Bangladesh Knitting Output Down 38%: What the Energy Crisis Means for Spare Parts Planning

Meta description: A BKMEA survey of 134 factories found knitting output down 38% and 87% of exporters missing shipment dates. Fewer running hours changes how maintenance and spare parts should be planned.

October 1, 2026 | Textile Machinery Industry News

Since 20 July 2026, Bangladesh's knitwear industry has been running through a gas and electricity shortage that is now the dominant factor in production planning. On 15 September, the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) published the findings of a survey covering 134 of its roughly 800 active export-oriented member factories, for the period 21 July to 7 September.

The headline numbers are uncomfortable, and they are worth quoting in full because they change how maintenance should be planned:

"Production has fallen by one-third to one-half, which is having adverse impacts, including shipment delays, additional fuel costs and a loss of buyers' confidence in doing business with suppliers." — Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, Executive President, BKMEA

BKMEA President Mohammad Hatem put it in units rather than percentages: his factory received orders for 4 million T-shirts where 6.2 million had been expected. The gas disruption has been attributed to a failure at the FSRU terminal off Cox's Bazar; daily industrial load-shedding has been reported in the range of seven to nine hours in some areas.

Most coverage of this story stops at the macroeconomic picture. But for anyone running a knitting floor, the operational consequence is more specific and more actionable: when you lose a third of your running hours, the hours you still have become the scarcest thing in the factory — and every maintenance assumption built on continuous running quietly stops being true.

Four Ways Fewer Running Hours Break the Maintenance Plan

1. The cost of one stopped hour goes up, not down.

Downtime cost is usually calculated as lost output plus idle labour. In a compressed schedule it is worse than that. When 87% of factories are already missing shipment windows and 60% are discounting to hold buyers, a delay is not only lost production — it is a price concession, an air-freight bill, or a cancelled order. Fazlee Shamim Ehsan described air-freighting around US$50,000 of export goods because raw materials did not arrive in time.

The practical conclusion: the tolerance for waiting on a spare part has collapsed. A three-week wait that was survivable in a normal season is now the difference between shipping and discounting.

2. Stop-start running is harder on machines than steady running.

Repeated power interruptions mean emergency stops and restarts, often several times a shift. Each restart puts load back onto knitting needles and sinkers before the yarn path has settled, which is exactly when hooks, latches and sinker throats take damage. If the machine stood idle for a while, lint and oil film have set in the needle bed — and the first rows after restart are where fabric defects appear.

Maintenance teams tend to blame the fabric problem on the yarn or the setting. Often the real cause is that the machine was stopped and restarted six times that shift.

3. Preventive maintenance slips — then everything lands at once.

When production time is scarce, PM gets postponed to protect running hours. The deferred list grows through the crisis, and when power supply normalises and orders return, every machine needs attention simultaneously. That is the moment when six weeks of postponed work meets a full order book.

4. Idle hours are actually available — but only useful if parts are on hand.

There is a genuine opportunity here. Load-shedding windows are scheduled-enough to be used: replace worn needles, check sinker clearances, inspect cams and timing belts, clean the yarn path, check yarn guides and feeders.

The catch is that a maintenance window is only worth what you can do inside it. PM during a four-hour outage requires the parts to already be on the shelf. A planned window without stock is just idle time.

A Pre-Restart Checklist Worth Writing on the Wall

Every restart after an outage is a small risk event. Five minutes beforehand:

• Clear lint from the needle bed and sinker ring before restarting — packed lint plus a sudden start is the most common cause of broken hooks.

• Inspect needles and sinkers in the last sectors that ran. Damage from an unplanned stop is usually localised, not general.

• Check oil levels and lubrication points. A machine that has been sitting has drained oil away from contact surfaces — and remember that over-oiling to compensate traps lint and makes cleaning harder, not easier.

• Run one full revolution slowly before engaging full speed.

• Flag the first 20–30 metres of fabric for inspection rather than letting it run into a roll.

Energy Cost per Kilogram Matters More Now, Not Less

There is a counter-intuitive point here. Total electricity consumption may fall when machines run fewer hours, but energy cost per kilogram produced usually rises — inefficiency, stop-start losses, diesel generation and re-runs all land on fewer good metres.

Compressed air is the easiest place to recover some of it. A deduster blowing continuously while a machine stands idle is pure waste; a machine that runs in short bursts needs clean air precisely during those bursts, not at a constant rate all shift. That is the operating principle behind the ShengSong intelligent air jet system — controlled alternating airflow instead of continuous full-flow blowing — which QATTEX supplies for circular knitting machines. Details on the product range are on the energy-saving air controller page.

The same logic applies to ShengSong oilers: metered lubrication rather than a continuous flood costs less oil, throws less mist into the fabric, and leaves less residue to trap lint.

Reorder Points Should Follow Running Hours, Not the Calendar

Most reorder methods assume a stable number of running hours per week. During a supply shock that assumption fails in both directions, so recalculate using actual hours run:

1. Recount consumption against machine hours. If running hours dropped by a third, historical usage by month now overstates demand — but the recovery surge will do the opposite within weeks.

1. Reclassify the stock list. Needles, sinkers and belts are consumables and should be held locally. Cylinders and drive components are insurance items — expensive to hold, cheap to plan.

1. Do not overbuy everything. With 60% of factories reporting loan-default risk, cash discipline matters. Concentrate spend on the handful of parts that actually stop machines, not on a broad safety stock nobody can finance.

1. Standardise part numbers across the fleet. Emergency substitution errors are indistinguishable from fabric defects later, and the diagnosis usually takes weeks.

1. Shorten the resupply route before you need it. Know which items are available in-country and which have to cross a border.

What Local Stock Is Actually For

This is the situation the QATTEX Dhaka warehouse was built for. Commonly used circular knitting machine parts are held locally, giving 3–5 day delivery across Bangladesh instead of an international lead time measured in weeks — without air freight, customs handling or currency-delay risk on top.

During a stable season, that is a convenience. In a season where 87% of factories are missing shipment dates, it is the difference between a machine stopped for three days and one stopped for five weeks.

QATTEX: Factory-Direct Circular Knitting Machine Spare Parts

QATTEX is a manufacturer and supplier of circular knitting machine spare parts based in Zhangcha Town, Foshan, Guangdong — the centre of China's knitting machinery industry. The company has produced knitting needles, sinkers, timing belts, cylinders, yarn feeders and ShengSong oilers since 1995, and has served customers across China, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia since expanding internationally in 2020.

As the overseas sales department of ShengSong, QATTEX integrates production, quality control and global sales. Every batch is tested before shipment, and parts can be produced from customer drawings or samples — with no middlemen between the factory and the buyer.

Sources: BKMEA survey findings reported by Textile Today and The Business Standard, September 2026.

Running on reduced hours and not sure what to stock?

Send us your machine brands, models and gauges — or just photos of the worn parts. QATTEX will confirm the matches and quote within 48 hours. Factory-direct pricing; Dhaka warehouse stock for 3–5 day delivery across Bangladesh. 📧 [ye2026@qattex.com] ｜ 📱 WhatsApp: [86+18666356428] ｜ 🌐 https://qattex.com/pages/product-summary