Acme Mills in Bloomfield Hills Introduces Sleeker, Lighter, and More Comfortable Aircraft Seating

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Acme Mills Co. in Bloomfield Hills today announced it has joined forces with Quantum Materials in North Carolina to launch a new level of fabric innovation designed for aircraft seating applications — Comfort Zone powered by QUANTUM ZXT technology.

The so-called B-surface fabric technology is designed to provide long-term enhanced comfort to passengers, and reduce or eliminate the need for foam commonly used in airline seating.

Comfort Zone has been engineered with QUANTUM ZXT technology providing the airline industry with a progressive alternative compared to traditional seating. Utilizing the proprietary technology, the fabric can provide customized levels of ergonomically correct support throughout the seat, ultimately enhancing comfort to passengers.

As a supporting B-Surface application, Comfort Zone reduces the amount of foam needed and can eliminate the need for springs, wires, clips, and insulators that have historically been used.

“There has been a tremendous focus on weight reduction in the transportation industry as a whole and while this is important to help maximize fuel efficiency, passenger comfort has sometimes been overlooked or sacrificed,” says Neil Gross, COO of Acme Mills. “In a survey by Skytrax, uncomfortable seats ranked third among a long list of customer complaints. With our Comfort Zone product, we see an opportunity to change this.”

Initial testing has shown that this new fabric can reduce weight by as much as 8 pounds per seat or a total of 1,512 pounds. In addition to weight reduction, and depending upon the size of the plane, there is the potential to add more than 10 seats without redesigning the interior cabin due to space savings. The fabric can be engineered or treated with the various performance requirements needed to pass standard FAA regulations.

“Airlines are constantly looking at ways to maximize the interior space in the aircraft cabin, helping to increase revenue stream. With the benefits of comfort, weight, and space savings, we see this as innovative solution to help support growth in the airline industry,” says Jeff Bruner, founder and CTO at Quantum Materials. “Quantum has had a long history in advancing industries with new technologies and believes that this could be a step towards revolutionizing the way we fly.”

Acme Mills is part of The Acme Group of companies, which works in the fabric and textile industry, and serves industrial and commercial customers globally. Founded in 1917 and privately owned, Acme Mills has evolved into one of the largest suppliers of industrial fabrics to the transportation industry in the world.

Quantum Materials is a manufacturer and innovator of unique yarns and high performance woven fabrics to the furniture, construction, recreational, industrial, healthcare, automotive, and airline industries. Founded in 1985, Quantum has expertise in mono- and multi-filament yarns and possessing extensive yarn preparation processes, including warping, texturizing, and twisting fibers, producing a wide variety of engineered performance characteristics, patterns, and textures. In 2017, Twitchell Technical Products, a portfolio company of Highlander Partners in Dallas, acquired Quantum Materials.