Delegates to this year’s FESPA Berlin, 15 to 18 May, will get the chance to experience an innovative new workflow demonstration, courtesy of the new SportsFactory booth. Over an area of 250 m2, a group of market-leading print businesses will be demonstrating a full production workflow for the creation of customized football jerseys – with perfect timing to capture World Cup fever. The production facility will showcase products from Caldera, MS Printing Solutions, JK Group, Monti Antonio and Zund. In keeping with the sporting theme, Dover Digital Printing is acting as sponsor to the initiative.

“The idea is to allow visitors to experience the entire production process,” explains Sébastien Hanssens, Vice President Marketing for Dover Digital Printing. “It will start with the initial design of a shirt and follow the whole process through to printing, cutting and sewing, emerging at the end ready for delivery.” The SportsFactory will also feature a high-tech Sports Bar, illustrating digital printing technologies, and a pop-up store showcasing digitally printed sports kits and graphics.

The football jerseys will be printed on an MS Printing Solutions JP4 digital printer using Kiian inks from the JK Group. The MS-JP4 can print up to 180 linear meters per minute, with 8 printheads and an ink system that can support custom colors. Once printed, the sublimation heating solution for the jerseys will be a Monti Antonio calendar machine, followed by cutting on Zund finishing equipment.

The entire process will be driven by Caldera’s award-winning RIP software. The first part of the process will involve the design and customization of the jerseys using a Web2Print solution. This will be followed by prepress automation to send the print files to the RIP. The Caldera software will then drive and track the Print-to-Cut process across the printer, calendar and cutter. Finally, the cut pieces will be sewn together on the booth to create the finished articles. What started out on one side of the booth as someone’s idea for a design will emerge on the other side as a completed piece of customized sportswear.

During the printing process, Caldera’s StreamLive workflow solution will be used to demonstrate production management and job tracking, as well as providing a range of statistics about the process as it happens, such as details of media usage, ink usage, time of printing and the production schedule.

“SportsFactory is an exciting prospect,” says Sébastien Hanssens. “Thanks to sponsorship from Dover Digital Printing, FESPA Berlin will play host to an entire print production unit in action. We’ve put together a first division team of print production providers to demonstrate how a complete workflow solution can be constructed, and with the timely footballing theme I’m confident it’s going to generate a lot of interest at the show – with both the delegates and the press.”