Page 34 - Print21 Magazine March April 2021

Revolution in Print
manufacturing for customised product creation.
Online payment is secured prior to production, and ROIs of more than 120 per cent per year are not uncommon for the DTG e-tailer.
The basic DTG business model requires a rotating stock of blanks, digital textile printing equipment, and a drying cabinet, and most important of all: a transactional, well-designed website that makes purchasing easy. For these reasons, the sector has witnessed phenomenal entrepreneurial growth over the past 10 years.
In the roll-to-roll print marketplace, digital textile equipment offers the textile industry an increasingly disruptive future, but the landscape
is more complex. Short orders
and print-on-demand enabled by digital textile production are now commonplace and form a successful bedrock of digital textile production hubs worldwide. Alongside consumer awareness of customised production, the industry has grown to generate a new sector of the industry, and hence, the emergence of the textile printing bureau. Building on their DTF success, many print companies now offer sewn production alongside print, perhaps echoing the success of the DTG business model for the future and the democratisation of the sector.
Paramount to this online model
is the function of the website, its navigation and ability to process
and manage design manipulation with inherent simplicity. One of
these websites must include several functions including a high-resolution customising tool that enables the consumer to upload and put their designs into repeat and set scale or choose a pattern from a design archive and simulate finished products.
An early pioneer for on-demand digital textile printing and online retailer for customised printed textiles is Spoonflower, an American print house, which has trail-blazed
34 Print21 MARCH/APRIL 2021
Above
Journey to digitisation: The traditional analogue textile industry
Above right
Close proximity production:
A solution
for the retail industry now burdened by overstocks and discounting
online design, print to order and the paradigm create – print – make.
This business model is much more complex than DTG. Considerations include large stocks of base fabric that has to be warehoused and the cost of the printing and ancillary equipment to cater to the wide and varied demands and specifications of the design community and, increasingly, the expected speed of delivery.
For these reasons, ROIs of 20-30 per cent a year are common, with margins being squeezed through downward pressure on prices, caused by customers shopping around
for the lowest print prices as the marketplace expands and print availability increases.
In a wider frame, as the industrial textile sector evolves to meet the changing requirements of retail and consumer behaviour, the vertically integrated micro-factory model is in growing demand.
The function of this business model is that it enables production on demand at any scale, offering a one-stop facility for manufacturing, alongside speed
of delivery, flexible order quantities, and agile merchandising. All of which is set within a high-volume pricing structure that enables the buyer to control stockholdings efficiently
and affordably.
Rotary conversion to digital is
the re-equipment model where traditional textile print businesses replace rotary screen textile printing machines with the latest fast digital textile print machines. With fixed overheads and high operational costs, the industrial digital printer must be highly efficient to remain profitable. A modern-day print order may be constructed of a number
of designs that form a medium or large meterage by volume. Efficiency at speed is key – sampling must
be kept to a minimum, and colour management here is critical to reduce wasted resources.
This is an ultra-competitive field, with substantial downward pressure
on prices being exerted by experienced professional print buyers who know
the ins and outs of the market. The operational costs are considerable.
The printer has to allow for a large warehouse to store fabric and offer a wide array of digital print machinery and ancillary equipment to meet clients’ needs alongside the management and provision of credit facilities.
Eventually, all textile businesses have to re-equip, and not just to replace existing machinery but to ensure that their business meets market demand. Many of the world’s largest mills are gearing up to reap the benefits and the advantages of digital textile printing in a market sector where price, agility and diversity must now equal speed of delivery. Rotary speeds of up to 90 metres per minute are now being matched by single pass machines such as the EFI Reggiani Bolt and the MS Lario.
Simple logic
The logic is simple – there are no screens to make or store, designs can be transmitted and processed electronically and printed at great speed, and importantly, the digital textile print route is rightly viewed as offering a sustainable future
for the textile community and its stakeholders. In a world where water, power usage, and effluent treatment must be conserved and consumption reduced, the logic is undeniable.
Over the next 20 years, many traditional textile printers all over the world will gravitate to digital and install this component within their already established businesses. In this model, the main component is a successful textile printing business, and the movement is
the substitution of rotary screen printing with digital textile printing technologies to meet the demands of a new textile marketplace. 21