Ep. 44: EFI Reggiani discusses industry digitalisation Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 44: EFI Reggiani discusses industry digitalisation

The fourth industrial revolution is underway, and the world of textile & apparel is just one industry that is benefitting from new and innovative technologies.

Jessica Owen
Music, hello. My name is Jessica Owen, and I am the Deputy digital editor at WTiN, and this is the WTiN podcast, the fourth industrial revolution is underway, and the world of textile and apparel is just one industry that is benefiting from new and innovative technologies. With this in mind, for this series, I'll be talking to companies across the textile apparel landscape about their new technologies, the benefits of digitalization and the advice that they'd give to others who are trying to implement such solutions. To kick off the series this week, I am joined by Micol gamba, who is the marketing and product manager at EFI Reggiani and WTiN industry digitalization editor, Madelaine Thomas. We talk about how inkjet is helping to lead the way when it comes to digitalization and the impact that new technologies are having, on reshoring, changing business models, sustainability and much more.

Well, hello and welcome Micol. Lovely to speak with you this morning, and thank you very much for coming on the show.

Micol Gamba
Thank you for inviting me, and it's a true pleasure being here today with you.

Jessica Owen
Now, just before we get going to everyone listening, I just want to welcome WTI N industry digitalization editor, Madeleine Thomas. She'll be joining us today. Maddie knows an awful lot about the digital printing industry, and she knows Nicole and work closely with Efi regiani, so she'll be able to talk much more insightfully than myself, probably. So welcome, Maddie.

Madelaine Thomas
Thanks. Jess, hi everyone. I don't know about an awful lot, but okay, but thanks for having

Jessica Owen
me, right? So then Miko, we'll come back to you. I mean, how are you? How have you found this crazy year?

Micol Gamba
Well, you said that, basically, it has been a crazy year, something completely unexpected, luckily, was able somehow to weather the storm and to figure out ways to stay in the market and to stay especially near customers, also in these strange times, if a journey for the benefit of maybe those who are not so familiar with with our World. Is a manufacturer of textile equipment, and today our product lineup is really wide. It includes digital printers. That is the true core of our business, but it is going in parallel to the established technology. If Johnny was funded in 1946 as a company manufacturing textile printing equipment. So together with digital we we keep near our origins with our analog printers. And over the years, we integrated our product offering also with pre and post treatment lines for fabric preparation and post treatment dyeing, including denim dyeing, and we also added to our business the ink side, basically. So together with our digital printers, we are able to offer a complete range of digital links for our product lineup. And during these months, basically, we were forced to stay at home. Really, we weren't able to travel, as we are used to, since we are based in Italy, but we export 90% of our revenues. So our salespeople, our field service engineers, are always traveling in these complicated times, we needed really to find new ways to stay near our customers, and so we launched a long series of initiatives like online webinars in order to educate about our products, online training for our agents and sales network to reinforce their knowledge on our products as well. And we also introduced a stronger remote assistance and integrated it with augmented reality experience in order to be able to support customer in their daily business, also in the distance,

Jessica Owen
right? Gosh. Well, it sounds like you've, I mean, really adjusted well to the whole situation. I mean, Maddie might want to talk to you more about that in a minute. But I mean the theme of this pop. Cast then is, of course, digitalization, and I hear that it's argued that digitalization, sort of, within the textile industry, began with digital textile printing. Would you agree with that?

Micol Gamba
It's an interesting question, but honestly, I agree with this point of view, since the digital journey in textile printing started, let's say, at the beginning of year, 2000 probably a few years earlier in terms of development. And probably this was the area where digital came across the earliest, basically. And the journey was long. At the time Jeffery journey started to develop its own first solution in digital the so called Dream printer. It was 2003 when, when it was launched, and the journey since then progressed a lot. Today, we are discussing a lot about industry 4.0 and digitalization of the Antarctic style supply chain, but probably yes, we can truly see that printing was really the first to experience this world, really in in the manufacturing context.

Madelaine Thomas
I agree, Nicole and how do you think that inker is continuing to lead the way for the rest of the Textile Supply Chain when it comes to digitalize it. You know, you mentioned that you were implementing augmented reality. There's a lot of software improvements for digital textile printers as well. How? How is the digital textile industry continuing to show the rest of the supply chain that digital is the way forward. Well,

Micol Gamba
in that in textile is really continuing this path, since there is a constant research on how software can basically improve the overall printing quality and performances. There are some areas where we are looking at but also our competitors are studying, as far as I can read, in the press. One area is definitely the one of automated, end to end workflows. So the idea is really to put in connection the printer and its ecosystem with the customer itself, so developing through through complete path and automated path that can bring creativity a design to the printer with a process that is streamlined at the highest level. So in this month, we developed an automated, for instance, workflow able to run completely unattended, without intervention of an operator or a human being, in order to interact with the printer and with the file management. The second area where software and digitalization are helping a lot are related to the printing quality. We have seen some solution, for instance, to integrate color matching solution on the printer themselves, with the ability to read color and correct them directly online. And another area is the one of quality correction directly on the printer. I'm thinking here about our bolt, our textile, single pass printer that is today disposing of a online camera that is basically reading the output. And with further developments, this, this print, this camera, sorry, can be able also to read the image, identify the defect and communicate back to the printer itself in order to correct the defect. So the areas of improvement that that software and digital can bring are huge. Before I also mentioned augmented reality. This experience of digital is not passing through only the printers. It is passing also through the after sales service. After Sales is crucial when we talk about industrial machineries and equipment, and it is an area where we we invest in a lot of areas. What we are doing today is really to enlarge this experience, really augmented, making it possible, also for an operator that is not always in front of the printer, to identify the critical areas, communicate with our service centers in order to enable a faster identification of any issues and also their solution. This is really meant to increase the customer experience and the productivity of the system overall. And

Madelaine Thomas
will for this kind of technology will staff and. And customers require kind of new levels of training from companies like EFI to get to grips with these new digitalized technologies.

Micol Gamba
These technologies have, in my opinion, a big advantage. They are making the interaction much easier between the printer and the operator, since they are really designed, considering the user experience and interfaces are developed in a way that the possibility to interact it with the printer is made as easier as possible. Basically, we are in a world where we are all used to work on a tablet, for instance, beside a laptop, of course, or on a on a smartphone. And what we are trying to do is really to reproduce a similar experience on our printers as well, right?

Madelaine Thomas
Okay, and how is this level of digitalization that you mentioned, you know, particularly the the full eco, the digital workflow and ecosystem that you mentioned. How is this changing business models in the printing market? We hear a lot about the rise of E commerce, for example,

Micol Gamba
yes, in the last few months, especially, we have seen e commerce growing really, really fast, faster than than it was, honestly. And it was related to the fact that people, of course, didn't have a lot of opportunities to walk around and doing their shopping in brick and mortars or physical shops. So basically, COVID has accelerated the trend that was already there, and it is definitely connected to digital to digital printing and to personalization as well. In other words, in the last few years, we have seen several businesses that have grown also significantly to enter the, let's say, web arena as their main channel, so to develop a new way of bringing their products to to consumers. This is something that has been brought to the most significant level, definitely by players like spoon flour, if you think about own textile, for instance. And this is something that is a business model, basically, that has been really adopted by other rising businesses, and this is really answering to a new consumer, a consumer that is really a creative consumer that is willing to personalize, customize his own products In order to express his own creativity and personality directly in the final product. And digital is truly helping in this. Digital printers can ensure a faster delivery time the introduction of short processes like sublimation or direct sublimation, as as our as our solution is defined, but also the pigment are really technologies that rose a lot in the last few years and can really enable a fast delivery time, the ability to avoid proofing that is taking long, and delivering directly a product can can be effective in terms of cost, also on a single copy, basically.

Madelaine Thomas
And do you think that you know that the rise of E commerce and the change of business models in the industry that has been accelerated by COVID 19, as as you rightly say, Do you think that is changing the location of manufacturing, for example, is it also accelerating the near or reshoring movement? You know, we hear a lot about micro factories now in, you know, set in consumer markets to be able to provide the the fast turnaround times that you mentioned, and the short run customized products. So is digitalization enabling this to happen? Do you think

Micol Gamba
definitely digitalization is really enabling this process and the possibility of producing fast with no inventory, the possibility to personalize, personalize each item, are really the great advantages that digital is providing today. And this is the area where new businesses, as we mentioned before, are really leveraging these new businesses are are growing more and more near consumption markets, so near consumers. And this is really somehow changing the perspective, for instance, us as not a significant textile infrastructure. A lot of the of the clothes bought by by. The by the country are produced elsewhere. The possibility to have something personalized is really creating and making a true boost, boosting, basically the possibility to create businesses that are really near the final customers. This is what is happening. And yes, near shoring or near shoring are something that we are observing for two main reasons. The first is the personalization, one that I just mentioned, but also related to the fact that there is a will by big brands, as per our experience, also to differentiate along their supply chain, and so being able to identify also new areas, so the reshoring, where to produce effectively, but also to diversify the sources of supply in order to avoid any supply chain disruption in the future. Okay,

Madelaine Thomas
and what would you say are the key drivers for you of digitalization in the market? Is it customization? Is it the fast turnaround times?

Micol Gamba
The drivers of digitalization are for sure, personalization, customization, as far as the new business we mentioned are concerned. But there are also other drivers that are really impacting on how the big part of printed fabric is manufactured today, so on the big industrial realities. And the first that comes to my mind is, of course, sustainability. There is more and more a push toward green solution by brands that is reflected into the request coming from the market. So digital is really enabling to reduce water consumption, energy consumption, and also develop processes that reduce overall waste. Digital is really a trigger and the bigger lie for sustainability, the second area is really related to avoiding any big stock cost, basically. So reducing warehouses is the second reason why digital has grown significantly in the last few years, and that can help further development in this area, since it is really cutting all the inventory costs, making it possible to print with a short delivery time, what is really needed and demanded by the market, also when thinking about The mass market and not just personalized items, yeah,

Madelaine Thomas
because I was thinking about how digitalization is helping to meet the needs of brands and the consumers, and consumers in particular, their voices is getting stronger, especially when it comes to sustainability. But where does that kind of balance lie on for brands and retailers when it comes to sustainability and cost, when it comes to digital textile printing, particularly when it comes to, you know, the big industrial markets, for example, where screen printing is still very, very cheap.

Micol Gamba
Thank you for this question, since it is the big question that we daily, we daily face. Since we are really a lot in this industrial area, as I mentioned at the beginning, we also have analog solutions. So the digital transformation is something that we look at a lot of interest. But with the possibility to leverage both technologies, the benefits today for for retail that come from digital are really related to the Ask that is coming from branding consumers, in my opinion, and cost effectiveness is, of course, driving the interest and also of any brand since end of any retailer, since it is mandatory in a business like ours to be able to be competitive overall. On the other end, there is a big ask about sustainability and thinking about Generation Z, more conscious consumer and also brands that are really committing in order to reduce pollution in one of the industry that is ranked as one of the most polluting in the world, that The game here is really, is really for us, for textile equipment manufacturers that can deliver to the market solution that can be green but also cost competitive. We have done a lot in this area, especially as far as pigment is concerned. We developed a solution. That is really enabling to print with a competitive cost per meter in digital pigment, with no need for post treatment. And so if we look at the total cost of ownership, we are really able to see that the benefit is also coming from digital it is something that, of course, retailers and manufacturers need to understand more. It's something that we need to to describe better, since it is not always an easy and immediate map. But here is really about us as pixel equipment manufacturers to deliver solution that can make our customers competitive and on the same end, able to answer to the requests that come from brands and consumers, absolutely.

Madelaine Thomas
So I guess finally, then what would you say are the main challenges of digitalization in textile manufacturing, and how can these be overcome? I'm guessing that cost is is one of the big challenges. 

Micol Gamba
I agree cost today is, is one of the big challenges, since considering longer job runs. For instance, cost is really crucial, and this is really also the topic to to discuss more with customers, with our customers and inside the industry. That's why we we tend to communicate not on a cost basis simply, but on the total cost of ownership, trying also to give a value to aspects that are not sometimes immediately perceived and calculated, like Reliability After self service costs, try to include them in in the total cost, in order to demonstrate that there are aspects that are truly crucial, as as as much as the in price or the printer price, and thinking about, for instance, all the maintenance activities a reliable printer, so is really providing superior productivity overall, and as really an economical value in when running, when running A company and the printer. 

Madelaine Thomas
And are there any other challenges that you're aware of, other than cost? Is the mindset challenge, for example, 

Micol Gamba
I think that there is more and more acceptance on the digital technology. There are some the cost is, for sure, the big, the big element that is brought and basically is, I think, the prominent one right there are some customers discussing about quality, especially In and the possibility to add, for instance, special effects. This is another topic that is coming around frequently when talking about digital, for instance, the application of metallic inks or white things. When talking about roll through all is something that today can be done in embroidery. For instance, is not possible in digital. This is another area, of course, of of leverage, of possible development, so to enable in digital, something that today is possible in analog. To do that, for instance, on our vault, we decided to combine the two technologies, leveraging our own patent and so to combine the digital print with analog stations in order to apply special effects like metallic inks, but also pre treatments and chemistry.

Madelaine Thomas
Oh, great. It's a kind of hybrid technology. Then do you think hybrid technologies are kind of the way forward when it comes to digital printing and kind of creating these kind of designs, or do you think that there will be new technologies in inkjet that will overcome this? Well,

Micol Gamba
inkjet is continuously developing. So if I look at the future in five year times 10 year times. I think that the drive is really to be able to effectively bring digital to a level that it is enabling any application at present anyway, what we see, based on the printed technology and team development technologies available, that hybrid can be really a quick win for our customers in order to leverage all the benefits of both technologies together. Absolutely

Madelaine Thomas
great. Okay, well, thank you very much. Nicole for that. That was all the questions, I guess that I had. Jess, do you have anything? Yeah,

Jessica Owen
well, I mean, you've covered a lot there, actually. So thank you very much. There's just one thing really, I wanted to ask you, Nicole and with I mean, it's not the case in the UK that travel bans are lifting. I think things are about to get a bit worse, unfortunately. But I mean, in Italy and the rest of the world, some things are opening up again. So I mean, what are the company's plans for the remainder of the year? I mean, will you be hoping to go to events as they start opening up again? Or what's the plan this year? 

Micol Gamba
Honestly, the the major exhibitions for textile has been postponed to 2021, and we look really forward to being able to meet our customers in person at exhibitions again. But this will be probably something through next year. For the rest of the year, we will continue to leverage all the all the online channels, so online webinars and will be led to attend, also the Innovate apparel and textile organized by WTI n. This will be a great opportunity, really, to meet and and to stay together and we leverage, of course, this channel, also in the future, in parallel, we hope to be able, at least, to be near our customers in person, so being able to travel again. This is something true, especially for Europe, some areas of Asia. We hope this can be more and more frequent, also to to go back to a kind of normal, let's say so, being able to meet customers and to cultivate the personal, personal relationship that is so crucial in our in our business environment as well.

Jessica Owen
Definitely, well, fingers crossed, hopefully things will start to get back to normal, if not this year, then next year, but we'll just have to wait and see. I guess, well, Nicole, I mean, I think that's all we have time for today. But I just wanted to thank you again for joining Maddie and I on today's podcast. I mean, especially for me, it's been great to learn about if I read Yani and what you're focusing at the moment, and it's just been great to have the opportunity to chat with you. So thank you very much. 

Micol Gamba
Thank you for this opportunity, and it is always great talking to you. Thanks a lot.

Madelaine Thomas
Thanks, Micol. It's been great as always. Thank you. Thank you.