ESMA (European Specialist Printing Manufacturers Association), in cooperation with DITF Denkendorf, has announced the launch date of the first ever ESMA Academy course focused on digital textile printing.
ESMA is organising a press conference during Heimtextil, in Frankfurt, on 9 January next year (2020) to expand on the announcement. It will take place between 14:00-15:00pm in Hall 3.0, Stand K82 of the Messe Frankfurt exhibition complex and will be chaired by Peter Buttiens and Thomas Poetz - ESMA CEO and Textile Division Manager, respectively.
The long-term goal of the academy, which forms part of the new-look ESMA Textile Division, is “to create a united community focused on improving and guiding changes in the textile printing industry”. Key focus areas will include the ever-present issue of sustainability, standardisation, colour management and the impact of increasingly stringent regulations on businesses operating in the textile printing space, the association says.
The digital textile printing market is growing at a remarkable rate, but it still only accounts for around 6% of all printed fabric, according to WTiN Intelligence: Digital Textiles, and this figure continues to rise. ESMA expects the market to grow by another 6-20% in the next decade alone.
Environmental impacts
And despite being a cleaner alternative to traditional rotary screen printing, for example, more could still be done to reduce the environmental impact of inkjet solutions. Pressure is mounting on the digital textile printing market to take appropriate action.
The environment is of grave concern to ESMA. Consequently, the association is focused on reducing the huge quantities of waste generated by textile printing each year: from water through to fabric and consumables. The association is aware that installations, coupled with the increased speed and capacity of both traditional and inkjet printing solutions, are on the rise globally. ESMA hopes its new-look textile division will help to educate the textile printing market so that fewer mistakes are made on the production line. It is hoped this will help enhance the overall quality of printed products and in turn cut waste. Reduced expenditure is also an added incentive for print houses because less inventory will be used.
Promoting technology
Colour management, or a lack of, also contributes to the quantity of discarded fabric and wasted consumables. Numerous solutions have come to market to help textile manufacturers achieve greater levels of colour accuracy and consistency but ESMA believes that the industry needs to go further. Colour management is a particularly challenging entity for print houses switching from analogue to digital, or vice versa, and printing re-runs. ESMA believes that colour management is a problem that can only be solved with “a broad approach that is backed by a larger group of suppliers and printers”.
And despite the emergence of Industry 4.0, workflow standardisation remains a problem for textile printing firms of all sizes. ESMA points out that ‘self-updating’ and ‘self-correcting’ systems - more commonly referred to as machine learning - are not in place across large swathes of the textile printing sector. ESMA’s Textile Division will be promoting the importance of these features through its academy courses.
Balancing chemistry
There are a lot of chemicals used in textile printing, particularly inkjet textile printing, such as pre-treatments, post-treatments, inks and coatings. These chemicals help to ensure the textile-based product is safe to use, especially when it comes to clothing which is in constant contact with skin. However, regulations are becoming more stringent in order to prevent the misuse of chemicals which can be hazardous to the environment if they are not disposed of correctly. ESMA will be helping to promote the chemicals which are high-quality but also safe.
ESMA was established in 1990 and developed into a body that represents industrial, functional, and speciality print, it says. The association’s objectives remain relatively unchanged; to this day ESMA promotes the value of textile printing with either inkjet or traditional rotary screen solutions. Its latest venture (the ESMA Academy courses) are just an extension of that, it continues.
Action plan
There is already a road map in place for the successful role out of the courses. As mentioned above, they will be officially launched during Heimtextil in Frankfurt next month. After that there will be a course, focused on digital inkjet printing, which will take place in April 2020 in cooperation with DITF Denkendorf. A committee meeting is also scheduled for April.
Meanwhile, in June, ESMA will look to expand its presence at Drupa with Touchpoint Textile before supporting September’s International Digital Textile Congress in Ghent. Another committee meeting will be held in November before the next edition of the International Digital Textile Congress in 2021.
The evolution of the digital textile printing market has been profound throughout the last two decades, so much so it has reached a fork in the road, according to ESMA. The organisation believes that a dedicated association is required to offer advice and help guide the industry on several key topics from technology and emerging business models to health and safety and legislation. ESMA hopes that the start of its Academy courses will go some way to achieving that.
