Epson took part to the 18th ITMA – the world’s leading exhibition of textile machinery, held in Barcelona 20-26 June. The Japanese pioneer in digital textile printing technology Epson, with its For.Tex and F.lli Robustelli subsidiaries, displayed the latest innovations and solutions for the textile market.
For.Tex provides dyes, thickeners and products for pre/post-treatment of fabrics and F.lli Robustelli is a leading company in the engineering and production of textile printers.
Total Solution
ITMA 2019 was an opportunity for Epson to show its unique Total Solution, a turnkey, integrated system for the textile printing world. Total Solution helps operators seize digital textile market opportunities. The all-inclusive textile digital printing system features Precision Core printheads which are a state-of-the art textile printing technology. Genesta inks have been developed to offer their maximum results using Epson technology and fabric treatment expertise. This system finds its maximum expression in Monna Lisa series, the successful range of industrial printers and a reference for the high-quality textile printing sector.
Paolo Crespi, EMEAR and Americas Epson Europe DTF Sales and Marketing Director answered the questions of Textile Business Magazine after ITMA 2019.
“Our goal is to be an indispensable partner in textile printing sector.”
“Our ITMA 2019 presence confirms Epson's commitment to the continuous high-quality ink and printer development”, states Paolo Crespi, “Our goal is to become an indispensable technological partner in the high-quality textile printing sector. This includes the DTF market, we developed by launching Monna Lisa together with our partners of excellence F.lli Robustelli and For.Tex. The sublimation solutions where Epson is recognised in every market segment, is part of our complete offer for the printing sector”.
Focus sustainability
In his opinion, the topic of sustainibility focuses on ‘’Innovation for Industry Sustainability’’ and market manufacturers and consumers in the textile industry corresponds to the ITMA and said,"Inkjet printing is a sustainable alternative to traditional printing. The advantages are not only financial and organisational but also ecological. Today’s fashion industry is increasingly sensitive to sustainability issues and is finding in digital textile printing a powerful ally, so that an increasing amount of fabrics are printed using this technology.
Paolo Crespi has expressed his opinion on the widespread presence of Epson sales subsidiaries around European nations and said, “We have the possibility to deal directly with textile end-users and to continuously promote our technology. We have sales and technical service persons dedicated locally, that helps Epson to stay with our customers all the way.”
Crespi continued his speech on the magnificance of ITMA and display of entire line-up of Monna Lisa Evo Tre printers, from the entry levels up to the mass production units and said: ‘’ More specifically, at ITMA we showcased the latest Epson innovations for an evolving digital textile market: our new Monna Lisa Evo Tre range featuring Epson PrecisionCore Technology offers a complete solution for all textile market needs, from large scale, high speed production to small run, on demand sample printing. They are the preview of Monna Lisa Evo Tre 64 and the preview of Monna Lisa Evo Tre 8, as well as the Monna Lisa Evo Tre 32 and Monna Lisa Evo Tre 16. Furthermore, we sent out a new message to the textile market showing the possibility to equip Monna Lisa Evo Tre 32 with a wider range of colors thanks to a brand new 16 channels configuration. We also displayed the new Genesta PG-Revo, which are breakthrough pigment inks, providing the textile market with high rub fastness and high print quality. This assures eco-friendly performances because the fabric does not need any post-print treatment maintaining the same quality.”
PrecisionCore Technology
Crespo has shared his comments on the printing technologies exhibited at ITMA 2019 and extended his speech with the PrecisionCore Heads technology and said:’’Monna Lisa printers are all equipped with the latest release of PrecisionCore Heads. PrecisionCore technology assures the best quality in terms of accuracy. PrecisionCore printhead technology is the product of one of the largest investments in research and development in Epson’s history, merging the company’s expertise in MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) fabrication with advances in materials science. With the flexibility to deliver high-speed solutions for commercial, industrial and office printing, PrecisionCore continues and extends Epson’s tradition of providing renowned colour quality and output durability across the widest range of applications. It is the combination of speed and quality that allows the PrecisionCore to stand head and shoulders above other printing technologies.
Mona Lisa Project
Crespi has following remarks on his evaluations, ‘’Monna Lisa printers have established the high-quality textile market standards during the latest 15 years of activities. Moving ahead in this direction, Epson gives the possibility to any textile potential customer to approach digital printing with different models according to the production volume and needs. The investment must fit properly with quality, productivity and resources allocated for production. Furthermore, customers can benefit of comprehensive support that includes our RIP software alongside our pre-treatment, printer, ink, incidental equipment, installation and service. High quality output can be reproduced thanks to Epson image processing technology equipped in Epson Edge Print Textile. This is our Total Solution for textile.
Crespi has underlined the importance of Turkey for Mona Lisa Project: ‘’Since the beginning, when we started in 2003, the most important market we focused on was Turkey, after Italy of course. Unfortunately, the depreciation of the Turkish Lira, which took place in August 2018, slowed down the business. Today we are recovering step by step the positive situation we had before. Credit is an important issue to be solved to enhance business.
Services are a key point for textile business success, for sure. Being perfectly aware of this, Epson invested a lot on services. Epson sales companies are the first point of contact to support customers locally. Behind them, Fratelli Robustelli and For.Tex technicians are always connected with customers to fix problems immediately as they occur and give the right instructions and train local people to solve problems independently later, in case the same problem will appear again in future. Remote control helps Fratelli Robustelli technicians to connect with the machines requiring assistance whenever needed. For.Tex textile laboratory and Textile Solution Center in Como are always a good support for all processes.
Crespi has taken an attention to the booth at Barcelona to host visitors from in excess of 50 nations globally and mentioned about invitation for all sales subsidiaries at ITMA stand to improve business organization of Epson and continued his spech: ‘’We invited all our sales companies to be part of Epson’s booth at ITMA, so that anyone – no matter which country the client was coming from - could found a dedicated sales person to take care of him/her. This premise to tell you that the most important thing for us has always been “caring about our clients’ needs” and this is the way we will continue to operate also in the future. Talking about Monna Lisa products, we want to drive the attention of our potential customers towards the Monna Lisa model who better fits with their needs.
