Dover Digital will sponsor the new SportsFactory booth at FESPA 2018 that will feature a group of market-leading print businesses who will showcase an entire production workflow for creating customised football jerseys. Visitors to FEPSA 2018 in Berlin will have the opportunity to experience a new and innovative workflow demonstration courtesy of the new SportsFactory booth, which Dover Digital Printing will be sponsoring.
The booth spans across 250 m2. A group of market-leading print businesses will be exhibiting a complete production workflow for the creation of customised football jerseys. Products from MS Printing Solutions, Caldera, Monito Antonio, JK Group and Zund will all be showcased.
The Vice President of Marketing at Dover Digital Printing, Sébastien Hanssens said, “the idea is to allow visitors to experience the complete production process. It will commence with the initial design of a shirt and then follow the entire process through to printing, cutting and sewing, developing at the end ready for delivery.” The SportsFactory will feature a high-tech Sports Bar that will demonstrate digital printing technologies as well as a pop-up store that will display digitally printed sports kits and graphics.
The football jerseys will be printed on an MS Printing Solutions JP4 digital printer and will feature Kiian inks from the JK Group. The MS-JP4 printer can print up to 180 linear meters per minute and features 8 printheads and an ink system that supports custom colours. After printing, the sublimation heating solution for the football jerseys will be a Monti Antonio calendar machine followed by cutting on Zund finishing equipment.
The whole process will be driven by Caldera’s award-winning RIP software. The first part of the process will include the customisation and design of the jerseys using a Web2Print solution. Afterwards using prepress automation the print files will be sent to the RIP. Then, the Caldera software will drive and track the print-to-cut process across the printer, calendar and cutter. Lastly, the cut pieces will be sewn together on the booth to create the finished articles.
Visitors to the booth will see someone’s design and then will see the whole process to completion with the finished piece of customized sportswear at the end. During the printing process, Caldera’s StreamLive workflow solution will demonstrate production management and job tracking and will provide statistics regarding the process as it happens. Such statistics will include media usage, ink usage, time of printing and the production schedule.
Sébastien Hanssens concluded, “SportsFactory is a thrilling prospect. Thanks to the sponsorship from Dover Digital Printing, FESPA 2018 will play host to a whole print production unit in action. We have created a first division team of print production providers to illustrate how an entire workflow solution can be created and with the football theme I am confident that it will produce a lot of interest at the show – with both the delegates and the press.”
