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Index GDIC Celebrates 20 Years Marketing Alliance Formed [TC]² Activity - The Inkdrop Boutique Member Profile - Pantone, Inc. Important Dates A Look Ahead

GIDC Celebrates 20 Years

The Garment Industry Development Corporation (GIDC) was established twenty years ago to strengthen New York City 's apparel industry. Its supporters include UNITE HERE!, The City and State of New York , and the New York Skirt & Sportswear Association.

GIDC provides marketing, buyer referrals, training and technical assistance to New York apparel workers and manufacturers. It offers job placement and referral services for management and production personnel, and on-site technical assistance with management and engineering consultations, and health, safety and ergonomic issues. GIDC's Sourcing Department works with start-up apparel firms, networks with manufacturers and retailers as well as the public sector to understand domestic production needs, assists factories in broadening their customer base and upgrading their offerings, and helps match contractors with sourcing opportunities.

On March 24th, GIDC will celebrate its 20-year history with a Cocktail Gala and live fashion exhibition featuring local design talent. For details, visit www.gidc.org .

Sarah Crean, GIDC's Executive Director, is welcoming all who are invested in the future of the New York apparel production sector to this festive occasion. “We are very encouraged by the fact that new opportunities for work in New York continue to emerge due to the city's role as headquarters for a number of global fashion companies, and the fact that local design schools graduate 1,000 new designers every year. There is tremendous potential in New York, and all of us, whether we are in the public sector, in organized labor, are an aspiring designer, a local factory or supplier, or a major brand or retailer, can make a great contribution to the New York City apparel industry's ascent into the 21st century. Thank you for supporting GIDC!.”

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[TC]² and MindWorks Multimedia Form Marketing Alliance

[TC]² and MindWorks Multimedia Inc., a leading producer of video-based training and marketing multimedia, announced that the companies have formed an exclusive marketing alliance. The agreement allows [TC]² to offer MindWorks’ video, CD-ROM and DVD development services to its members and clients.

“Our members expect [TC]² to provide the latest technologies and manufacturing process improvements to help them maintain their competitive position,” says Jud Early, corporate vice president of [TC]². “Our alliance with MindWorks is another method of outreach to support our members’ needs for high-quality, high-impact multimedia marketing and communications products and services.”

As a former division of [TC]², MindWorks brings extensive experience producing multilingual training and marketing programs for apparel manufacturers and equipment suppliers. These programs are custom designed to train workers on specific manufacturing procedures and to market new products or concepts to target audiences.

“After five years as an independent, employee-owned company, we are excited to reconnect with our former parent company to serve the needs of the industry”, says Greg Rowland, president of MindWorks.

Founded in 1988 as a wholly owned division of [TC]², MindWorks was purchased by a group of employees in August 2000. MindWorks Multimedia designs and develops high-impact video-based multimedia training and marketing tools (CD-ROM, DVD, Web) for corporate and educational clients throughout North America. MindWorks specializes in customized marketing and communications media that help organizations meet operational and financial objectives. MindWorks has extensive experience producing multilingual and multicultural programs for the textile, apparel and pharmaceutical industries.

Both companies will remain independent entities and there will be no change in ownership or management of either company.

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[TC]² Activity

The Inkdrop Boutique

Several years ago the idea for an on-line store, selling digitally printed products was born. [TC]² had been researching and demonstrating digital printing on fabric and feedback was “It is an interesting technology, but can it be a viable business?” After three years of machine, ink and integration research and the acquisition of equipment, The Ink Drop Boutique became a reality. Originally intended as a demonstration of printing and e-commerce, it has become much more.

Today, the demonstration functions as a business concern. Products, ranging from silk scarves to tote bags, purses and even kimonos are designed by [TC]²'s talented digital print manager, Kerry Maguire King. Production is handled by Lujuanna Pagan and Doris Holt. Designers from as far away as Australia routinely send their original works to be digitally printed on fabrics of various types. Clients from museum stores, gift shops, and specialty boutiques enjoy the ability to obtain small quantities of product, with high quality printing and sewing. In some cases, a reduction of inventory formerly requiring the purchase of a five year supply has occurred.

With a steady, reliable flow of product in nominal quantities, it is no longer necessary to purchase slow-selling items in large volume. Purses are another item that is in high demand, with novel digitally printed images on just one panel, or covering the entire surface.

Machines include two ColorSpan twelve color textile printers, running an eight color set, one Mimaki printer, using six colors, design software from Ned Graphics and Adobe, as well as color measurement and viewing equipment from Data Color. A steamer from Jacquard is complemented by washing and drying machines.

Product development services are available, and range from a simple color adjustment for existing art, or a complete package of print design, engineered patterns, and assembly with a variety of fancy trim. Clients often request yardage of a particular design, where printing, steaming and pressing are the only services performed.

Research in areas related to colorization of textiles and the management of color are of particular interest, but for this technology to become more widely adopted, there must be a viable economic benefit. In a companion piece appearing elsewhere in this newsletter, Richard Atwell discusses the variables that influence profitability.

Those with an interest in textile printing using digital techniques should plan a visit to [TC]². To see the products and services that are offered, visit online www.inkdropboutique.com .

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InkDrop Boutique: ‘A small business investigated'

This article will be presented in two segments with ‘Nuts and Bolts, the variables in a small digital printing business' in this issue and a follow-up article ‘Do the Dollars make Sense?' to be published in a subsequent issue or issues of the [TC]² Bi-Weekly Technology Communicator.

While many digital printing providers are considered to be service bureaus, the InkDrop Boutique is configured to add additional value as a manufacturing facility by producing finished product for resale in addition to delivering printed yardage. In that vein, three general skill categories are required to run the business:

1. Computer entry, manipulation, and controlling output to the printers

2. Process management and post process timing and handling

3. Sewing and assembly

Several or all three of these skills may originally be found in one person but as the business volume increases the skills may become more segregated.

The size of the digital printing business affects much more than space required and duplication of personnel on similar jobs. The difference in volumes, and thus run length, greatly affects the amount of automation possible. The average run of fabric at InkDrop Boutique is less than 10 yards. Even if the capital were available to purchase the equipment, the mechanics of loading and startup preclude the use of machinery currently available to the production-run producer. The resultant major difference is the manual labor required at the infeed of the actual printing machine and movement of the fabric through post processing in a batch type process rather than continuous flow. A second, but no less important, issue is that large operations may also have the capability of pre-treating their own purchased plain fabric.

A small shop like InkDrop Boutique must arrange with a third party for treatment of specialty fabric or purchase the fabric pretreated. The variables in pretreatment affect the settings of both the print and post process steaming machinery. Considerable time and materials can be lost during the calibration of the process, creating applicable profiles, for new fabric. Consequently the difficult arena of color matching is accentuated by small quantity purchases of pretreated fabric.

Roll change at the infeed area of the printer requires either the attachment of the fabric to a leader or the waste of approximately 1 yard of pretreated fabric. Hand sewing of fabric to a leader is a precise task, due to grain alignment, and can take up to 15 minutes. The process manager must therefore exercise considerable care in scheduling print runs by fabric type and width.

The largest single labor factor is the process requirement after printing is complete. The individual fabric pieces must be batched by steaming process time and rolled with a buffering cloth onto the steaming core. Precise control of the time and temperature of the steamer must be exercised and then followed by an immediate detergent wash to remove excess colorant. This pre-wash is critical to avoid color migration and is followed by normal washing and immediate drying. Promises of much reduced or eliminated post-processing have become louder from the colorant manufacturers, however, at this time it is still a necessity. The variety of colorants and their specific application and process requirements will be the content of a future article.

Variables and their responsibility:

Preprint time is the realm of the computer guru. The conversion of art files to print control data and the selection of the proper profiles is generally standard and can be included in any pricing as an overhead factor. The correction or manipulation of incoming files and color change requests are not easily estimated and such actions are now being billed at an hourly rate.

The major variables in the print process are the labor requirement controlled by size of the individual runs, mentioned above, the degree of color match required which also affects the re-print rate, and the accuracy of the bill of materials (BOM) including fabric, ink consumption, and any trim items for finished products. Generally, the process management person will also be able to complete the BOM and perform the costing function. One of the major areas of loss is the rework required for color match, ink problems and other manufacturing defects. These should be accurately accounted for in the costing process.

The standard time for producing finished product can be determined with time studies although the efficiencies achieved in such a job-shop environment will never rival those found in a consistent manufacturing system. Product preparation may require the capability of producing patterns in addition to sewing skills.

These factors will be outlined in ‘Do the Dollars make Sense?' a future installment in this series.

Article by Richard Atwell of [TC]²

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Member Profile

According to Kerry King, [TC]²'s Manager of Digital Print Services, Pantone is the reference for any color work done in the digital printing operation. “Pantone is like a dictionary for anything that involves color. If we want to check a color, we refer to the Pantone number or Lab value,” Lujuanna Pagan adds.

Brooks Tippett and Todd Shulman, both of Pantone, stressed that what makes Pantone unique is that their color guide system is universal so that a color is the same here in the United States as it is in Sri Lanka. This is of enormous value when considering how much textile manufacturing is done in different parts of the world. The fabric producer can match a bolt of material made in a plant half way across the world as long as everyone has been using the Pantone system as a reference to produce the fabric color.

In 1963, Lawrence Herbert, Pantone's founder, created an innovative system of identifying, matching and communicating colors to solve the problems associated with producing accurate color matches in the graphic arts community. His insight that the spectrum is seen and interpreted differently by each individual led to the innovation of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM®, a book of standardized color in fan format.

Over the last 40 years, Pantone has expanded its color matching system concept to other color-critical industries, including digital technology, textiles, plastics, and architecture and contract interiors. It continues to develop color communication tools for a variety of industries and aggressively adopts new digital technology to address the color needs of design and production professionals.

Headquartered in Carlstadt, NJ, Pantone, Inc. is the recognized authority on color and provider of color systems and leading technology for the selection and accurate communication of color across a variety of industries. The PANTONE® name is known worldwide as the standard language for color communication from designer to manufacturer to retailer to customer.

Each year, innumerable products and services are sold by Pantone and its hundreds of licensees in over 100 countries in the graphic arts, textile, apparel, interior, plastics, and architectural and industrial design markets.

The PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM is the definitive international reference for selecting, specifying, matching and controlling ink colors. The Pantone formula guide, a three-guide set consisting of 1,114 solid Pantone colors on coated, uncoated and matte stock, shows corresponding printing ink formulas for each color, and the three-book set of solid chips provides coated, uncoated and matte perforated tear-out chips that can be used for quality control.

The digitally-created Pantone Process Color System® chips and guides provide a comprehensive palette of more than 3,000 colors achievable in four-color (CMYK) process printing. The Pantone process guide compares a solid Pantone Color to the closest possible match in CMYK four-color process that can be achieved on a computer monitor, output device or printing press. Other Pantone Color Reference Guides for the graphic arts include metallics, pastels, tints, duotones, film and foil.

The Pantone Hexachrome® Color System, a patented, breakthrough six-color ultra high quality printing process, reproduces a dynamic range of more brilliant continuous-tone images and simulates brighter, more vivid colors than standard four-color process printing. The Hexachrome process is supported by industry leaders such as Adobe, Quark, Macromedia, Kodak Polychrome, Agfa, DuPont, Polaroid and Fuji.

The Pantone Textile Color System® is a vital tool for designers in the apparel, home furnishings and interior design industries for selecting and specifying color used in the manufacture of textiles and fashion. The system, consisting of 1,932 colors in cotton or paper format, is ideal for assembling creative palettes and conceptual color schemes, and for providing color communication and control in the manufacturing process.

The Pantone View Color Planner is a bi-annual trend forecasting tool that offers seasonal color direction and inspiration 24 months in advance for multiple usages, including menswear, women's wear, active wear, cosmetics and industrial design.

Introduced in 2001, Pantone Color Cue is a portable, affordable spectro-colorimeter preprogrammed with Pantone Matching System Color data. It instantly identifies the closest Pantone color of any flat surface and provides formulas for reproduction in four-color process printing, Hexachrome® six-color printing and Web design, accelerating color management workflow for graphics specialists, pre-press professionals, printers, web site designers, photographers and retailers. A version of the Color Cue, Pantone Color Cue TX, supports the Pantone Textile Color System.

In 2001, Pantone launched its Pantone TheRightColor™ division. By providing a universal and precise color language along with technology solutions, TheRightColor focuses on developing solutions and technologies that enable retailers to build a color standard infrastructure to improve the consumer's shopping experience and impact the vendor's bottom line across all distribution channels. TheRightColor solutions are based on the globally accepted Pantone Textile Color System.

TheRightColor solutions enable retailers to reduce the number of returns due to inaccurate color representation, as well as improve inventory tracking and replenishment strategies. In addition, the ability to monitor customer color preferences enables upselling and cross-selling, allowing the retailer to sell more products per visit. Meanwhile, the use of Pantone Color codes empowers the customer to more confidently coordinate and complement merchandise. More information is available at www.therightcolor.com.

A longtime pioneer in the realm of digital technology, Pantone offers a variety of software products that accurately translate Pantone Colors for use by graphic designers, pre-press professionals, business users, Web developers and Internet surfers. The flagship product of the PANTONE COLORVISION® line, created through a marketing alliance with ColorVision, is the award-winning Spyder™, an all-digital, seven-filter colorimeter that supports both LCD and CRT monitors.

For details on the complete line of products and services offered by Pantone, Inc. please visit www.pantone.com .

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Important Dates

March

April

For detailed information about industry events, visit www.techexchange.com

Thanks to the techexchange site sponsors Blinco Systems Inc., Gerber Technology and Methods Workshop.

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A Look Ahead

March 16-18 – Material World, Miami Beach Convention Center

View previous editions of this newsletter

[TC]²
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