Focus on DTF Printing
Opening our showcase of the latest innovations in direct to film printing is Aaron Burton, managing director at Sabur Digital, who explores ways in which printers can make DTF printing more profitable for them.
How can DTF be more profitable?
T
he answer is ‘automation’. It can feel like a buzzword, not a benefit. But it’s important to ignore the hype. At Sabur Digital we believe that more automation will help DTF businesses increase their profit margins.
Automation has a number of meanings, depending on which industry you’re in. It’s less about artificial intelligence and smart systems, although those are the words that manufacturers often use, and more about adding something to your production workflow, that removes a process costing unnecessary time and money.
Embracing automation You may not realise it, but if you’re using direct to film (DTF) production methods, then you’ve already embraced automation. DTF printed garments don’t need pre-treatment; they don’t need weeding; the entire process is geared to removing the human factor that slowed earlier technologies down. DTF is a faster, lower-cost process – due to automation.
There’s a balance to be struck, between operator input and automatic
decision-making, but ultimately, the idea is to make end-products more competitively priced by accelerating production. There can be other advantages too, such as increased accuracy and reduced risks. But automating your production workflow doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be removing people from your team. Quite the opposite – and this is one of the main advantages of automation, for printers of all sizes. Automation lets you redeploy people in and around your business. Selling to new customers; improving customer service; working on other aspects of growth. Most printers pursue automation because they want better profit margins, and more freedom to expand their business. For DTF, that means the next logical step has to be automated cutting.
Automated cutting
To date, this is the one part of the process that’s definitely needed the human touch.
When designs had been printed and approved, one of the team started wielding the scissors (carefully). Unfortunately, whenever there’s a blade involved, there are health and safety risks for operators, and there are
production risks too. It’s far too easy to damage end products by accident. Above and beyond the immediate cost-benefit analysis, that’s why automated cutting makes so much sense.
DTF is closely associated with no weeding – removing a negative process from your workflow – and automated cutting removes the ultimate negative influence on your production: risk. It’s the magic eyes in automated cutters that make the difference. Automation removes human error from the cutting process.
The Neolt XY cutter in our showroom uses mechanical, optical analysis to measure where and when to cut precisely. Mechanical cutting means smoother cuts, far more accurate cuts, and the ability to duplicate cuts exactly... intrinsically, automated calibration is far more reliable than a close enough judgement-call. That said, we could be forgiven for making this sound as though automated cutting is only for DTF mass production. It’s not.
Other advantages
The other advantages of automating the cutting process in DTF are traceability and repeatability – both of which are essential, no matter how large or small your business is at the moment. As soon as a piece of software is introduced into your workflow, you can replicate a job precisely and reassure your customers, there’s an independent means of verifying product quality at any point in time. It’s much harder to pin-point where things went wrong with the scissors.
Neolt’s XY Cutter is a move towards automation
If you have DTF printers, then you know this is true: automated cutting in DTF will greatly reduce the risk of losing money by removing human error. And these days, none of us have money to throw away. Automated cutting is definitely the next step in DTF.
| 40 | November 2024
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
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