Sponsored Content
By Matteo Forte
Digital textile printing is constantly and rapidly evolving. Global markets are shaped by consumers’ transformations, technological advancements, growing awareness towards sustainability, and ever-changing socioeconomic dynamics. Consumer behavior nowadays is influenced by a multitude of factors such as the changes in the geography of globalization – with a re-shape of fluxes and global interchanges.
E-commerce is another factor influencing consumer behavior— it has noticeably increased the available offer in the market and its decay, personalization is another factor — it helps consumers get to the purchase decision faster. Consumers are also more aware of the environmental and social impact of their purchasing decisions, and this reflects on their willingness to support companies that align with their values and are actively making efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. Such growing awareness combines with the pressure exerted by regulations. The fashion industry is undergoing a significant transformation, moving from having no legal framework to countless sustainability regulations around the world — all in just a decade. Technological advancements are a key element in the path towards innovation in the textile printing market. Digital textile printing has revolutionized the textile industry, allowing on-demand printing, intricate designs with a minimal setup time, customization and a decrease in consumption. Also, digital textile printing has made various steps towards sustainability possible. Just think of waste reduction: each time you print traditionally, you waste a lot of fabric when changing design and or colorways and when you start printing — such waste is extremely reduced with digital printing. Moreover, digital printing eliminates the need to create and stock engraved cylinders — a huge advantage. Advancements in the technology behind digital printing have expanded the range of fabrics and this versatility has led to the exploration of different applications in various industries.
The Evolution Towards Sustainability
The next step in the evolution of digital printing will be to further reduce water, energy, CO2 and space consumption. This for two main reasons; One is a newly developed sustainable and ethical consumption. Increasing awareness of environmental issues, social responsibility and ethical considerations influences consumer behavior, driving demand for more and more sustainable, eco-friendly products.
Worldwide, 64 percent of consumers reported high levels of concern about sustainability. According to Bain & Company Inc., consumers in the United States are willing to pay an average premium of 11 percent for products with a minimized environmental impact. Consumers in fast-growing markets, where Bain found environmental concerns to be highest — such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, and China — are willing to pay an even greater premium, between 15 and 20 percent. Consumers in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and France, on the other hand, are only willing to pay between 8 and 10 percent extra .
The other one is the fashion industry facing huge changes in terms of regulations. The European Union (EU) was the one adopting the most impactful measures with A new Circular Economy Action Plan adopted in 2020, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation proposed in 2022, and the EU’s digital product passport (DPP). Notably, the DPP is going to “electronically register, process and share product-related information amongst supply chain businesses, authorities and consumers. This is expected to increase transparency, both for supply chain businesses and for the consumers, and increase efficiencies in terms of information transfer,” states the regulation’s explanatory text.
Such data will be essential to boost traceability as “(DPP) is an important tool for making information available to actors along the entire supply chain and the availability of a product passport should significantly enhance end-to-end traceability of a product throughout its supply chain,” continues the regulatory.
The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles is another important step forward. It addresses the production and consumption of textiles, whilst recognizing the importance of the textiles sector. Companies should prepare themselves to ensure that their products are produced in respect of circularity principles along the whole production chain. Companies that want to survive nowadays have to make sustainability a priority, adopting responsible sourcing practices and communicating transparently.
We are on the verge of a shift, with conditions that could lead to a possible technological change — in the long term — and to an increase in the conversion from traditional to digital printing. It is also important to notice that nowadays compliance with textile standards we all know — such as ZDHC or OEKOTEX® — are non-negotiable prerequisites, opening the door to other requirements.
How MS And JK Interpret Sustainability
Both MS and JK have the research for sustainability embedded in their work. It has been like this since the beginning when MS started designing digital printing machines instead of traditional ones and JK started creating water-based inks. JK usually starts with a chemical design, creating a formula with the least achievable environmental impact and then they make it real thanks to automated plant capable of semi-automatically manage the production reducing waste to a minimum.
Another practical way to reduce environmental impact is the optimization of the stock to avoid useless space use and obsolescence. MS designs its machines precisely, in order to avoid waste of raw materials and space, while the use of high-quality materials guarantees a high-quality product destined to last over time. MS functionally thinks about its machines, and this is evident in JP7’s latest innovations, created so that in combination with our new water-based pigment ink it could give the best achievable results.
The aim was process sustainability, and we achieved it since the digital pigment printing process shows a reduced environmental impact, on average of 95 percent. compared to the reactive printing process, for all impact categories analyzed by the method. We implemented a new zero-wastewater recirculation system — soon available — that will internally recycle a, previously filtered, fixed amount of water in a dedicated tank.
Pigment printing already is a waterless process, the only water involved is the one used to clean the belt, and we eliminated it. The first studies showed that 150 liters of water, including both the machine and the recirculation tank, are enough for 40 hours of work on average. Without the recirculation system the average water consumption is around 195 liters per hour, while with its implementation the average water consumption is around 3,75 liters per hour, 50 times more efficient.
In addition, the machine has been implemented with the Ink Recirculation and the Nozzle Shooting System, both developed to work on IDLE and while printing. These upgrades help the customers to keep the ink always running, therefore avoiding any sedimentation; to keep the nozzles active, as a result there is an improved printing quality; to enhance and maintain a sustainable printhead’s lifetime. Such enhancements also increase the life of filters and degassers — since the recirculation is within the first and second tank, passing through filter and degasser — and allow to always offer the same printing quality and nozzles performances within different printing jobs or printing designs, since the Nozzle Shooting System keeps the nozzles active even when they are not used for a specific job or during the night.
We can somehow call it all “automatic maintenance”. Easy-Clean, the new carriage plate, is a further upgrade developed by the R&D team. It improves the cleaning process of the carriage plate, significantly avoiding damage, while also empowering printing quality and efficiency. We also increased the space within the printheads to allow an easier cleaning of the printheads themselves. Last but not least, the new casing is lighter, with an interior space layout made even more rational than before, thus assuring the best positioning of the new electronic and mechanical components.
Another example of sustainability embedded in our operations is BIB (Bag-In-Box) packaging. It consists of a flexible PE or multi-layer plastic bag inside a cardboard, used to store inks. Not only does the BIB determine 80 percent reduction in the use of plastic, compared to the traditional HDPE containers, but it also has many other advantages. First of all, it assures a better ink maintenance, thanks to the packaging’s enhanced physical and mechanical protective properties, BIB is smaller than usual containers and this translates into less storage and shipping costs, together with a decreased effect on the supply chain environmental impact. Moreover, BIB’s outer cardboard shell can be easily recycled, leading to another step towards circularity in this industry.
What Makes The Difference Today For Digital Textile Printing Companies
Challenges are embedded in our industry; the most urgent ones are the ones related to sustainability and competition. The most effective solution in both cases is quality. MS and JK continue to design and produce high-quality products that give value to the customers, we constantly pursue excellence — making sure that what we do is functional, and not only stays that way, but keeps improving. High quality produces a higher return on investment (ROI) because fewer defects or failures result in lower manufacturing and service costs and this reflects on reliability, durability and performance; as long as these gains remain, profitability will improve.
In today’s competitive market, consumers are ever more demanding, and good quality ensures that your company’s products exceed customer expectations. Producing products with high quality is essential from a sustainable point of view too, since quality products are designed to last longer, perform better, and provide greater value to the consumer. We promote environmental innovation — creating and using new approaches to protect the environment and encourage sustainability through the development of eco-designed products, optimization of resource usage and reduction of waste or emissions. Quality also leads to better resource management, reduced waste, and improved product quality, hence more environmentally friendly processes and products.
Digital textile printing companies should aim to efficiency, rapidity and costs optimization. Digital printing offers huge advantages in such matters and its latest technological innovations are even more advantageous. Let’s think about digital pigment printing, which has decreased the printing process from 15 to 5 steps — drastically reducing time to market and increasing the chance to print on demand. Let’s also think about the impact that AI is going to have on quality control processes — which are going to be done directly during the printing phase — additionally shortening the time needed to print. Print houses that will choose to invest in new and developed printing system are going to be one step ahead of the others.
In MS and JK it is us who develops and creates what we later on sell on the market. Everything is possible when you are in charge of the development of inks, machines and software as we are. We truly believe the creation and development of solutions to be the future. Our integrated system is a game changer because machine, ink, and software work in synergy to deliver the best quality. Moreover, having a unique partner, a partner to go to and discuss about machine, inks and software really is an added value for our customers in more than one sense, it is synonymous to efficiency and sustainability for the supply chain, the maintenance, and the assistance.
MS And JK Added Values
In the context we live in, digital printing presents itself as an interesting alternative to traditional printing, hence the recent proliferation of digital printing technologies. We differentiate ourselves thanks to various elements embedded in our DNA. First of all, our heritage, we started working in this market at the beginning of the new millennium, when we decided to only design digital printing machines. At that time, it was quite a hazardous choice, since the digital market was at the very beginning and very few companies were taking their first steps into this new world.
The second one is us being a system. We truly believe the creation and development of solutions to be the future. Our integrated system is a game changer because machine, ink, and software work in synergy to deliver the best quality. Having a unique partner to go to and discuss about machine, inks and software really is an added value for our customers in more than one sense, it is synonymous to efficiency and sustainability for the supply chain, the maintenance, and the assistance.
Our integrated system allows us to fully exploit the synergies existing in our R&D departments, creating a 360-degree expertise in the solutions we design. We are well aware of all the processes and the deep synergies from both sides: machines and inks. This is certainly a strength for us, since it allows for an even more extensive mutual knowledge and collaboration between our R&Ds, that sparks in incredible results.
Moreover, we boast a unique software – Color Pack, which has been thought and designed ad hoc for us. Color Pack is our new Calibration and Management software that offers mathematical parameters to describe colors and evaluate the variance by heling in the correct color reference communication. Another important characteristic is the after-sales service we have built – and continuously improve – for our customers and made up of warranties and maintenance programs.
Being part of a global conglomerate enabled us to truly embrace the “think local and act global” concept. The jointed synergies with Markem-Imaje, also part of Dover, allowed us to access to a greatly developed and extensive network made up of local people who speak the local language, know the local markets, its wants and needs and are well aware of the local socioeconomic dynamics. It helps us in sharing knowledge, ideas, methods, approaches.
Thanks to the synergies with Marke-Imaje and other companies from the Dover Group, we improved our logistics with touch points all over the world and a significant power of negotiation. Also, being part of Dover allows us to feel safe, as we have behind us a solid group that supports us and invests in our long-term plans, allowing us to create new and innovative projects and products.
We try imagining the world of tomorrow and go in that direction. For example, having an open communication is essential for fostering a culture of innovation, therefore we encourage our employees to speak up and share their ideas, thoughts, and concerns and from these insights we develop initiatives; we also try to empower our employee, giving them the autonomy and resources they need to innovate, allowing them to take ownership of their projects and make decisions independently, providing them with training, tools, and support to help them succeed.
Editor’s Note: Matteo Forte is Global Product Marketing manager for Italy-based MS Printing Solutions and JK Group brands
5 de septiembre de 2024
