Trend And Judgment Of Textile Digital Ink Jet Printing

The winner or loser of enterprise management is the judgment of industry and trend.

"The intensive work in the field of digital ink-jet printing in the past few years has finally come to fruition in these years. The official uniform prints for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and the winter Paralympic Games are provided by our company." Xiao Xingshui, general manager of Shaoxing qianyong Textile Co., Ltd., said with pride at the Keqiao summit of global textile digital ink jet printing that the company has become the designated supplier of digital direct jet printing fabrics for Anta, Li Ning, luluolemont, lesfis and other sports brands at home and abroad.

As a representative of "green printing and dyeing" technology, the digital ink-jet printing market is unprecedented active in recent years, and a number of leading enterprises with strong competitiveness have emerged. So, now into the digital ink-jet printing track, there is still a chance to get a piece of the cake?

　　 Reasonable price adjustment to promote development

If 2015 is the "digital ink jet printing burst year", by 2022, this trend will continue.

Recently, at the 2022 global textile digital ink jet printing Keqiao summit jointly sponsored by China printing and dyeing industry association and people's Government of Keqiao District, Shaoxing City, "2022 development report of China textile digital ink jet printing" was officially released.

According to the report, China occupies an important position in the global textile printing and dyeing process. In 2021, the output of printed and dyed fabrics of the whole society is about 110 billion meters, of which 8% are bleached, 20% are printed and 72% are dyed. The proportion of direct printing decreased from 78.9% in 2015 to 74.5% in 2021, and decreased by 4.4% in six years; The transfer printing output reached the highest value of 24.2% in 2017, and then decreased year by year. In 2021, the output accounted for only 14.1%.

"Only digital ink-jet printing is increasing year by year, which is the fastest growing field in the printing market. This production mode is in line with the industry orientation and development direction of science and technology, fashion and green, and has broad development prospects." Chen Zhihua, President of China printing and dyeing industry association, introduced that from 2015 to 2021, digital ink-jet printing showed a rapid development trend, the output increased from 400 million meters to 2.5 billion meters, with an average annual growth rate of 35.8%. Among them, the output of digital direct jet printing increased by 30.4% and that of digital transfer printing increased by 37.6%.

Reasonable price adjustment is one of the important factors to promote the development of digital ink jet printing market.

According to the survey data of China printing and dyeing industry association, in 2007, the processing cost of direct jet printing in China was 30 yuan / m, and in 2021, the figure dropped to 9 yuan / m; The digital transfer processing fee will drop from 30 yuan / m in 2007 to 3 yuan / m in 2021.

"In recent years, with the continuous improvement of digital printing technology, the production cost has been greatly reduced. From 2007 to 2021, the processing cost of digital direct jet printing and digital transfer printing decreased by 70% and 90% respectively. Among them, the processing cost of digital transfer printing is close to that of traditional printing, but the processing cost of direct jet printing is still 2-3 times of that of traditional printing, and there is still some room for reduction." Chen Zhihua said that at present, the pace of transformation and upgrading of the printing and dyeing industry is speeding up, and more and more printing and dyeing enterprises have begun to invest in digital ink-jet printing production lines, mainly digital direct jet printing. Digital ink jet printing plate has become an important means for enterprises to develop new products and open up new markets.

Chen Zhihua pointed out: "although the price of digital printing ink is higher than that of traditional printing dyes, the price gap is also narrowing. In the future, the advantages of digital ink-jet printing will be more and more obvious."

Li Lingshen, vice president of China Textile Industry Federation, affirmed the vigorous development of the current digital printing industry: "as a typical digital and green technology in the printing and dyeing industry, in recent years, the scale of digital ink-jet printing market has grown rapidly, the innovation vitality has been constantly enhanced, and the deep integration with many industries, fields and formats has become a new growth pole of the industry."

　　 New and old "players" continue to join

The feeling of enterprises is a mirror which can directly reflect the development of the industry.

"In 2016, the company invested tens of millions of yuan to introduce digital ink-jet printing technology to printing and dyeing enterprises in Nantong, which has saved hundreds of thousands of yuan of management cost for enterprises. The intelligent management system of digital ink-jet printing can allow staff to view and operate remotely on mobile phones, implement platform management, and achieve remarkable energy-saving and consumption reduction effects." Yuan Tianhong, general manager of Jiangsu intercontinental Digital Printing Co., Ltd., said that the digital ink-jet printing equipment has realized the automatic control process, and one technical worker can operate multiple devices at the same time, which greatly reduces the number of employees in the enterprise, reduces the labor cost, and helps to alleviate the problems caused by the shortage of workers.

As a leading enterprise in silk industry, Dali (China) Co., Ltd. has always practiced the development concept of "green R & D, green manufacturing, green operation and green products", and has established a digital printing department early. Chen Jianda, head of the company's relevant departments, believes that digital ink-jet printing products have the characteristics of personalized, small batch and quick return. These features also make it more suitable for fast fashion brands and online sales. He believed that with the continuous maturity of digital printing technology and the continuous reduction of cost, as well as its better environmental protection performance, the proportion of digital ink-jet printing in the whole textile industry will be increasing.

"The spring of digital ink-jet printing has really come, and the company has entered the fast lane of transformation and upgrading." Xiao Xingshui said that from watermark to cold transfer printing to digital ink-jet printing, the company's most optimistic production mode is digital direct jet printing. "The production mode of digital direct jet printing is in line with the development trend of the current industry. At present, about 70% of the products produced by the company are made of this kind of fabric. In recent years, the company has also increased its research and development efforts in this respect, and the number of R & D teams accounts for 30% of the total number of factories."

At the beginning of the rise of digital ink-jet printing in China, many textile enterprises have already participated in it, and the new players have stepped into the board in recent years.

Hangzhou Zhuoda dyeing and finishing Co., Ltd. began to try digital ink-jet printing production in May 2021. In a short period of more than one year, the company has established its foothold in the market.

Ye Kaili, assistant general manager of the company, introduced: "After investigating the market prospect of digital ink-jet printing fabrics, we cooperated with Eastman Chemical to develop acetic acid digital printing plate, carried out a lot of experiments on digital printers and setting control variables, and finally worked out the best technology of digital printing for acetic acid fabrics. At present, large orders and production are carried out in an orderly manner. When we have finished the difficult acetic acid digital printing, we have made a lot of experiments on digital printers and setting control variables After the printing process, other fabric production lines with relatively low threshold will be formed naturally. " In January 2022, Zhuoda dyeing and finishing will expand the digital printing production line to the field of high temperature disperse direct jet printing; In April, Zhuoda dyeing and finishing expanded the active digital printing plate.

　　 Whether to enter or not depends on the facts

It has become the consensus of enterprises to pursue tuyere, but standing on the tuyere, opportunities and risks coexist undoubtedly.

"In fact, it is very difficult to do a good job in digital ink-jet printing. As a process that requires the cooperation of computer and traditional machinery, digital ink-jet printing must strictly control every process including pretreatment, sizing, steaming, washing and setting in order to truly achieve" what you see is what you get "

"The key to replace traditional printing with digital ink jet printing is cost control." Fang Mengtian, marketing manager of Zhejiang Lanyu Digital Technology Co., Ltd., stressed that the digital ink-jet printing market has an obvious weak and peak season, and the staff cost is very important. "If an enterprise has 20 sets of digital ink-jet printing machines, there should be about 5 pattern designers, and their salaries account for a large proportion. No matter how many orders an enterprise has, it is not good for enterprises to increase or decrease designers at will. Therefore, the transformation of traditional dyeing plants to digital ink-jet printing needs comprehensive improvement in talent, management and other dimensions."

Chen Jianda pointed out that in recent years, digital ink-jet printing enterprises have sprung up, leading to the current market competition has become very fierce. "At present, many manufacturers who have just introduced digital ink-jet printing technology are unable to produce stable and high-quality products, but they want to seize the market as soon as possible, so they want to use low prices to grab orders and customers, so the market price is easy to produce large fluctuations."

In view of the high-quality development of digital ink-jet printing industry in the future, Li Lingshen put forward three suggestions: first, strengthen the deep integration of digital ink-jet printing and digital economy, focus on the construction of flexible supply chain, and promote the digital and intelligent development of the industry; Secondly, it is necessary to expand the application scope of digital ink-jet printing in printing and dyeing industry, and promote the green and low-carbon development of the industry by taking energy conservation, emission reduction, consumption reduction and efficiency increase as the key; Thirdly, it is necessary to promote the organic combination of digital ink-jet printing and fashion culture industry, focus on the supply of high-quality products, and promote the high-end brand development of the industry.

"2022 China textile digital ink jet printing development report" pointed out that during the "14th five year plan" period, China's digital ink-jet printing industry is expected to maintain a compound growth rate of 20%. By 2025, the market share of China's digital ink-jet printing machines will be about 80000. China's digital printing output will account for 30% of the global total digital printing output, and the digital ink-jet printing output will exceed 5 billion meters.

Is it too late for printing and dyeing enterprises to enter the digital ink jet printing industry now? Maybe the answer is already there.

Jia Rong