Mr. Zigrino’s talk on the technology innovation textile printing at technical seminar at Indo Intertex 2018

19-04-18

On the 5th of April, 2018, at the seminar organized by Peraga Expo, Mr. Giuseppe Zigrino, our managing director was a guest speaker, discussing on the technology innovation textile printing. According to Mr. Zigrino, he is not certain whether digital printing machines will be the future of textile printing for big scale textile producers. This is because there are many drawbacks to this type of textile printing.


Digital printing offered much lower speed than traditional printing methods and are more expensive in higher quantity print runs. A digital printing machine comparable production speed to a rotary screen printer is dependent to the number of printing heads which are installed on the digital printing machine.  The cost of the machine to print say 200 cm wide fabric at say 25 Mts/Minute is reported to cost over 2.3 Million Euros! whereby for the same price, one can purchase at least 3 - rotary screen printing machines, with each rotary printing machine being capable of printing (on just Knitted Fabric alone) at over 25 Mts./Minute, or at 45 to 60 Mts./Minute on woven fabrics.


In addition, the cost of the dyestuffs for digital printing machines are still quite high, in comparison to the conventional screen printing systems. Mr. Zigrino also mentioned that the pigment dyes dark shades print results are not yet satisfactorily accepted. It is also understood that in order to avoid dyestuff blockages, that at present, each digital printing machines can only be used for printing with only a specific type of dyestuff. For instance, one machine to print reactive dyes and one machine to print disperse, etc.


Nevertheless, there are still reasons which make digital printing machine special. Firstly, they do not require any screens. Moreover, on average, a design can be prepared for printing within 3 to 4 Days and they can print any size of repeats, with exceptionally high definition.
 

In the production of textile and garments these aforesaid special abilities of a digital printing machine, are ideally suited to say - the printing of intricate designs on the 5 Mts. long sari’s, or for printing silk fabrics where small orders of varying designs are requested, in addition to many other applications, including the printing of the number of samples which clients continuously request to be urgently supplied, whom are now beginning to accept the print variations of samples being printed on a digital printing machine, for the ones which are printed on a sample screen printing machine.


It is often with regret to note that a number of buyers of digital printing machines, purchase them without first assessing the actual requirements for these type of machines, not to mention the availability of suitable operators for these machines.
 

As there are now many manufacturers of digital printing machines, offering various digital printing machine type and sizes to suit one’s intended production, and budget, Mr. Zigrino suggested when considering the purchase of a digital printing machine, the actual correct machine be purchased must suit the correct application for the unit.
 

According to Mr. Zigrino, in the olden days, one could rely on styles lifecycles which would change approximately every 10 Years, unfortunately the period for these styles lifecycles for the new generation, is no longer applicable, as the styles are now generally arranged by the large corporations, whom employ a suitable number of designers to continuously make the necessary style changes to attract more buyers for their products. The style changes have gradually occurred to the types of fabrics, and types of applicable dyestuffs which are now being demanded. For example, cotton, poly-cottons, viscose, polyester, nylon, acrylics, silk, wool, and so on; all requiring different types of pre-treatment and dyestuffs to meet the demand.
 

The demand for these continuous style changes, has automatically placed more emphasis on the textiles and garment manufacturers to be able to supply to these new type large corporations with more variations than what a general printing company can actually supply to meet these demands. When some decisions have to be made on what is required to improve one’s production methods in order to survive in to-days very competitive textile garment market, whether it is in the production of simple “T” shirts, silk fabrics, or to the various home textile requirements.
 

The decision for survival can very often only be taken from one’s “close involvement” in the textile industry, and by really understanding in what they are really involved in.

It has also to be said, that quite often the ability for textile companies to be able to expand to meet the said continuous changes in this textile market, that it is often dependent on their government assistance in easing restrictions, in addition to offering some types of subsidiaries, and more important in allowing the local banks to ease lending facilities in that sector.