Q. What's new for 2010?

A. Printwear & Promotion  (P&P) continues to bring all that's best to the garment decoration market, with fabric and machine technology, in particular, bringing major changes to the visitor. Direct to garment printing has become more affordable and transfer technology offers a low cost, high quality and easy to apply decoration technique. Embroidery machines offer very high speeds and single head machines are probably more popular than ever now that they can be linked together easily to allow a business to expand.

Users of DTG direct to product ink jet printers will have an advantage over their competitors with the launch of One Pass Fast. This new development has achieved what was previously thought impossible -  to print white and CMYK inks during the same pass.

One of the factors you have little control over is the cost of your ink. Printer manufacturers are quick to imply that using any third party ink will render your maintenance contract invalid and possibly damage your printer. This is a powerful and convincing argument because, in most businesses, if the printer breaks down the business grinds to a costly and stressful halt. Companies selling printers make handsome ongoing profits on the sale of inks and service contracts and so will obviously suggest that changing anything leads to potential disaster. It doesn't have to be like this! By speaking to the right people and carefully choosing the correct products you can substantially cut your costs without compromising on print quality. Lets take a look at some of the main arguments put by the OEM's against changing your ink.

As a supplier keen to meet all printing requirements including screen, litho, UV and digital inks, blankets, screen stretching and ink mixes, YPS wanted to find a quality alternative digital ink which would perform to OEM ink standards.

Having begun the move from traditional screen-printing to digital printing over a year ago with the purchase of a large-format VUTEk UV printer, Whiteghill was confronted with the same issues about finishing as other owners of these versatile printers. The main problem was how to accurately cut out prints that had been created using rigid materials like foamed board, acrylic and medium-density fibreboard (MDF).

Alongside its nationwide vehicle wrapping application service, Fenn Graphics specialises in producing vehicle livery for commercial vehicles, public transport, advertising and promotion. This means the company's production facility is home to a range of manual and semi auto screen printing machines, plus high resolution Nur Fresco and Mimaki wide format digital inkjet printers, used to produce vehicle livery graphics on a range of vinyl substrates, which are cut to shape using computer aided plotter/cutters.

The Default Position

Vision Supplies Ltd have been supplying Chim 92 screen cleaning chemistry and machinery exclusively into the UK market for over 7 years. Throughout this period the company has benefitted from a steady increase in the sales of both chemicals and machinery originally manufactured by the Lyon based company.

Pre-treating garments for direct-to-product ink jet printing has thus far been an inexact science. Your Embroidery Services aims to make it more efficient and profitable with the DTG PreJet

Direct to product ink jet printing is still a fairly new industry and yet it has already seen major developments in printing technique. More recently garment preparation has taken centre stage with an updated pre-treatment process, designed to be more efficient and profitable.

Think Vision

Vision Supplies Ltd launched its range ofThink inks a little over 2 years ago, a range of UV process screen printing inks formulated and marketed exclusively by them for the demanding UK market.

Due Consideration

In February this year the SP Group a division of St Ives plc took delivery of a Chim 92 M4 screen cleaning machine. The decision to purchase this equipment was the subject of lengthy and detailed negotiations with Vision Supplies Ltd. Vision had identified massive potential cost savings, environmental benefits and performance improvements the SP Group would achieve by purchasing the new equipment and chemical products, exclusively distributed by them in the UK, Eire and Australia.

Bradford-based Dominion Screen & Digital Print business is to add the new Inca Onset S20 to its already com­prehensive screen and digital setup when it arrives next month.

A Strong Alliance

On January 15th Vision Supplies Ltd acquired a substantial shareholding of Registerprint Machinery Ltd, this acquisition of shares has seen the leading supplier of screen printing and ancillary machinery relocate from its Kent base to the newly expanded Vision site in Leeds. A bold move by Vision in difficult market times but one that Managing Director, Paul Waterton thinks is well timed.

Printers face a range of challenges: adapting continual technological developments; the decline of traditional sectors; fighting off competition (foreign and domestic); all while keeping demanding customers happy. Add the difficult economic climate and it's easy to see how adapting and enhancing one's service offering is critical to long-term survival.

In these challenging times, many companies will seek to reduce expenditure and concentrate on maintaining their core business. Scunthorpe-based, specialist packaging company, Powell Packaging views things differently and has just installed an Apollo UV inkjet printer purchased from Sun Chemical.

TODAY, FEW industrial processes have escaped the digital revolution. And printing is no exception. Digital inkjet has continued to advance into POP, poster printing, outdoor durable graphics and exhibition graphics addressing both the higher volume and speed segment as well as the short run sector of these markets. The advantage of digital in short run continues to be its economic advantages over traditional analog.

Change is afoot at the Midlands based solutions provider S P Group Ltd who have recently installed a Chim 92 screen cleaning system supplied and supported by Vision Supplies Ltd.

Prior to the introduction of the R3 scheme, Allsignsgroup's waste was collected in 250kg wheelie bins and it is estimated that 12 bins were going to landfill every week at a cost of £150 per tonne. With an annual waste bill in excess of £30,000 there were sound financial reasons along with the environmental concerns to justify joining the R3 scheme. In fact, before the initiative was introduced, very little of the company's 220 tonnes of commercial waste produced each year was recycled.

The sheer variety of technologies under the wide format umbrella (print & cut, print only, aqueous, solvent and UV, plus print & cut UV following the launch of Roland's VersaUV LEC-300) means there is virtually no limit to the variety of products wide format printers can offer both core and new, adjacent markets. However, crucial to success in the dynamic world of wide format is workflow: conducting the orchestra of the shop floor.

Unlike other heating methods, contact drying systems work by drying inks from the substrate surface to the top side of the ink. This means the technology actually works in reverse to heated air and infra red (IR) ovens, which dry from the ink's top side down to the material surface.

Lauren Displays' journey began in 2006 when it invested £1.2milion in both digital and lithographic kit in order to offer customers a one-stop-shop for point of sale and display related products.  Then, in August 2007, the company was bought wholly by London based agency Creo Retail Marketing in an affiliation that should see the joint turnover of the two entities soar to £20million by 2011.

There can't be many wide format printers that haven't suffered the consequences of a head crash. One minute everything is fine, moments later the printer is stalled, the job is ruined and the trouble has only just begun. With luck, the situation can be recovered with some TLC. Unfortunately, it's more likely to require a visit from an engineer to replace a damaged head.

Decision - Time

April '08's edition of Screen Process & Digital Imaging featured the announcement of Lauren Displays investment with Vision Supplies Ltd. After extensively researching the market place Lauren had decided to make a significant investment in new screen cleaning equipment.