The Evolution of Printing and Industry 4.0
As an industry, we have been talking for some time about the impact of Industry 4.0, a term coined in Germany to describe the fourth industry revolution – the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices using modern, smart technology. This includes increased implementation of machine-to-machine communication and the Internet of Things (IoT) – the concept that pretty much everything can be connected to improve automation, communication, monitoring and even diagnosis and resolution of problems without human intervention.
These trends extend across the board in the broader printing industry as various segments make their way through an analog-to-digital transformation, some faster than others. The transformation in commercial print started in the 80s and 90s with CTP and the introduction of production digital printing, but has not progressed as quickly as the sign and display graphics market, which now sports some 60% of square footage produced digitally. In textiles, the transformation is even slower, with 6% to 10% of printed fabrics produced digitally depending on who you speak with.
Analog technologies are definitely here to stay, and they will be for some time. Yet even there, Industry 4.0 plays a role as prepress and press technologies gain sophistication and automation. Especially during the pandemic, we are hearing stories of companies that are making large investments in technology without even seeing the product they are purchasing – or not in person, anyway. Smart vendors have been developing savvy remote demonstration capabilities over the last couple years, and the pandemic accelerated that. This remote, interconnected, Industry 4.0 approach is also playing out in the installation process, with technologies such as Smart Glasses and virtual/augmented reality being used to support installations remotely. One company we spoke to praised the way its vendor remotely supported installation of a complex product, noting that it incented more engagement on the part of internal technical staff, helping them better understand the equipment and better position the company for self-sufficiency as compared to the process where the vendor comes on site and pretty much does everything for them. Plus, taking travel out of the picture takes time and cost out of the process as well, making it more convenient for everyone.
The events business has also been heavily affected by the pandemic, and organizers are creatively conducting virtual events in place of the preferred in-person gatherings we all enjoyed before the pandemic struck. The good news is that vital information about trends, strategies and new products is available, much of it on demand. The bad news is too many people are “Zoomed out,” and these virtual events, which were kind of a novelty at the beginning of the pandemic, are beginning to wear a bit thin.
That being said, a couple of recent events I have participated in were particularly of interest. I’m not trying to list everything I’ve attended during the pandemic here, so apologies to the dozens of event organizers I’m not including in this particular article.
The first is a TechTextil/TexProcess webinar (full disclosure: I moderated this one), and the other is the recent EFI Engage virtual event being held in place of the company’s annual in-person EFI Connect users group. I chose these two because they both had great content, and they took totally different approaches. But they also highlighted some of the industry changes that are being accelerated by the pandemic and facilitated by Industry 4.0.
In his EFI Engage keynote, Gaby Matsliach, SVP/GM of productivity software for EFI, summed it up this way:
"We have seen varied customer response from a technology and business process perspective; the way customers responded varied. Some took time during the downturn to invest in technology to come out of it stronger. Some delayed investment or existing projects either waiting to get a better view of the horizon or being so busy in keeping up with the demand while also keeping their teams safe and healthy. Some took advantage of government stimulus incentives to make technology purchases they had been unable to do before."
Companies that took time during this period to build toward the future – whether it was new investments in equipment, employee training, deep-clean maintenance that we never seem to have time for, and continuing to educate themselves and their staff on the ongoing innovation and developments that are occurring despite the pandemic, those are the companies that are mostly likely to still be with us in 2022 and beyond. Sitting on the sidelines and waiting for it all to be over is a recipe for disaster.
Having had to cancel its in-person conference, TexProcess/TechTextil decided to do a series of educational webinars over a period of several months rather than a full-blown virtual event. The idea here was both to keep pushing out the educational and technology information we need without the overload of sitting in front of a computer for days in a virtual event. The company does, however, plan to hold an in-person event in Raleigh, N.C., in August of 2021. We’ll have to see how that goes, since the pandemic has so far run rampant in the U.S. (and other parts of the world), and it’s not clear where we will be by late summer, even with the several vaccines that are now or soon will be available.
The session I moderated took a look at the progress we have made – and the progress still to be made – in digital textile printing and other digital technologies that can streamline workflow in both analog and digital environments. I was grateful for the knowledge and expertise shared by my panelists, who each have very different types of businesses. These included Kerry King, senior vice president of research and development at Spoonflower; Kristen Dettoni, founder of Design Pool and Domanda; and Jonathan Tio, CEO of Prima-Tex Industries.
Spoonflower was born as a digital company around the idea of creating a waterless, low-impact business, more than a dozen years ago, and continues to be a leader and innovator in the digital printing of textiles. Prima-Tex was the only company represented on the panel that has both analog and digital printing capability. Tio pointed out that each has its place, and likely will for some time to come, noting that digital printing is well suited for sampling, capturing images with a wide range of shades and colors, and for highly engineered apparel. On the other hand, rotary printing is still the most economical and practical technology for designs with fewer colors or a high yardage quantity, in his experience.
Dettoni’s companies make professional designs available for licensing by designers, and she has also built a network of printing companies that can fulfill the designers’ manufacturing needs if they don’t have a printer of their own. Most recently, she launched Domanda, a B2C version that makes professional designs available to the consumer community. Both feed off of the same general design database.
Even though their businesses are quite different, they all agreed that we need more digital content in the workflow, more effort on the part of the industry at large to reduce its environmental footprint, and an increasing connection to consumers who want to know more about the companies they buy from and how and where their products are manufactured.
EFI Engage also placed emphasis on Industry 4.0 and digital technologies over its eight-day virtual event. The overall interface of the event was one of the most engaging (no pun intended) of the events I have witnessed over the past several months, including a simulated 360-degree experience entering the conference center and its various components, including general sessions, breakouts, an exhibit hall/lab and, of course, a press room. Navigation was easy, and the event was laid out in such a way as to enable visitors to quickly identify and navigate to the sessions most important to them. In many ways, it simulated the experience one might have at an in-person event.
One unique approach EFI took for the live breakout sessions was a recognition that there is more to the world than North America – this was truly a global event from a time and language perspective. Some sessions were on at 1:30 a.m. my time, but that was a convenient time in other parts of the world. Some sessions, like the keynotes, were available for replay; others were not. In a normal EFI Connect, there was usually a media track where EFI experts from each discipline provided updates to the press and analysts who attended the event. In the case of EFI Engage, these were pre-recorded and available throughout the event.
As I am writing this, only the first half of the event has been completed, so it will be interesting to see what the overall outcome will be as the event completes its second week. How did the exhibitors feel about the experience? How much user participation was there? Did EFI achieve the goals it set out to accomplish when it organized the event? The company does plan to go back to in-person Connect in January of 2022, and we are certainly hoping that can be done.
As we look back on 2020 and a large part of 2021, I’m sure we will all be glad to be able to get back to in-person events, but we will have learned a great deal about efficiencies that these virtual technologies can offer, such as remote demonstrations, installations and support reducing time and cost associated with travel in many cases; the ability to access the content later, at a time and place that is convenient for the viewer, and a means to have a more global reach, as demonstrated by EFI Engage.
In this “next normal,” things will be different. We’ll be able to get back together in person, although it may look different than in the past. But we will likely still be taking advantage of Industry 4.0 and virtual technologies to create a work environment that, in hindsight, will look totally different. EFI’s Matsliach noted, for example, that before the pandemic, only 20% of those who could do their work remotely did so, and as I write this, he says it’s at about 70%. That’s a dramatic change that’s likely to be with us for the long term. Either way, we will continue to see digital technologies play a larger role across the printing industry as a whole, leveraging Industry 4.0 concepts, and taking us to a place where convenience, productivity, sustainability and – we hope – profitability will be at all-time highs.
