In an exclusive interview, Mr. He Tong Tong, General Manager of SHENZHEN HOMER TEXTILE TECH. CO. LTD., discusses the rapid growth of digital printing in the textile industry. He highlights the advantages of digital printing over traditional methods, its potential for customization, and the company’s success in both international and Chinese markets. Homer’s efforts to lead the digital printing revolution, including innovations in technology, production, and customer service, are also explored.
ShanghaiTex2015 Premium Exhibitor Interview: “Homer drives Digital Printing into Fashion Future”
In recent years, along with the substantial increase in digital printing yield and rapid technological development, digital printing has entered the growth stage and is gaining more and more market attention. What is the biggest difference between digital printing and traditional printing? How would you characterize its technological strengths?Â
Compared with traditional printing, digital printing has 3 advantages:
1. Digital printing has greatly shortened the production process. With higher efficiency, orders could be made faster. Letting go of color painting, filmmaking and net manufacturing process, digital printing has significantly lowered the time for making samples. Therefore, without any restriction on batch size, small batch and fast production could be achieved.
2. Digital printing has adopted a digital pattern approach in which a series of color measurement, color matching and printing process are carried out by computers. Theoretically, 16.7millions colors can be created in digital printing which has broken through the color limits of traditional printing. The digital printing technology has unrivalled advantages especially in handling high-precision textile designs such as gradient and cloud patterns. While “Repeat Length” is believed to be a limitation in traditional printing, the concept of repeat length does not even exist in the production process in digital printing. Digital printing therefore opens up the possibility in textile pattern designs and leveled up the quality.
3. The technology enables low energy consumption and pollution-free in the production process.
Q2: What is the current status of international digital printing industry in terms of its application? What has your Company achieved in the Chinese market in recent years?Â
Europe is undoubtedly has the widest and highest applications of digital prints in the world, a wide usage of machines that are made in Europe is also being noticed. In Italy, digital printing products have already accounted for more than 30% of the total printing volume. Besides, Turkey is an important market to Chinese digital printing machinery manufacturers. As a very dynamic market, South America should not be overlooked, digital printing demand is mainly from Brazil and Argentina. Traditional printing currently concentrates in Asian countries including China, India and Southeast Asian countries. Though in recent years, there has been an accelerating promotion of digital printing in these countries, the proportion is still small. Take China as an example, while the Chinese traditional printing accounted for nearly 30% of global production, its digital printing has only accounted for less than 1% in the domestic printing production. Understandably, we can expect a tremendous growth potential in Asia.
Homer is a corporate with global strategic vision. We adhere to international and domestic markets pronged approach by exploring international markets and striving to develop the domestic market at the same time. In the international market, Homer has established a sound agency system in Turkey, India, South Korea and Poland and has already achieved astonishing sales results. In China, with the aim to penetrate whole domestic market, we are currently based in Southern China and actively expanding the Eastern China market. We already have existing customers in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Foshan, Fuzhou, and other important digital printing markets in Eastern China. Delivering first-class technology and services, our Company is becoming the one of the largest digital textile printing machine manufacturers and solution providers in China.
Q3: Do you think digital printing will replace traditional printing in the future?
Being a development trend of the printing industry, there are boundless possibilities in digital printing in the future. Still, the current digital printing could not replace the tradition one due to the following reasons:
1. Digital printing, as a new technological trend, has been promoted around the globe for a long period of time. However, the level of its technological development is uneven which results in high-variable quality among different countries.
2. The immaturity and lack of professionals in digital printing field have hindered it from replacing the traditional one to certain extent. As the digital printing technique relates to the nozzle, software, and the ink adaptability on fabrics, digital printing is not just about machinery but the integration of different technologies in the production process. Textile pre-treatment and after-process treatment are crucial to digital printing process, which are often being neglected by digital printing manufacturers.
3. In terms of mass production, the production speed of digital printing is still lagging far behind from the traditional one. The development of a mass-production oriented digital printing machine would be a way to improve the overall productivity.
Q4: It is predicted that the global digital printing machine can reach 50,000 units by 2015, the total output of digital printing will account for15% of total output of prints. How would you comment on these numbers?
In view of the current development trends and prospects in digital printing, these numbers do have their basis. It should be achievable and one of our ambitious targets in the future. In the context of booming digital printing market, Homer will be striving to achieve the following, in order to expand the market share along with the growing digital printing trend:
1. To have an accurate grasp of the industrial trends and consumer demand. It is important to make sure R & D and production is in line with market demand. To enrich product lines, deepen technological innovation and product upgrades and continue our efforts in digital printing machinery research.
2. To provide customers with more comprehensive and professional service, putting customer demand as the key of R & D, customer satisfaction as the purpose of service and providing customers with full digital print solutions.
3. Continue to strengthen the Company’s management systems and HR infrastructure. We strive to build up a professional team with expertise in digital printing, to lead industry development and to provide a strong driving force motive for the Company’s development.
