For many in the textiles and apparel industry using conventional manufacturing processes, consistent color management is a given. It is routine to have garment components manufactured in different locations, and using different fabrics, but in the end, these components must match when they come together to create the final product. Consider a ski jacket; you have the body of the jacket, but you also have the lining, zippers, buttons, cuffs, and other components that need to match the body. With conventional manufacturing techniques, manufacturers rely on lab dips to match color, and in many cases are required to match with a Delta-E of 0.5...a much more stringent tolerance than the graphic arts, for example, is held to.

While digital textile printing only represents some 6% of overall printed textiles today, it is growing at double digits. And digital textile printers are not only getting more reliable and accurate, but they are getting faster. Consider, for example, the EFI Reggiani BOLT printing at up to 90 linear meters per minute with a width of 1.8 meters. The company reports that four have already been installed (one in Italy and three in Pakistan) with a decent pipeline of sales opportunities underway. And both Mimaki and Mouvent showed digital textile printers operating at 400 square meters per hour at ITMA recently. These are some examples of faster printers that can begin to replace some of the analog processes currently in use.

Add to that the need for brands to bring more collections per year to market—in some cases as frequently as every few weeks without the luxury of the lengthy development times they previously enjoyed—and the resulting lower quantities per item being produced, and you have another spur to the growth of digital textile printing.