Rob Penhallow (00:00)
Welcome back to printconnect. Today we're looking at how textile, apparel and wide format printing are shifting fast, driven by changing consumer expectations, sustainability pressures and rapid innovation. In a market this fluid, companies need both a clear view of where things are heading and solid proof that their products can deliver.

To help us explore all of that, I'm joined by two guests from Keypoint Intelligence. First, Johnny Shell a respected voice in digital textile and apparel decorating, wide format sign and graphics, and a member of the Academy of Screen and Digital Printing Technology. Johnny spent years helping businesses embrace new tech and navigate the shift to digital. And alongside him is David Sweetenham, who leads Keypoint's research and lab services across Europe and Asia.

David set up the company's UK lab back in 2007 and has been at the forefront of independent product testing ever since.

Rob Penhallow (00:55)
Together they bring both strategic insight and hands on technical validation, a combination that's becoming essential as this industry evolves.

Johnny, I'll come to you first. We've been hearing a lot about this major reset happening across textile apparel and wide format printing. From where you sit, what do you see as the biggest forces driving this shift right now?

Johnny Shell (01:15)
One of the biggest forces I see is the print service providers are looking for ⁓ alternative revenue streams. ⁓ Let's take wide format signing graphics for example. Signs and banners are commodities now. And so what PSPs are trying to do is diversify their application range and offer more unique items. One thing in particular would be ⁓

These small footprint, you know, bench top ⁓ UV direct to object printers, right? For promotional products, gift items, things of that nature. And it's a high margin application. They're already familiar with the technology, so it's not a huge adjustment or a learning curve associated with it. ⁓ I think that's one thing that I'm seeing. The other thing is that, you know,

The prices are being driven down on equipment, on inks. I've just spent a lot of time in China and Asia over the last few weeks. And one thing in particular on the digital textile side, we're seeing ink prices for reactive inks down around $3 a liter, which is cheaper than water. And so that's kind of shocking. It's just a question of

how long this can sustain itself because it seems to me that what's going to happen is there's going to be a point where we reach that nobody can cut prices anymore because they're not making any profit. And so what historically has happened is then we start seeing closures, mergers and acquisitions and things like that. ⁓ that's kind of two major things that I'm seeing is diversification of applications and products.

And then just this huge price compression down to never before seen prices on consumables.

Rob Penhallow (03:17)
And so what do you think in such a volatile market? What kind of clarity do you think companies need in order to start making smart strategic decisions today?

Johnny Shell (03:27)
Yeah, I mean, the range of applications in wide formats is expanding significantly. The diversification is really shaping how the OEMs have to start configuring their systems. Printers want to do more with less. ⁓ I just gave one example there with, ⁓ you know, ⁓

diversifying product applications. technological development that I've seen over the last year or so is ⁓ CCD cameras mounted to flatbed printers. And so what that means, what that translates into is if I'm doing, let's say phone cases or golf balls, I don't need a jig anymore. ⁓ I can throw the parts on the flatbed in any orientation, any spacing, and the CCD camera picks it up as it scans.

and then communicates that information over to the RIP and they use a little bit of artificial intelligence to modify the graphic and so that it prints directly to these parts, if you will. ⁓ So there's a lot of ⁓ automation that's happening. ⁓ We're also seeing crossover into adjacent markets, right? Into packaging and industrial applications.

And again, it's just all about trying to diversify, trying to find alternative verticals that these PSPs can enter. ⁓ And then really, you know, personalization, micro-production are really becoming central demand drivers. Brands want localized versioned graphics. For example, you know, city-specific or limited edition.

And that requires the shorter lead time so PSPs really have to step up their game and get more agile ⁓ in their approach to These different customers that are coming their way

Rob Penhallow (05:32)
Okay, so with all these rapid changes that you're talking about, what performance characteristics matter most then to PSPs, you know, reliability, media compatibility, reproducibility, do you think it is? Or all three?

Johnny Shell (05:45)
I mean, I'll ⁓

let David speak to that, but in my opinion it's ⁓ producing at the highest quality for the cheapest price and ⁓

You know machine reliability and all that comes in to play but that's really what I'm seeing in terms of ⁓ folks that I've talked to on how they're staying competitive and it's just kind of amazing to see like I mentioned ink prices are falling, the prices of equipment are falling. I don't want to place any un...

Undo blame or anything on the Chinese manufacturers, but they're really the fuel that is causing all this. The machines are typically 60 % less than your average, ⁓ you know, standard on the market, Roland, Mamaki, Muto, what have you. The blue chip brands, if you will. ⁓ And they're being very aggressive. They're branching outside of China now into other regions of the globe, Eastern Europe, Central and South America, Northern Africa.

the Middle East even, which is a bubbling market right now. ⁓ And so, yeah, it's an interesting time to kind of see all these dynamics taking place.

Rob Penhallow (07:00)
⁓ And talking about those, those changing dynamics, we're seeing wide format expanding into markets like decor, promotional products, and even short run industrial work. What's enabling this diversification?

Johnny Shell (07:13)
Mean I think technology has I mentioned the CCD cameras on the flatbeds ⁓ We're seeing faster ⁓ printers ⁓ HP just relaunched their newest latex machine ⁓ Canon just launched their new UV gel XL 7 machine that's I think 3.4 meters wide so you can put put two 60 inch rolls of material on it and print them at the same time ⁓

It's all about the technology advancing ⁓ at a very rapid rate really to be honest with you on the apparel side. ⁓ I mean it's just amazing to see what's happening on direct-to-film with the faster printers that are coming to market. The prices are falling continuously. One application I saw here recently is kind of new. I'll hold this up here. It's a UV printed ⁓ emblem.

That's printed onto basically heat transfer vinyl. It's about a millimeter thick or so. And you put this into the heat press and then for things like athletic jerseys it's very flexible. It doesn't crack so they use a long molecular chain. UV ink. And they're even doing it on glittered heat transfer vinyl. So that really gives a nice effect.

This is going straight after the silicone market because in order to do this with silicone, you've got to carve the mold and make the, ⁓ you you need heavy equipment, right? You got to have the silicone dispensing into the mold, ⁓ the multicolor dispensers, things like that. It takes time to cure it. This is printed, you know, with UV ink on heat transfer vinyl. So it's quick, it's cost effective. ⁓

So these are just things I'm seeing.

Rob Penhallow (09:09)
Mm-hmm.

David Sweetnam (09:10)
I think one of the other areas where you're seeing the ability for micro jobs to be more cost effective is technology again. It's making it one of the challenges with doing small jobs is always the amount of time not necessarily takes to print but the amount of time it takes to actually get the job where you can hit the green button and start it in the first place. And if you've got an hour, hour and a half of pre-flight time getting all the colour management, getting your plates, getting all your media settings correct before you can

the job that's a fair amount of cost upfront with AI advanced technology you can actually now get to point where a new job can be put on to the system and you're ready to start printing literally within the space of minutes and that's a that's a big advantage

⁓ I think you can also find that technology is also helping with the reduction in the risk of bad setup by picking up again using AI and cameras. It can see whether your job has when you first got to start printing it whether it's actually successful whether it needs tweaking and can those two can be done using technology so that's a big advantage.

Rob Penhallow (10:22)
And talking of technology, I know it's playing a major part in automation. Can you kind of talk about how that is now a big part of production? Where do you think you're seeing the most impactful automation gains across workflows?

Johnny Shell (10:38)
automation happening across the workflow, certainly a job onboarding and the use of AI and getting the job into the system.

The biggest challenge really has been getting all these systems to talk to each other and that's getting better and better. But in terms of actual print production, we're seeing automated DTF transfer machines ⁓ using small carousel machines that have pick and place robotics that pick up the transfers, place them on the garment in a specified location. There's an initial heat press. ⁓ Then there's ⁓ two pincer robots that peel the film.

Then there's a second heat pressing and then there's robotic ⁓ offloading. ⁓ And so on the on the wide format side, ⁓ certainly material loading and unloading is becoming more automated. But even ⁓ in the rip software and things like that where, ⁓ you know, a ⁓ gang placement of the graphics.

⁓ Ganging them up, maximizing the materials, those kind of things. ⁓ AI is playing ⁓ a huge role in that. ⁓ I mean, ⁓ I lost my train of thought there, sorry.

Rob Penhallow (11:58)
David.

David Sweetnam (12:00)
For DTF printers for example you go back when they first started coming out you two head systems you look at the amount of time it takes to print a typical full design front t-shirt and the amount of time it takes to print that

design and then the amount of time it takes offline to transfer, powder, cut, lay, press etc. You're pretty much looking at one operator able to keep the machine going and do the the follow-up offline conversion from film to garment. Whereas you look at machines now as know six, eight head machines. ⁓ A single human being simply cannot keep up with the speed the machines are going at.

Johnny Shell (12:32)
Yeah.

David Sweetnam (12:42)
So you either have to start investing in more and more people to be able to keep up with the device or you can go down the route for Johnny said where you've got these automated carousels that can go at four, 500 t-shirts per hour because most of the steps are automated and all the operator is doing is taking the cut films that are again being automated. So you've now got the t-shirt, I'm sorry, the film's being printed.

Johnny Shell (12:56)
Yeah.

David Sweetnam (13:08)
inline automated xy cutting systems that are cutting down the designs to exactly the right shape being loaded into the carousel automation loading system and then all the operator is doing is putting t-shirts onto the carousel and the rest is all done automatically so it allows one operator to keep up with a machine that's four or five times faster than it was say four years ago

Rob Penhallow (13:32)
Yeah.

And alongside all of these advances in technologies and AI and workflows, one major part of the conversation which remains and has been for a while is sustainability. And it's now moved from a nice to have to a non-negotiable. What are the biggest sustainability mandates that are shaping textile apparel and wide format printing today?

Johnny Shell (13:59)
Well, that's a great question and depends on what part of the globe you're living in because everybody has their own ⁓ rules and regulations. But sustainability is no longer an option, right? Buyers, especially large brands, public institutions, enterprise procurement teams are increasingly embedding environmental sustainability government's ESG criteria into their purchasing decisions.

⁓ OEMs have to design platforms that minimize the VOC emissions, consume less energy, and enable recyclability. ⁓ There's all these global and regional regulations where Europe's strict on VOC framework, Japan's energy efficiency focus, North America's procurement mandates are all going to be essential.

Beyond compliance, sustainability can be a competitive differentiator, certainly for OEMs, but also for the PSPs, because they have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that meets the needs of their customers. And the needs of their customers could be a brand, it could be a public institution. So there's all these moving parts. But yeah, sustainability is really, no longer optional.

It's requirement, right? It's a way to differentiate.

David Sweetnam (15:28)
I was talking to a major Indian textile apparel manufacturer the other day and he said that more and more of his clients are coming over to his digital operation because they are keen to message to their end customer base that they are making more sustainable decisions with things like the much lower water requirement in digital technology versus traditional analog, the much lower levels of pollutants that are generated through digital compared to analog.

important areas in India where obviously water is a ⁓ scarce commodity in certain areas and polluting what water they do have is something that is being taken very seriously out of everything from government down to down to major corporate buying level so it's you know it's really important to these guys

Johnny Shell (16:17)
Yeah, and OEMs are really, like I say, they're they're using it as a way to differentiate their platform. So it's not only the hardware, but in support of traceability, you have things like Durst Analytics Suite and Corneet X Sustainability Dashboard that track and monitor all these things that are needed for

⁓ global standards like REACH and GOTS and ZDHC, BlueSign, all these things that have become benchmarks for chemical safety and environmental compliance. by aligning these standards, ⁓ OEMs are not only future-proofing their products, but they're also gaining access to the brands that now mandate certified eco-compliant production.

David Sweetnam (17:07)
Another thing that the Indian company talked about last week was that they've invested in AI quality control systems and robotics with one of the main advantages being that they can greatly reduce the amount of wastage that they have by picking up immediately when there's an issue within the production line. So instead of printing 40, 50 t-shirts with

a due to a blocked nozzle or having run out of one the plassoxol inks or something in the analog section and suddenly find that they've got to throw away a large amount of t-shirts they're now able to pick that up almost instantaneously and that helps them keep much lower levels of waste which go towards their overall environmental credentials as well.

Johnny Shell (17:56)
Yeah.

Rob Penhallow (17:58)
And talking of those credentials, David, in the labs testing is becoming essential for credibility. What are the main performance indicators manufacturers want validated today?

David Sweetnam (18:12)
I mean, one of the biggest challenges within both wide format when we developed that test space and in the digital text style was the complete lack of

standardization in terms of how manufacturers have to reference how well the machines perform. You you look at the office space and there are ISO standards for quality, are ISO standards for cost of ownership, are ISO standards for productivity, ISO standards or, you know, energy star standards for energy consumption. There's none of that in wide format or textiles. So it's pretty much down to how do you judge whether this machine is better than that machine from a productivity or a quality or reliability.

to your cost of ownership perspective when all you're looking at is a set of statistics that a vendor is giving out that don't match up to each other. It's like trying to compare an apple against a pear. So what we try and do is develop testing programs that

Make sure that every machine we test is tested to exactly the same format using the same substrates, the same testing procedures, the same methodology. So you can pick up a report on wide format machine A, wide format machine B, wide format machine C, tested by Keypoint Intelligence and look at 60, 70, 80 different metrics and see which machines perform better and know that those are directly comparable against each other because they've been asked to do exactly the same thing.

rather than doing sort of the same thing but not using the same file or not being judged against the standard. So that's a really important thing that we look at. For the wide format market we focus on things like productivity, image quality, we look at things like dimensional stability and color consistency for things like panel and wallpaper printing.

And for things like the textile industry, look at productivity, image quality, ink consumption and washability. So again, really important factors for companies are involved with when they're looking at picking out what machine is the best fit for them. What we don't do is give an overall rating for a machine because...

what you find as potentially a problem is one person may have productivity as being the most important factor for them, whereas another company may not care so much about productivity, image quality is what's going to make them the money. So we don't say this machine's better than that machine because it's much faster, that machine's much better than that one because it's got better color consistency or larger color gamut. We judge each component separately.

and then leave the end user to decide which of those factors are important to their business.

Rob Penhallow (20:58)
Now this testing is carried out in a controlled testing environment. Can you talk about how that works and then why it's important?

David Sweetnam (21:07)
So, So because a lot of these machines are quite big, you know, it becomes quite inefficient and very costly for the vendors to send the machines into us. So what we tend to do is we design testing programs that allow us to go and see the machine and test the machine at the manufacturer's facility itself. So what we do to ensure consistency is we standardize on the media that are going to be used. So for wide format, we partner with Avery Denison and DryTac.

providers with our our vinyls and our wallpaper based papers for that and for the apparel we partner with Next Level who provide us with all of our t-shirts all from a single manufacturing batch from one factory so I've got 10,000 t-shirts sitting in my warehouse that all came from one manufacturing day at that factory so again we're trying to minimize any kind of opportunity for us to enter

Performance differences in the machine based on on what we've actually added into the mix So we will then follow set proceeds We will tell the vendor exactly what they need to do in advance of us getting there with you know Telling them how they need to get the profile set up What factors we're going to be looking at make sure they understand that when we're judging the machine based on its most productive mode or its highest quality mode It will be one profile and one setting that they're going to be used and judged for

based on productivity, image quality, ink consumption, washability. They can't have one profile for productivity based on speed and then another profile that they use for productivity for image quality. Because again, you're not judging like for like. So we make sure the vendor knows exactly what is going to be expected of them before we turn up. And then we will have their operators assisting us with the driving of that device over a multi-day test evaluation.

And then all the rest of the evaluating gets done at our standardized lab. So things like for the washability testing on DTF and DTG, it's all done in my UK lab using standardized washing machines and dryers and detergent and water. So we're not introducing any factor changes there at all. So ⁓ that's the most important thing is you have to make sure that we're not introducing anything that could differ a set of results based on whether we're doing it today, tomorrow.

or next year.

Rob Penhallow (23:35)
And so how is this this combination from key point intelligence, this combination of lab based validation and strategic insight? Can you talk about why that's important and how that works?

David Sweetnam (23:47)
Sure, Johnny.

Johnny Shell (23:49)
Yeah, so my side of the fence here at Keypoint Intelligence is part of our advisory services and with the annual subscription to that our subscribers receive market intelligence obviously ⁓ consulting on a variety of levels whether it be competitive analysis or regional you know go to market analysis in a specific region.

We do annual forecasts, we do annual research, things like that, but we're really kind of a boutique consultant. So we really support our customers by keeping our finger on the pulse. ⁓ You know, I've just come off an eight week travel, you know, extensive travel schedule across the globe. And so with that, I've come back with a lot of knowledge and, ⁓ you know,

talked to a lot of people obviously saw a lot of new things and then what I can do is then translate that and communicate that back to our subscribers ⁓ so that they're aware of it ⁓ in case they've got you know product development and the works or just ⁓ you know need to know what's going on in the industry and then there's our other side of the David's area which is the testing that he was he was talking about

David Sweetnam (25:14)
I think what we offer that nobody else offers is that ability to see the market from both a high-end level like Johnny looks at where you're looking at who are the movers and shakers, what are the trends, what are the most important drivers around buyers looking into making the next decision and how they're to continue to be cost-effective and profitable and what we do which is look at how well individual devices stand up to the scrutiny that's required in this ever

evolving marketplace. So you'll have players who compete against my services where they can kick the tires of an individual machine but they won't know what the impact of what my machine is good at is going to have in the real world in terms of how big is this factor in terms of performance going to be in two, three, four years time. And that's where Johnny's side comes into play. So we have that perfect ability to work together to be able to meet tell Johnny where the market is changing from how the device is performing and Johnny

Johnny Shell (26:14)
All

David Sweetnam (26:14)
tell me what are the continuing needs and evolutions of what the market is actually looking for and I can make sure that I'm keeping my testing programs in tune with what is continuing to be the most important factor that buyers and manufacturers are looking for as validation.

Rob Penhallow (26:30)
And so where do you both coming to you, Johnny, first, where do you see the biggest opportunities for innovation across both textile and apparel and wide format design?

Johnny Shell (26:39)
I mean, in terms of what OEMs are looking to do now, I mean, we've covered some of them, a new DTF application, you know, that's the next step in DTF. We're seeing ⁓ kind of new types of inks in the wide format. know, Canon has their UV gel, but now Fujifilm and Muto now have their AquaFuse. It's a water-based UV. Again, all trying to ⁓ reduce that ⁓

environmental impact, reduce the curing temperature so that more heat sensitive materials can be printed. We're seeing advancements in the latex with regard to new applications and new markets that it's entering everything from wall covers to more sensitive environments and hospitals and children's daycares, things like that. ⁓ So, I mean, I think across the entire spectrum of ⁓

Not only my areas, but also going back to the previous question, our advisory services cover not only textile apparel wide format, but we also cover on demand. We cover digital front end and the software. We cover labels and packaging and digital's impact across those with the addition of AI and some of the other things that we've talked about really

points to me that digital is coming and coming strong. Even in the textile space where the most aggressive estimates are around 10 % of the total printed textiles are digitally printed. That's a huge opportunity for growth and we're going to see that in textiles. We're going to see it in labels and packaging over the coming years. And so by the beginning of the next decade, we're going to be well on our way to that, ⁓ you know, 50 % digital transformation mark, I think.

Rob Penhallow (28:33)
David?

David Sweetnam (28:35)
Yeah, I think the biggest advancement we're going to see in the next year or two is people looking at the whole workflow from much more holistic perspective, know, implementing AI automation robotics to

at the moment is still very much a case of, you've got individual machines which are starting to get connected using, you know, individual robotic arms or individual pieces of AI or workflow, but they're not designed initially as one individual thought process. They're individual thought processes that almost get stitched together with technology. think the next innovation is going to be where people start to think, right, we need to get one system that is able to go from

A to Z, know pick up the job, do the preflight, set it up, do the quality control, do the know the full process of print, transfer, finish, ship with minimum human intervention and that will obviously greatly reduce the costs and overheads. It could also greatly reduce the amount of wastage, it could increase productivity, efficiency, keep press times up.

with lot of companies trying to get to that dark factory type of scenario where you've literally got operations running without human beings involved at all. And that's a way I can see that becoming a reality in a couple of years time, if not sooner than that for some people.

Rob Penhallow (30:01)
So big changes ahead.

Chamond Media (30:03)
A huge thank you to Johnny Shell and David Sweetenham for sharing their insight today. It's clear that these shifts reach far beyond textile apparel and wide format. They're reshaping the entire digital print ecosystem

there's a huge amount for businesses to be excited about and to prepare for. Thank you, as always, for tuning in to Print Connect. We love bringing these conversations to you, and we'll be back soon with more guests, more technology, and more insight from across the specialist printing community. Thank you.