The Technology Corner

It seems that this column has become more of a travelogue than a technology discussion, but travel is required to keep abreast of technical developments. Since our last newsletter, visits to Thailand, Japan and New York City have been made, and I am writing now from Munich, Germany. It has been a whirlwind month, and I look forward to being home for a few days. I have a new item for you under the heading of On-line Extortion. Sounds familiar doesn't it? In my quest to keep all of you safe from harm from your PC's, I try to stay out front in researching potential hazards, and communicating them to you. Before we get to that, I'd like to review what we saw in Thailand.

Before we get into the details, a few words about the subject are in order. First, I'm not promoting Digital Print Asia (DPA) for any personal gain. I feel that there is a story here that few have recognized, much less begun to profit from. In past columns, I wrote about Stork's See U technology, a process that allows printed products to be designed remotely, proofed locally, and production printed in Asia with guaranteed color match. There is a business opportunity here for entrepreneurs with enough spirit to explore an alternative business model. This is not a panacea, it is not a magic bullet. It is, however, a strategy to maximize speed-to-market, while benefiting from digitally produced product in an almost-inventory-free pipeline.

The printer cannot operate in a vacuum. Partners who are brand owners or retailers are necessary, and near-real-time feedback is necessary to fully exploit the benefits of the technology. When new products are developed, as much as seventy percent of proposed styles do not make it into the line. How then, can we avoid this waste of time and energy on designs that will not be sold? How then, can we eliminate the markdowns that result from incorrect analysis of what the customer will buy? First, is it the customer who chooses, or is it a “knowledgeable expert” who decides to keep or drop the item from the line? If it's not the customer, the knowledge of the expert may drop an item that might really blow out of the store. Why not let the customer decide? The brand owner, or retailer with private label business can design products that will be digitally printed, and will test the market with small quantities to see which styles sell and which may be slower selling. Digitally printed items will enhance the price point, and can display features such as engineered designs that are not otherwise possible. When introduced in the store, or over the web, customer purchases are monitored, and those which sell best are reordered in increasing quantity, while those slower moving styles may be reordered or dropped as policy dictates. It is with this model that inventory costs are reduced, and products that best attract the customer are retained. It is not unreasonable to think in terms of ten to twenty units being produced in each style, as there is little setup required, and the fabric is available for cutting and sewing within hours. Stork Digital Imaging recognized the potential of this new model, and along with a partner in Asia, set about to realize the dream that we have had for many years. The result is DPA, a joint venture between Stork and Penn Asia, a member of the Yeh Group of companies. This group, already involved in garment production, saw the potential and prepared to purchase four machines from Stork. As discussion progressed, the benefits of a joint venture became apparent, and DPA was formed. In business now for three years, the factory in Samsatsukorn, near Bangkok, is at full capacity, and is operating seven days a week, with two twelve hour shifts. Management is reviewing options for a larger facility, one that can house additional printers and finishing equipment. Below is a photo of the unassuming exterior of the printing factory. Inside, is a different story.

The factory is clean, well laid-out, and is packed with eighteen wide format digital printers, six Amethyst and twelve Sapphire machines. Each machine is supported by an uninterruptible battery back-up power supply, and each node of the fully networked factory is also backed up against power failures that occur with some frequency. This does not allow continued printing indefinitely, but does allow for an orderly shutdown if power is not restored quickly. The risk of loss of eighteen print runs is mitigated, and disruptions are less frequent.

Two Rimslow steamers are in use, primarily for sample making. The output of the factory outpaced the two steamers long ago, and is now done at an adjacent finishing mill owned by the joint venture partner, and just across the parking lot from where the printing is done.

While we were there, several machines were running print patterns for driver's shirts for one of the auto racing circuits, a total of three thousand yards of print fabric. You may wonder, with three thousand yards, why was screen printing not considered? There is changeable information printed on each shirt, which can be input at the last moment before the file is committed to RIP, and each shirt is sized, which requires a reference number to be printed so the garmenter can cut the shirt to the proper size at the time of cut and sew. This information can also be added at the latest moment, something that is impractical with screen printing. A print run of thirty thousand pieces of a swim suit was produced for the last season. The brand owner cannot be identified, but they are now ordering a total of one hundred twenty thousand units, digitally printed, and in styles to be determined later. It is this later/latest potential that makes the technology so exciting as a business opportunity. With growth plans already under way, Stork/DPA will have quite a lead on competition if someone doesn't soon step up to the challenge. Stork Digital Imaging will license the technology to customers, and will provide technical assistance in making the process yours.

Machines at DPA have been in service for three years, and are exhibiting high reliability. With multi-shift operation, the actual use is equivalent to seven years of single shift production. As may be seen, the plant is well lighted, clean, and well managed. Machines do not stop for breaks or lunch. Sundays are optional for the employees, but has not been a problem to keep staffed for full operation. For one considering the purchase of a wide format digital printing machine, the reliability shown at DPA should relieve any concerns about downtime.

The factory houses customer service and accounting functions as well as image file management. Booked to capacity, this model is poised to grow. Surely, there is an entrepreneur out there who would like to profit from such a business too!

Osaka's Intex Center was host to the JIAM show this year. There is some talk of a Tokyo Venue in 2008, but the JIAM management is planning to announce in August a probable return to Osaka.

The show was smaller than in past years, having the feel of a regional show. Despite the smaller size, there were some new gems found that I'd like to share with you. Regarding sewing machines, they all still have a needle and thread, and a bobbin or hook for bottom thread. There were some ultrasonic stitcher/welders, and a couple of hot air sealing machines. The newest trend in sewing machines is the “dry head”, a synonym for sewing heads that have little or no lubrication to drip oil onto sewing fabrics. This is accomplished with special coatings on the needle bar to reduce sliding friction and minimize the need for lubrication. A small wick provides just a touch of oil, not enough to drip, but adequate for prevention of overheating and binding of the needle bar in its bushing. Coated sliding members are not new, overlock machine looper drive mechanisms have had coatings for years. Both chain and lock stitch machines have dry lower systems, with hooks rotating in polymer baskets, and looper drive and feed mechanisms also benefiting from reduced oiling. In some cases a completely dry sump was shown, with a small, sealed oil chamber provided to feed oil in tiny doses to the hook and feed mechanisms. Machines that have sophisticated controls also have sophisticated operator interfaces. Brother, Juki, AMF and others showed flat panel touch screen interfaces that were both simple, and concise in providing the operator control without language barriers and strange symbols. Not all machines had, or needed such panels, but it looks like we will see increasing use of these handy and intuitive parts.

Digital printing machines were not the focus of this show, but we were in search of anything new and we found a couple of things to show you. Shima Seiki introduced a new flat bed printer at the show. (See photo below) It has a field of 1.6 x 2.2 meters and appears quite versatile, with adjustments to raise and lower the head for printing on single ply or completed garments.

Another printer that was shown for printing tee-shirts was the Mimaki, which I reported on following the ITMA Exhibition in 2003. Brother is also releasing a printer for tee shirts that will be shown in the US this week at the Printables Show. Is there a trend here? We'll stay tuned, and will report additional introductions in this area.

Printing 2005: A Digital Reality

After returning from Japan, it was on to New York City for the Printing 2005 Symposium, sponsored jointly by [TC]² and AATCC. Topics were varied, and the symposium well balanced between technical, color management and measurement, design, and business success stories. Much of the content was reported in the current edition of the [TC]² Technology Communicator, so will not be repeated here. If anything needs expansion, I'll add it to the next Technology Corner column. It was refreshing to see and hear from practitioners who have figured out how to build a business around digital printing. I plan to do a future column on a couple of the practitioners who are bold and intuitive, and who displayed entrepreneurial spirit.

On-line Extortion

Finally, to close out this month's column, how big a problem would it be if all of your files containing all of your work for the past several years was suddenly lost? No big deal? Then skip the rest of this section. If you said you would restore from a back-up, good for you. Have you ever done so? Might be worth a practice run.

The latest in on-line extortion goes like this: a hacker finds your machine unprotected and installs a “back-door” so future visits can be made to wreak more havoc. After gaining access to your machine, files such as word processing, spreadsheets, photos, and other files of importance are encrypted by the hacker. If your files are already encrypted, they are encrypted again by the bad guy. You may not notice until you attempt to open a file and get the message, “access denied”. Shortly after, you receive an e-mail stating that your files are locked, and to have them unlocked, a payment must be made. To date, most demands have been in the order of two hundred dollars or so, an amount most people will pay to have files unlocked. Payment forms are credit card or Western Union. The Federal authorities are looking into payment gateways and drop boxes for payments, but so far no prosecutions have occurred. This is no joke, it is really a tragedy that criminals can so easily exploit the unsuspecting public. What should you do to prevent such extortion? Religiously back up all files to a safe medium, CD's are safe and low cost. If you back up to another hard drive on the same network, you may still be vulnerable, depending on permissions granted to other users for access to backups. Patches for operating systems, browsers and applications should be kept up to date. Mac users may laugh at the need for such caution, but Macs are increasingly targets of hackers, too. And, be sure to keep a personal firewall and anti-virus application running at all times. It is easy to defeat the anti-virus and firewalls when they warn repeatedly, but it is far better to deal with warning messages, than to lose control over your machine and your data. Possibly forever.

Until next month, stay well and safe.

Jud

Our [TC]² in-house writer, Kim Anderson, has written two articles that I think you may find interesting. Kim provides content for our Technology Communicator newsletter and will be writing for techexchange also. I am pleased to add Kim's articles to this column. 'The Power of Color' and 'Nonwoven Fabrics in Fashion Apparel' can be found in our new library catagory 'Innovations'.