Opportunities and applications for digital textile printing

August 2014 | 15 pages | ID: O06655CB38CEN
Textiles Intelligence Ltd

Abstracts

Digital textile printing has a number of advantages over traditional textile printing methods such as screen printing. It is flexible, and therefore enables manufacturers of printed textiles to produce short runs cost efficiently and adapt quickly to changes in customer requirements. Also, it provides designers and manufacturers with scope for producing detailed, high quality photographic images which could not be achieved using screen printing. The main drawback of digital textile printing is that production speeds are slow relative to those of screen printing. As a result, and in spite of the capabilities of digital printing, the volume of textiles printed using this technique worldwide accounts for just 2% of the total volume of textiles printed using all techniques. However, there are many applications which provide the digital textile printing industry with opportunities for expansion, notably soft signage, fast fashion and services relating to mass customisation. In the future, the scope for using digital textile printing as a tool for the mass production of printed textiles will depend on the ability of machinery manufacturers to develop digital textile printers with production speeds which rival those of conventional textile printing machinery. This report provides an overview of the digital textile printing market, and looks at the advantages of digital textile printing over screen printing, as well as the opportunities for digital textile printing in the apparel, home textile and soft signage industries. It also provides insight into the factors affecting the adoption of digital textile printing by the textile industry and the future scope for digital textile printing as a tool for commercial-scale print production.

Contents

SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

DIGITAL TEXTILE PRINTING: MARKET OVERVIEW

ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL TEXTILE PRINTING OVER SCREEN

PRINTING

Greater freedom of creativity and flexibility in design
More cost efficient for short print runs
More environmentally friendly
Lower physical inventory
Lower capital investment
Smaller production footprint

OPPORTUNITIES FOR DIGITAL TEXTILE PRINTING BY END USE

MARKET

Apparel
Home textiles
Soft signage

FACTORS AFFECTING THE ADOPTION OF DIGITAL TEXTILE

PRINTING BY THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY

CONCLUSIONS

List Of Figures

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Textile printing by technology, 2013
Figure 2: World roll-to-roll digital textile printing production, 2012-17
Figure 3: Digital textile printing by end use, 2012