | Email: sales@keyence.com
Japanese automation giant Keyence has developed its VS Series as an AI-powered machine vision system for fabric and textile inspection. The VS Series uses dual AI and rule-based tools capable of handling both defect detection and pattern alignment on simple fabrics as well as complex patterned textiles.
What sets Keyence apart is ease of deployment — quick setup for complex fabrics using intuitive software that requires no specialist programming knowledge. The system also analyzes inspection data in real time to improve production efficiency and quality consistency over time. With an extensive sales and service network across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, Keyence is a serious option for mills seeking a globally trusted Japanese brand backed by industry-leading technical support infrastructure.
Kohan Textile Journal’s Final Take
The ten companies featured here represent different approaches, different geographies, and different price points — but they all share one understanding: the future of textile quality control lies in digitalization, artificial intelligence, and data integration across the entire production workflow.
The mill that invests seriously in quality control infrastructure today is the mill that will be able to guarantee the consistency, traceability, and sustainability credentials that premium global buyers increasingly demand. In the textile market of 2026, quality is no longer a competitive advantage — it is the entry ticket to the game.
Now We Want to Hear From You
At Kohan Textile Journal, we know that the most valuable insights often come from the people working on the production floor with this equipment every single day.
Tell us in the comments below:
- Which fabric quality control system are you currently using, and what has your experience been?
- Are you considering moving from manual inspection to automated AI-based systems — and what is holding you back?
- Which company from this list do you believe will set the pace for the next five years?
Your perspective matters — both to us and to the wider Kohan Textile Journal community. Leave a comment and let’s talk.
