By Melissa Donovan
Part 1 of 2
Print and finishing go hand in hand. For textile manufacturing, implementing digital technologies typically include both the printer and the finisher to ensure an automated process end to end. When it comes to the finishing device there are a lot of factors to consider, like whether a laser or blade cutter is necessary, what features are the most important, and if speed is the utmost quality to look for when it comes to operating in a high-production facility.
First Things First
When initially researching how to cut and finish digitally printed textiles it’s important to consider present and future requirements. These revolve around automation and tooling. It’s recommended that you know early on the type of textiles you are finishing, as this dictates the specific device and tool set required.
Of course the first step is acknowledging how wildly popular digitally printed textiles are. “The market for digitally printed—and digitally cut—textiles is growing rapidly and is potentially huge. It’s a wide market that contains a variety of applications, from t-shirts and designer clothing to technical fabrics and signs. If printing textiles digitally, it makes sense to complete the workflow digitally,” says Steve Leibin, president, Matik, Inc.
Automation is the one of the most relevant competitive advantages for manufacturers in fashion, automotive, medical, and home textile markets. “In each of these industries, automation is crucial for quality improvement and for cost competitiveness. Advances in technology cause automation to become the single most significant competitive advantage for many manufacturing companies, allowing mass production at an incredible speed, with great quality and repeatability,” explains Giuseppe Cianci, COO, bierrebi International.
Drilling down, speed or productivity is an important requirement in today’s fast turnaround climate. “Automated options are important to evaluate because they can significantly shorten production time and minimize labor costs. If you need to get the product fast to a customer speed of cutting is important, especially with fast fashion’s quick turnarounds,” advises Gary Buck, VP, sales and marketing, Summa America
Tooling is many times based on the type of material that will be cut or finished. Laser or blade cutting components are two of the most popular options. John Clark, owner, Aeronaut Automation Pty Ltd. and John Downie, representative, The Fox Company, note that the majority of digitally printed textiles are made from synthetic fibers, which cut well with a laser device. A two-fold benefit, is when cut with a laser, the fabric is edge sealed—eliminating sewing as an additional step in the process to hem the finished product.
“Laser cutting makes post-processing unnecessary. It even seals the edges of textiles such as synthetics or carpet, preventing any fraying from occurring,” agrees David Stevens, industrial applications manager, Trotec Laser, Inc. In addition, laser technology enables precise cuts. The resulting cut is barely larger than the laser beam itself, making it possible to cut very fine details of any shape.
Alternatively, natural fabrics like cotton aren’t favorably finished on a laser and benefit from a blade or knife cutting technique. “For materials including non-woven, knitted fabrics, or any closed-loop textiles, fraying is not a big concern, if any at all. For these applications, blade cutting tools are generally much less expensive to purchase and more productive to operate than laser options. Simultaneous cutting and edge sealing is also less desirable in production scenarios where sewing is a required function, or where the burning and melting involved in laser cutting result in discolored, brittle, or otherwise undesirable edges,” advises Beatrice Drury, marketing manager, Zund America, Inc.
“It’s important to not only consider what materials you need to produce today but also be aware of market trends and what your competition is doing so that you can prepare for the future. It is extremely important to choose equipment and a technology partner that allows you to grow. You want to choose a partner who can deliver a complete solution, including equipment, service, software, and aftermarkets,” suggests Leonard Marano, VP, product management and marketing, automation systems, Gerber Technology.
Fabric is Alive
Ensuring a fabric doesn’t warp or stretch when going through the cutting process is something that any manufacturer interested in adding digital finishing technologies to their workflow should consider. There are a number of features on either laser or blade cutting devices that one should look for.
Dylan Hoffman, engineer, Colex Finishing, Inc., provides an example of how important tension, warp, and stretch management is. “With a textile that has a significant amount of stretch, the feeder and take-up system cannot exert too much tension. There will be significant distortion to the file if that occurs. If the fabric stretches even one-eighth of an inch per foot on a ten-foot job the final image will shrink one-and-a-quarter-inch when the fabric relaxes.”
Referring to fabric as “alive,” Christina Lefebvre, area sales manager – North America, Matic S.A., says that “any touch, tug, or pull can stretch it out of alignment. It is important that fabric be handled in the correct way to avoid any movement that could cause inaccuracy to the cut.” She suggests motorized feeding systems, roll alignment, and dancer bars as just a few features that help minimize stress on fabric as it runs through a machine.
“It starts with the roll feeder, which holds the printed material and makes sure the material is relaxed when it enters the machine. Moreover, with an edge detection option, a constant and straight feed to the machine is ensured,” notes Buck.
Drury adds that a cradle feeder also controls the flow of the material onto the cutting table, using little or no tension. This ensures the material is perfectly spread and laid out on the cutting surface, without any folds or wrinkles that will adversely affect cut quality.
Another element that helps manage fabric tautness is a vacuum. “It is all a matter of tension control, controlling the stability of the fabric on the table. A vacuum on a table holds materials steadily,” explains Leibin.
“A vacuum table with high exhaust power levels can be a useful tool to achieve optimum cutting results. The down draft fixes various materials to the working table using a light vacuum. This ensures correct focusing over the entire surface, which results in a clean, consistent cut. It also reduces the handling effort associated with mechanical mounting,” says Stevens.
A no-touch process, like a laser cutter, further aids in material handling. “Warped, shrunk, and stretched textiles are a fact of life, whether they’re digitally printed or not and most cutting systems should handle less than perfect prints. When cutting less than perfect textiles, laser cutters are normally more tolerant of textile faults than a blade cutter because the cutting tool doesn’t touch the textile,” advise Clark and Downie.
Combating material distortion is also done with print-to-cut registration software. “Fabric requires a lot more register marks printed along with the graphics to ensure accurate cutting. The algorithms behind reading register marks with Zünd Cut Center’s registration workflows, using integrated and over cutter cameras (OCC), guarantee efficient, reliable capture and exceptional cutting accuracy. An OCC system captures all register marks visible in the cutting area in one shot, dramatically reducing overall processing time,” adds Drury.
“A system that can identify and correct for material distortion in printed materials yields a high return on investment by minimizing the costs of wasted materials and also produces a precise and professionally finished product,” agrees Marano.
Automation Levels
When working at production levels, finishing devices must meet or exceed their printing counterparts in terms of speed. Automation makes digital technologies an attractive option compared to the more conventional methods of printing to fabric.
“Even if a traditional printer goes fast, you have to change plates and inks and spend time on make readies. It’s the same with traditional die cutting. Even if they are faster, you have to wait for dies and changing them on the cutter. Within a digital workflow, the slower but steadier speed of digital laser finishers—without ever having to worry about changeovers—creates good throughput,” suggests Leibin.
Textile manufacturers are increasingly required to adapt quickly to trends, responding promptly and accurately to customers’ needs, in order to stay ahead of competition. “Automation makes this adaptation process easier, as it allows lead times and timing to market to be drastically reduced, making high quality, on demand manufacturing possible,” says Cianci.
“Cut speed depends on a lot of a factors including the actual cut speed of the machine but also the time taken to get the material on to the table, pick up registration marks and align patterns, and after cutting, to remove cut pieces from the table,” add Clark and Downie.
While speed is critical, an integrated production workflow is even more important. “From choosing the right tool and machine settings for the application—cut and seal laser versus driven rotary tool—to efficient, precise registration, proper material handling, and an integrated workflow, these are all geared towards overall workflow productivity. Unless all of these components are optimized, the speed of each one—and especially raw cutting speed—isn’t particularly relevant. The benefits lie not just in the fastest production time but in minimized waste of setup time and materials,” explains Drury.
Michael Rabin, country manager of Americas, Morgan Tecnica Spa, admits that Industry 4.0 plays an important role. “Having your equipment communicate seamlessly throughout the process ensures reduction in the number of errors, which can result in loss of productivity and costs.”
Multi-Ply Cutting
Manufacturing environments constantly look for ways to increase productivity, as aforementioned. Many industries like automotive or medical where the order has no variability between runs may benefit from a multi-ply cutting solution, meaning cutting of multiple layers or pieces of fabric at once. Conversely, smaller runs or more customized one-off orders would find a single-ply cutting device more advantageous.
“The ability to cut multiple pieces or materials at once could greatly increase productivity and allow you to fulfill orders faster, giving you more room for growth and the ability to take on a broader range of customers, ” admits Marano.
It depends on the customer needs and requirements. “When producing more standardized production of larger volume items, multi-ply is the ideal and most efficient method in terms of productivity, cost, and quality. In the case of more personalized items, then single-ply technology maybe considered a more suitable option. Both technologies are great solutions when applied to the right requirements,” cautions Rabin.
While there is an argument for both, for digitally printed graphics, single-ply seems to be the heavily favored option. “When cutting multi-ply, the preparation before cutting is a lot more extensive. You need to prepare multiple layers before you can even start to cut. Single-ply cutters offer a lot more throughput—more cut parts will roll off the machine within a fixed timespan than with the multi-ply cutters. So, single-ply is more flexible and is ideal for maximum automated processes,” says Buck.
“In most cases, when cutting digitally printed materials, you will want to align the cut profile with what is printed on the textile using alignment marks. If this is the case, then you’re only going to be able to cut one layer at a time. If you’re cutting a textile that is printed edge to edge then alignment normally doesn’t matter and you can print multi-ply or high-ply—anything up to two inches thick on some machines—but again, this isn’t normally the use of digital prints,” explain Clark and Downie.
Hoffman believes it is near impossible to cut multiple pieces of a printed textile simultaneously. “The only option to cut multiples with a flatbed cutting machine is a unit with multiple cutting heads.”
Harmonic Cuts
Consider current and future needs when choosing a digital cutter for textiles. More importantly, understand the type of materials that will be cut on the device before deciding whether a laser or blade is better suited for your daily output. While speed is an important factor to consider, it is not as critical as overall productivity. An automated device that works in harmony with your digital printer as well as registration and other layout functionalities means cutting down or eliminating waste and make ready—something equally if not more important than speed.
The second part of this series on textile cutting looks at various devices available for digitally printed textiles.
Click here to read part two of this exclusive online series, Automation in Cutting.
Mar2020, Industrial Print Magazine