“We Will Continue Launching New Dyes”
As one of the leading technology manufacturers of rotation and digital printing, SPGPrints has the advantage of the Archer technology, which makes the printers produced by SPGPrints different. The single-pass digital textile printer PIKE and the scanning textile printer JAVELIN, developed on the basis of this technology, are able to meet the variety of fabrics with the desired volume and productivity in the textiles.
We held an interview with Hakan Uzman, SPGPrints Turkey General Manager, and talked about their latest technological products and projects. Uzman said, “ In order to ensure that the Archer printing systems always work with the highest technology, we continue our R&D activities.”
Over the last year, what have been your key textile-related activities?
As the inventor of the rotary printing method, we produce printers for engraving, engraving equipment, laser engraving machines, software and everything needed for template textile printing as well as textile printing solutions. In addition to the conventional systems, we also strive to achieve the highest quality results in digital printing by offering our 32 years of experience on digital printing to the companies through our new generation digital printing machines. Our R&D efforts continue in all these segments. It is one of our main policies to provide everything that companies need in textile printing.
What developments have your recently made in the European and Turkey market?
As you know, in recent years, digital printing has been increasing rapidly and significantly all over the world. While Italy and Turkey are leading the trend In Europe, the use of digital printing China is also becoming very widespread. As the leading textile printing company in the digital printing market, which has a global growth rate of 20%, we are focused on development activities in this field. As we have noted, Turkey is one of the most important countries in the digital printing and maintains its position as an influential player in Europe, especially with the investments made in this area in recent years. In addition, we have seen that textile printing, which is emerging with new investments in countries like France, Portugal and Spain, is reemerging in these countries, especially because digital printing is less labor-intensive than conventional printing and it offers a greener technology.
What technological trends are you currently seeing in the digital printing machinery market?
As we emphasized in the presentations we made at the ITMA exhibition held in the last months, as SPGPrints, we aims to reduce the maintenance and operating costs for the users with our features. Our exclusive Archer® printhead warranty program results in a significant costs reduction in user maintenance thanks to our machines equipped with Fuji Diamatix Samba (1200 dpi) heads with Silicon MEMS technology, which are technologically the highest level generally and capable of printing from 4 mm, and our patented anti-mist bars or cleaning system with water cushion cleaning for the printheads and their heads, which offers 18 months warranty. Our new generation 1200 dpi single-pass printer PIKE can print at a speed of 60 m/min and the new version of the double-pass digital printer Javelin with mobile heads can print 550 sqm/hour, ensuring the highest quality printing with high production quantities.
What are your customers increasingly requesting in terms of digital printing machinery?
Every manufacturer aims to produce at low cost and to be competitive in addition to quality. As SPGPrints, we minimize the maintenance costs for the machine with the technical advantages mentioned above. The printhead technology, which is now common, has a history of 10 years. They have made a significant contribution to the advancement in digital textile printing, but now their era has come to an end. Many manufacturers suffer from head losses and consequently thousands of Euro spent on print head. In order to prevent clogging on the heads, an operator must be able to operate the machine for a longer period of downtimes, such as long holidays. This is just one of the reasons for the losses on the heads. Currently, the main item of maintenance costs for digital printing machines is the printheads. As SPGPrints, our motto is “no print head headache”. Thanks to the 18-month printhead warranty (with the Archer® printhead program), we provide both the latest technology heads with silicone MEMS technology and many additional measures we have created to protect the heads on the machine, thus minimizing printhead costs.
How important is the European and Turkey market to your company – and much work do you carry out in this region?
As a Dutch-based company, I can say that Europe is where we were established and developed. But especially in recent years, with the rapidly increasing globalization, textile production has shifted from its birthplace, Europe, to the east due to high costs, and has lost its position as a hub. We are also active in the Far East as well as in Europe. We serve our customers through our own offices and manufacturing facilities in China, Pakistan and India.
As we mentioned earlier, when we first came to Turkey, Turkey was ranking among the top in digital textile printing in the world and currently is one of the most important countries in the world in the the rotary printing market. In fact, we can say that it is positioned exactly between Europe and the Far East in terms of quality and cost. While our quality complies with the European standards, we are able to offer them to the Far East at competitive prices. For SPGPrints, Turkey is an old and indispensable market for us. Our activities in Turkey continues for more than 30 years and since 2000, we have been offering services to Turkish companies through our own country office. We have good business relations and partnerships that have been going on for years. Having our own office in Turkey brings significant advantages for manufacturers both for sales and after-sales services, especially for spare parts service. As SPGPrints, we are delighted to be located in Turkey and to serve the Turkish printing market, and we will continue in the same way.
How is your company approaching the demand for Industry 4.0 solutions?
Through our application specialists SPGPrints advises the customer on the total digital textile printing application that besides the digital printing step itself normally also consists of pretreatment of the fabric, steaming and washing (in reactive, acid or direct disperse printing) or of paper and calandering (in sublimation printing). In terms of actual product portfolio SPGPrints focusses on the development and supply of the digital printing part, being digital printing equipment and inks.
With the recent developments of Industry 4.0 we take care that we meet industrial standards when it comes to software workflow control, color management systems and brand owner requirements such as RSL’s and industry standards, often related to environmental sustainability requirements. With our core know how of conventional rotary printing, we are specialized in helping customers to chose what can be printed digital and what should be done rotary, and even how to match those two. At the recent ITMA 2019 show we have demonstrated our M2P-capabilities (Match to Print) and how our products enable this flexibility.
What measures is the SPGPrints taking to adopt a sustainable approach to manufacturing?
Thanks to the superior technology we use in our production, we are able to offer digital textile dyes with maximum purity to the market. These products with superior quality features have the Ecotex, GOTS and other mainstream ecological certificates. As you know, ZDHC (Zero Discharge Hazardous Chemicals) is very much talked about in terms of sustainability. We, as SPGPrints, have seized a place as a supporter in this platform. Our reactive digital dyes have been approved and the certification processes of all other dyes are ongoing. By the end of the year, as SPGPrints, we will receive the ZDHC compliance certificates for all our dyes. As a company, we closely follow all developments in terms of quality and ecology and sustainability, and implement them immediately.
What have been your company’s biggest achievements over the past 12 months?
As SPGPrints, while we are focusing on growth especially in the digital printing industry, we also continue to make improvements in rotary printing. We offer dyes not only for our own platforms but also for other digital printheads like Kyocera, Epson, etc. We remain one of the biggest players in the world with our quality and service. In order to meet the increasing demand, we have doubled the capacity of our digital dye production facilities at our headquarters in Boxmeer, the Netherlands. We have also opened our showroom, where we display one PIKE and one JAVELIN printers for our customers to test them. In our booth at ITMA in Barcelona, Spain, we have showcased our single-pass printer PIKE, which can print 1200 dpi at a speed of 60 m/min and the new generation scanning printer JAVELIN. These are the main improvements we have made in this area. In addition, we will present our new applications and improvements to the users in the coming periods.
Can we listen to your plans for the next couple of years?
In fact, it would not be wrong to say that what we do at this point is an indicator of what we will do in future. We are working hard on developing both dye and machine platforms. As SPGPrints, we are working on new dye sets for digital printing. In addition to our Archer system, we will continue launching our new inks for other printheads. In addition, we plan to introduce some of our newly developed applications within a short period of time. We are continuing our R & D efforts to ensure that the Archer printing systems always work with the highest technology as we displayed in our “innovation center” at ITMA 2019 where we invited our business partners. The only point we concentrate on here is to ensure that textile printers can obtain the highest quality with the most favorable conditions in order to meet the evolving market demands. I can say that, as SPGPrints, we will offer more solutions for those looking for the highest technology and quality.
Interview: Dilek Hayırlı