Color management continues to be a hot topic in commercial print, packaging and display graphics. But what about textiles? As the industry continues a migration to increased use of digital textile printing technologies, what is the same and different? We turned to two experts for answers: Mike Scrutton, director of print technology and strategy at Adobe; and Ray Cheydleur, printing and imaging portfolio manager for X-Rite/Pantone. Both have a long history of color management expertise in printing and packaging, and both have also applied this knowledge to textiles. Printing News : Mike, how would you characterize color management in the textiles industry? Mike Scrutton:   Textile color workflows fall into two separate, very discrete camps. Although as with most things, there is some blurring in the middle. The first is very much a named spot color workflow where the designer is provided with a color palette that can be reproduced faithfully, limiting the colors that can be used in a design. The second is where you just let the designer go at it, and you try to resolve any color reproduction issues later. PN:  Let’s talk about the first one. Clearly, this makes a lot of sense when you are talking about conventional textile printing, such as screen printing, where the technology limits the number of colors that can be used, right? MS:  Exactly. Brands care about the color and consistent color reproduction for a variety of reasons. You may have a color in a print blouse where it is alongside something else you might be wearing, such as a pair of pants, that is a solid color. And each uses a completely different technique. You are not going to screen print a solid color on a pair of pants – you are going to dip it. Let’s say the blouse print has a particular shade of cerise in it, and the pants are also cerise. You want those two colors to match as precisely as possible. Complicating it further, you likely have two different fabric types you are dealing with. It’s different in commercial print. Color management is still stringent, but if you think about a magazine, I only worry about color management within the context of that magazine. But in textiles and apparel, the end customer will be assembling their own ensemble that they want to look nice together. You never tend to see a single product in isolation, whether it is in apparel or home décor. PN:  In terms of the second one, you could call it, “Designers Gone Wild.” How do they know that the color is achievable in the production world? MS:  The first issue is how the designer specifies the color. Many times they will use the standard Pantone color swatch books used in commercial print, which is a color standard for printing on paper, and it wasn’t designed for textiles. It may not deliver the expected outcome. Then it is up to the printer to try to work out how to reproduce the color. This is often the case with independent designers or smaller brands that may not have as sophisticated a color workflow. Designers are also using an RGB workflow, and when I speak at conferences, I always say, "Please, if you are defining an RGB color, please be explicit and specify sRGB or Adobe RGB or whatever." That will help the producer have more of a chance of reaching the desired color. PN:  Good advice. What about a designer ordering something produced by a supplier like Spoonflower? Are there ways in that model they can ensure the desired outcome? MS:  Absolutely. You can tell the provider what fabric you will be printing on, and in the case of Spoonflower, you can order a print sample on the target fabric. It will have a variety of colors, and each patch will have a hex code printed below it for that particular color. So you ask for that specific hex code when you order the piece, and you can be pretty confident you are going to get the color you expected. It’s basically an RGB workflow that emulates a spot color workflow. PN:  Of course, another important aspect of color management is measurement, and that’s where your expertise comes in, Ray. Maybe you could start by just talking a little bit about what our readers are typically familiar with in terms of color management in commercial or display graphics printing and how that translates over to textiles. Ray Cheydleur:  I would start by saying there are a lot of things that you see in digital textiles today that are in some ways, in the state digital color printing was 10 or 15 years ago. The tools are there, but some of the practitioners are not aware of all the tools, or they're not aware how the tools are different between analog and digital technologies. In a specific example, a designer was having custom wall coverings made, and the printer she chose could replicate the colors, but only with a lot of tweaking. It then becomes very difficult to replicate this in the future. She switched to another provider in the same city using the same device, but this second provider taught her about preparing her files for that device. That marries the upfront expectation with production and makes for a happier customer and a more profitable printer. PN:  You obviously work with color measurement devices, which I assume are also included in that set of tools you referenced. Can you talk a little about the role those devices play, from creation through production, and which type is more suited to textiles? RC:  In traditional textiles, people mostly, but not exclusively, use sphere-based color measurement instruments. But people also tend to use what they are familiar with. They might use a device that worked well for electrophotographic printing, but which isn’t optimum for textiles. They end up with a controlled process, but one that is not optimally controlled. PN:  Can you give me an example of a color measurement instrument that you have optimized for textiles? RC:  As you know, we have had i1Pro’s in the market for almost as long as I have been in the industry. Most recently, we developed the i1Pro 3 Plus, a large aperture version of the i1Pro 3, that has some additional capability and a different illumination fill that enhances color measurement in textiles. These tools are not inexpensive, of course, but if you look at the entire life cycle of the process, they save you money and frustration in the end. PN:  So how does that independent designer or small brand go about selecting and specifying the colors they are going to use in a particular design? RC:  There’s no one workflow that works for everything. But the key here is working well with the production side. They can either give you an optimized set of colors, or they can give you an ICC profile that you can use to see whether the colors do what you expect them to do. And it needs to be color managed on both ends. Production has color management; and ideally, design has a color managed screen and an idea of how some of these preview tools work in their design application. PN:  What makes the textiles process different from paper-based printing? RC:  On paper, we have finishes, and these tend to be relatively straightforward. But in textiles, the texture of the fabric combined with the finish presents an issue for color management. This, again, points out the importance of the designer not simply handing off a file, but to actually communicate with their producer. The file might have encapsulated within it information about particular Pantone colors and their achievability. But with proper communication, the provider can say, "Based on this ICC profile, I can hit this color perfectly, but perhaps this other one will suffer. Is that okay?" It makes both of them smarter and develops a better long-term relationship. PN:  So in your experience, what is your recommendation for designers and producers in textiles relative to choosing a 45/0 or 0/45 spectrophotometer versus a sphere-based spectrophotometer to overcome some of these issues? RC:  The difference is a 0/45 tends to do a better job of illuminating the way your eye sees color. But for control of color, a sphere is very powerful, particularly when you get to textured substrates such as textiles. And for a producer of digital printing, it’s also important to know what your RIP and color management tools work with. It doesn't matter what instrument you have, if it won't connect to the RIP, it probably won't be used very much.

It took some time, but automation is gradually creeping into wide-format printing, especially on the flatbed side. Many wide-format printers pride themselves on producing bespoke projects and specialty “one of a kind” applications. And, after all, haven’t us industry pundits and analysts—and vendors—been pushing this kind of approach? However, as competition increases—it’s the rare print shop these days that doesn’t offer some kind of wide-format printing—and as pricing gets tougher, margins get smaller, and the labor situation gets tighter, wide-format shops are seeing the need to automate at least some parts of the business. On the Soft Side One key to automation in commercial printing is a templated approach to products like business cards, postcards and other items that have been easily “commoditized” so that users can go to an online storefront, pick a template, enter their custom content, OK a proof, and click “send.” Likewise, certain wide-format products like banners, rollups and posters, have reached a similar level of commoditization. We saw a lot of wide-format shops adopt this kind of approach for COVID materials during the pandemic. A storefront containing standard items then frees up design and production staff to focus on those bespoke applications that are often the pride and joy—and bread and butter—of the business. Estimating is another area that is primed for automation, or at least an automated approach, rather than relying on the equivalent of “Karen in the back” to do all estimating by hand. Time was, wide-format estimating was an arcane process that required an almost Delphic oracle-like approach to figuring out how to price bespoke applications. But most if not all of today’s estimating software will handle wide-format estimating, be it commoditized, bespoke or somewhere in between. There are other specialty areas of automation that have been available for a while. Some common wide-format-specific tasks include imposition, which unlike the use of the term in commercial or book printing, means something more along the lines of “job planning.” Think about retail display graphics for a chain store, where the same graphics and branding elements may vary slightly depending on the specific store dimensions. Imposition software can determine the order in which these retail graphics need to be printed based on which need to be shipped first. Nesting is the process of orienting all the images to be printed such that you can fit as many as possible on a single board, or, in rollfed workflows, minimizing the amount of substrate that is used. Nesting optimization has traditionally been done manually, but advanced shape nesting—which any self-respecting DFE for wide-format printing will now offer—is an automated approach to what had been a laborious, manual process. On the Hard Side Wide-format printing—especially on the flatbed side—is starting to see greater and greater use of new kinds of hardware automation—including robots. One unique approach was the subject of a white paper I wrote last year about Canon’s FLOW technology used in its Arizona 2300 Series of flatbed printers. You can download the white paper at https://bit.ly/3HSyxto. In a nutshell, it involves a zoneless vacuum system that applies suction only where it is required, while three-sided pneumatic registration pins allow edge-to-edge printing as well as the ability to align the substrate to either the left or right edge—or both edges—of the vacuum table. This means that media can be secured to the printer’s bed without the need for masking or taping. This leads to faster set-up times and quicker job changeover, as each board can be loaded in under a minute. Naturally, your mileage will vary, but in one side-by-side face-off between the Arizona 2300 and “Brand X” featuring traditional taping-and-masking board loading, the job output on the Arizona was loaded and printed in 4:32 compared to the other machine that ultimately finished printing at 8:32. That’s time for almost a whole other job. But perhaps the sexiest aspect of hardware automation is robotics, which are gradually coming to wide-format printing. Some high-end systems like the Inca Onset X series have long featured robotic arms for automated board loading and unloading. Units from Durst and Canon have also allowed integration of robotic systems. And on the finishing side, Zünd and Kongsberg cutting tables have featured robotic arms for loading and unloading. In an EFI press event in September 2021, support for robotic integration on the Vutek XT and Nozomi systems was highlighted, and, likewise, in a Mimaki virtual press conference in October 2020, made much of the ability to integrate select Mimaki flatbed printers with third-party robotics. “When people use the term 'robotics' today, they are still thinking about the classic arm,” said Sean Roberts, product manager at EFI. “There’s a ‘spider-based robotic’ that allows you to have different types of pickup capability. Then there are what they call 'cobots,' which are a little bit smaller scale.” Adding robotics is ultimately a communication issue. “You enable through an SDK [software developer kit] the communication technology," Roberts said, "and then an integration company will take that software code and plug the pieces together.” That is, getting printer and robot to talk to each other. Basically, these are referred to as “hooks” which allow third-party robotics systems to be integrated so that the arm knows when the printer is ready to receive a blank sheet/board, and/or when an arm knows a board is ready to be offloaded. Especially on flatbed printers, as print speeds increase, human-based loading and offloading can be bottlenecks, and fast-moving arms and other robotics can move much faster and accurately than humans, which at the high-productivity end of the market, is highly desired. In 2016, Fujifilm initially launched the robotic handling system on the Inca Onset. “We had introduced the Onset X series [in 2016], we had increases in speed, and we knew where the future was headed from a throughput demand standpoint and where the Onset sits in the marketplace,” said Becky McConnell, segment marketing manager, Wide Format Inkjet Fujifilm North America. “We haven't sold any non-robotic automation systems since it was introduced. So the demand certainly was there.” (UK-based Inca Digital’s Onset series is sold globally by Fujifilm.) Automatic peripherals can be used for loading or offloading, or both, although, Roberts said offloading is a bit easier for robotics to handle. “Robotics are really good at doing the same thing with a high degree of repeatability,” he said. “They typically don’t handle a lot of variability. On the delivery side of the press, when a sheet comes out, as long as that sheet is always in the same location, the robotic arm is really good about getting that signal to know the sheet is ready, picking it up, and putting it over on a pallet, putting it in the same place every time.” The infeed side can be a little trickier. “An operator brings in a pallet of material with a forklift or something, but is it always going be exactly in the same spot?" he said. "So the infeed side typically does require some level of ‘intelligence,’ or camera-based systems that can register where the unprinted sheet is, pick it up, and transport it onto the printer.” Another issue—albeit not an insoluble one—that robotics can run into is mixed substrates. A lot of wide-format work isn’t long-run jobs on the same material. Sometimes a pallet of substrate for loading can contain a variety of substrates with different thicknesses or other properties that a conformity-loving may not be able to handle effectively. This can impact job changeover time, another big part of the productivity equation. “That robotic system enables a media database,” said Roberts. “Within which you can spec the weight per sheet and sheet size. Based on that arm’s hardware, it’s going to automatically adjust. The intent is it becomes push-button simple for the operator. It says, ‘Here’s the media I just loaded.' Hit play on that run sequence, and the system will then wait for the printer to trigger its print signal and the number of copy counts.” Inca Digital in developing the Onset X HS a few years ago, sought to improve not just speed, but also job changeover time. And improving the robotics was a big part of that. “We saw that there was a lot of efficiency that could be gained if we could automate some features that the operator was manually doing,” said McConnell. One of those is adjusting the ends of the robotic hands, or what are called “end effectors.” “The effectors have suction cups going across them, and the bars that hold the suction cups are adjusted for the sheet size. With the HS model, that feature is automated.” Other features, such as vacuum table adjustments, the type of vacuum hold-down needed, and a shutter system that covers up the unused portion of the bed can now all be automated. “What was previously done manually now takes 30 seconds for it to be adjusted automatically based on the job,” McConnell said. Inca Digital also developed software called Inca Connect. “That plays a big role in how jobs can be automated as well.” According to McConnell, robotics are about 20–30% of the cost of the printer, and adding robotic systems to other printing systems can be an expensive proposition. Then there are other considerations which, if you have ever seen a robotic arm swinging around at top speed, make perfect sense: the need for safety fencing. Cobots have long had bump-stop sensors on them, meaning if someone or something bumps them, they stop immediately, although this is slowly coming to robotic arm systems. Still, you want to maintain a discrete distance from a fast-moving arm. Ultimately, the choice of robotic feeding is going to be a function of a shop’s production volume. After all, you wouldn’t put robotics on a comparatively low- or mid-volume flatbed, right? Or would you? “Even a device within our portfolio that doesn’t have that same level of high-speed throughput, does allow you the ability, especially with some of our mobile app tools, to really remote print and have the robot do the feeding while you can stay connected to the printer,” said Roberts. “If I were a business owner, I could see maybe if I put a skid in over there, I know that printer’s going to continue to run for the next shift and a half.” And of course if labor continues to be scarce, print business owners may have little choice but to look to robots and cobots. “I would imagine as this technology develops and as the robotics come down in price and the economies of scale work in their favor, we’ll probably see more of that kind of automation on the lower-end, mid-range units where it’s not as much of an investment as it probably is right now.”

If you look up “observability” you find a very academic definition on the “measure of how well internal states of a system can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs.” And while the concept originated from electrical engineering and control theory, it has become a buzzword in software engineering and product development in recent years. From the halls of MIT to the command lines of Silicon Valley, observability has morphed to include tools and techniques that take system monitoring, such as how long a process takes to complete, exceptions, errors and failures, to a new level that creates a single source of truth and instrumentation to provide actionable insights and business intelligence. A few years ago, I was at a technology conference and an executive from Etsy told the audience, “If it moves, we track it. Sometimes we'll draw a graph of something that isn't moving yet, just in case it decides to make a run for it.” In other words, they are monitoring everything and making business and operating decisions on how critical business infrastructure is working. So Big Tech has utilized observability within its infrastructure to make business decisions bridging engineering, operations and business management. But how can a printing business use these strategies? Here are few examples: Customer Experience  How long does it take to provide a customer an estimate? How long does it take to order a product in a web-to-print store front? What’s the abandonment rate in your digital storefront? Sales You can measure what products are selling or monitor how sales have been changing for different products and adjust marketing and other resources accordingly. Workflow How fast can files be processed? What are common errors that break file processing? How long does it take to go from customer submission to printed output? Print Production What is the productivity of a piece of equipment today, this week, this month? And with measurement in place, here’s a scenario enabled by system data coupled with observability and automation. A customer needs a quick turnaround on a job, and places an order from your storefront. Your workflow software automatically catches a common file issue, because your developer had data insights to add a feature to catch that error, and queues up the print job. The print job goes to press and is sent to the bindery for cutting, but along the way the job cart gets misplaced. Your MIS/workflow system is tracking the status and raises an exception alerting staff but also requeues the print job so that it can be reprinted and finished, so it makes the approaching shipping deadline. When you combine system monitoring data with instrumentation providing data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence, you open the door to a new level of automation. From digital storefronts, to workflow, to hardware, modern print production systems now support the ability to monitor the state of system. We now have a tremendous amount of data at our fingertips. Using modern observability techniques, we can use data from software and hardware to make business and operation decisions that create better buying experiences for our customers and make production efficient and more profitable.

Print customers are increasingly requesting and specifying greener materials, helping their supply chains become more sustainable. Large-format printing is no exception; and the industry has responded by providing machines that use less electricity, processes that use less water, curing that utilizes less heating, while also focusing on developing newer, greener substrates and materials. When and where to consider eco-friendly fabric and textile materials? Large-format digital printing is widespread and used for showroom and retail displays, exhibition graphics, flags and banners, as well as flooring projects. The print quality of the latest range of large-format printers can produce remarkable imagery, with clear lines, high resolution and vivid colors. Yet sustainable textile printing can only exist in tandem with supply chain transparency; and with effective collaboration, the large-format fabric sector can make big strides in becoming an eco-friendly solution. Public sector spaces are under ever-increasing pressure to offer a sustainable environment filled with sustainable products. So, too, are educational and health care facilities. But the biggest market is found in retail, where showing off green credentials is demanded by customers. What type of textile printing is greenest? ⦁  Latex  is by far the most eco-friendly printing method. It's often fully recyclable and is a technology that has greatly advanced in the last few years. Latex ink works well with any fabric, synthetic or natural. There is no need for additional waste processes like transfer papers.  ⦁ Eco printing on fabric using large-format  UV  technology means that the ink is sublimated to the substrate using an inline fuser. It can adhere to almost any surface, including a wide range of fabric, both synthetic and natural.  ⦁  Dye sublimation  remains a popular form of printing because it can reproduce photo-like quality on a wide range of fabrics, where the ink is printed onto screen paper before being pressed into the fabric to transfer the image. From textile flooring to retail exhibition displays, this type of printing absorbs water-based inks, ensuring the inks penetrate the fabric weave. However, it still produces waste in the form of excess ink and transfer papers.  Reducing Waste in Textile Printing More than ever, digital printing technology is able to realize the promise of a greener future and cleaner environment. Print consumers are more conscious of their carbon footprint and are specifying more sustainable products from suppliers. And these processes are being continually developed to improve and replace older, unsustainable manufacturing practices. For instance, using laser cutting technology minimizes excess material waste. Using a large-format cutter can cut and seal all types of fabric, at the same time, reducing the need for overlapped edges and additional machinery for sealing the finished product. It also promotes longer life expectancy for a product where fraying and unstitching are expected tradeoffs for flexibility. Additionally, laser cutting ensures accuracy first time, every time. Furthermore, as we head toward more responsible manufacturing, recycling can offer extended life for textile fibers. All the choices made in the design process will impact the future life of the large-format print, and repurposing offcuts can also help improve and fulfil those same recycling initiatives. It’s also interesting to know that textile manufacturing across multiple industries that used analog technology once consumed immense amounts of resources and generated (now viable) waste. This included water, energy and waste material like inks and dyes and chemical solutions, which are toxic to the environment.  Eco-Friendly Benefits of Latex and UV Printing  In digital printing, the more advanced the technology, the cleaner and greener the process tends to be. Latex, more than any other method, is considered the most sustainable, closely followed by UV printing, which has made huge technical strides in energy efficiency. And with it a whole new light can be shined on the eco-friendly capabilities of modern textile printing. Less Waste ⦁ When printing directly onto the garment there are no secondary processes required. So while transfer printing uses a substantial amount of ink, much of which will be wasted during transfer, latex and UV only use the amount of ink required to print. ⦁ When less equipment is required during the setup of the print process (there are no screens or plates needed to create and transfer designs), then no bulky waste products are produced—all of which will eventually need to be disposed as waste once each print run is completed.  Water Conservation ⦁ It is well known that a huge amount of water is required to produce textiles, but it is also the case that it takes a lot of water to produce printed fabrics, too. This is the same with the cleanup process involved in screen printing.  ⦁ With more modern machinery and advanced ink in sublimation technology, it can save millions of tons of water. Colorfast pigments are now used to impregnate the textile fibers. ⦁ Using heat or UV eliminates the need for either pre-wash treatments or post-production processes involving water, like steaming or washing. Energy Efficient ⦁ Digital submission of large-format designs enables prints to be sent directly to the printer. ⦁ No transfer paper means less physical waste, only the ink required to print, and it is quicker. ⦁ Add in the adoption of low energy using UV lamps, and the process of screen transfer can look positively analog. Moving Forward with Eco-Friendly Textile Printing Modern improvements to digital printing have allowed eco-friendly textile printing to be done in a manner benefiting the environment. It allows environmentally aware consumers the luxury of choice when it comes to their textile print needs. Digital printing technologies are constantly moving forward. In large-format textile printing, positive steps are being made to replace traditional, but ultimately unsustainable, printing methods. Choosing sustainable textiles is now corporate policy for many retailers and brands, seeking to improve their environmental credentials and impact, both locally and globally.

Talent and culture have not been given the deep attention that strategy and capital have historically had. The printing industry is no exception. However, competition grows stiffer with the passage of time. Rapidly changing technology has created a transparent world where any sort of advantage rapidly deteriorates. Your competitors are smart. Most of them have access to the same technology, capital and strategic ideas you do. The question is: How do you create separation in the market so that you attract more of the available profit pool the industry offers? The answer has increasingly become people. As in, people who have a talent edge on their competitors and when effectively led, create a culture where growth, performance and innovation can be generated. It seems these are the companies that eventually emerge as the winners. Your competition likely doesn’t know if their talent/culture provides an advantage in the market. This is where, if you’re smart and progressive, you can begin to separate your company from your competition. In its simplest terms, people are considered talented if they do something well. For a business to have a lot of talent it is usually based on having a lot of people who do their jobs well. Typically, talented people are assumed to have some combination of factors that enable superior performance. These factors include knowledge, experience, job-specific skills and behavioral tendencies. These combined factors make it highly probable they will enjoy their jobs, consistently do the job well and be resilient and able to deal effectively with change. Culture, simply put, is a predisposition for a team or an organization to behave in a certain way. Every company has well-known common internal behaviors that are shaped by the leaders. In addition, there are underlying mindsets that govern what is acceptable or not. These mindsets are often called the "organization’s values."  The alignment of company behavioral norms and values with individual employee values creates or destroys energy. A high level of alignment turns employee discretionary energy into engagement. A high level of engagement breeds positive and innovative cultures. Research indicates there is a strong correlation between high engagement and strong cultures. A useful proxy for culture is assessed by measuring the average level of energy and engagement your employees bring to their jobs every day. How do you determine if your talent and culture provide a source of competitive advantage? It’s a process requiring a few steps. First, have everyone take an on-line survey to generate the data needed. Then do the following: Measure the behavioral suitability of your leaders (executives, managers and supervisors), key contributors and sales people. These are the jobs/roles where better talent can make truly outsized contributions to the organization’s performance. Run three reports for each one that shows the percent match of their behavioral factors to those of high-performers. The closer the match, the higher the level of talent they possess for their current jobs. For the majority of your employees, run one report that tells how well they are getting their expectations met for a number of higher level psychological needs. The better these needs are being met, the more engaged in their jobs they tend to be. The more engaged they are, the higher the level of energy they will invest in their jobs. Good companies have at their core, leaders: Whose behavioral attributes match well with the attributes of successful leaders; Who work to engage and energize their employees in a way that meets their higher level needs and creates superior performance; Who develop the people who are not good behavioral fits for their jobs into better performers; Or who move those people into jobs where they are more suitable fits and replace them with better fitting people for the job in question. Over time, the overall talent level and collective performance levels will improve significantly by working this process individual by individual. The synergy of these factors creates dynamic, innovative and forward-looking organizations that stand apart in their markets and outperform their competition.

Remote monitoring of all types of equipment used in printing operations has been around for some time. However, its value became even more evident during the pandemic, when it was not possible – or at least difficult – to send technicians on site when a customer had a problem. Remote monitoring is not unique to the printing industry. We’ve been talking about Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things for some time now, and digitization in all kinds of equipment and processes has become de rigueur for modern operations. One could even argue that implementing remote monitoring has become mandatory in order to remain competitive. One provider of remote monitoring services defines it as “the ability to view machine status, performance and behavior from a distance.” This offers a number of advantages for equipment vendors and their customers alike. And while in the early days, some print operations considered it to be too “big brother-ish,” the value has been proven, and it is now generally accepted as a thing of value. I recall attending the Heidelberg press conference at drupa 2016 where significant emphasis was placed on this capability and its value to customers and to the industry. Not only can remote monitoring capture data that enables predictive maintenance – i.e., predicting imminent failure of a component so the issue can be addressed before machine failure, thus reducing downtime. It also allows the equipment vendor to aggregate data from across the installed base to identify issues that may occur in multiple installs, providing them with insight into how to correct them. The equipment manufacturer can also look across the installed base and identify high-performing operations, isolating some of the causals for their performance and generating baseline expectations. If a customer site is under-performing, this type of data enables the equipment manufacturer to make fact-based recommendations that can improve performance. And then … the Pandemic. All of these benefits were clearly understood before the pandemic struck. But COVID-19 introduced another benefit – the ability to address service issues remotely. Prior to that, it was common practice to send a technician on site. But when that became increasingly difficult, manufacturers responded by leveraging the remote capabilities they already had in place to enable the operator, or a local technician, to handle the problem without the need for an on-site visit by a specialist. This obviously offered cost benefits to the equipment manufacturer; but in many cases, it also served to correct the problem more quickly, eliminating the wait time for someone to travel to the site and reducing overall downtime. “Our ability to look inside the systems and see what they are doing has allowed us to minimize the amount of on-site service," said Larry D’Amico of Durst. Heidelberg noted that the data sets from remote monitoring contribute to their Smart Print Shop approach. It enables them to use data on a large scale, helping people operate more productively and ensuring maximum uptime. As we spoke to equipment manufacturers throughout 2020 and 2021, we heard these views over and over again. And we expect to see this trend continue, even when the pandemic becomes endemic, and we learn to live with it. Customers expect equipment to be reliable, and they expect quick fixes when something breaks. Vendors strive to meet these expectations; and leveraging their investments in remote monitoring is a key element in making that happen. Will smart glasses make our print operations smarter? The other accelerating trend we have seen is the growing use of smart glasses. During the pandemic, smart glasses got a significant boost, according to a Tech Native post. Unlike in previous years where these glasses were seen as a “nice to have” technology gadget, people have now come to appreciate this wearable technology as a valuable tool that frees up hands and helps employees get their jobs done more effectively. Tech Native also described smart glasses as a technology that superimposes data onto a field of view. This view is achieved through an optical light display embedded in wireless glasses or an AR overlay. AR glasses augment the reality perceived by the wearer of the glasses…while all AR systems are hands-free, they can look like classic eyewear, or binocular-like goggles, and some even with safety helmets attached. We have seen several examples among equipment manufacturers where smart glasses are used in the installation and training process. Customers have reported that they liked the experience, both because it was more timely than waiting for someone to show up on site, and also because they found they were more engaged in the learning process when they had to do the installation work themselves. Following installation, they felt they were more self-sufficient than if a technician had been on-site and they were less engaged in the process. And equipment manufacturers are also able to make better use of their specialists when the customer has smart glasses on site. The operator can walk the specialist through the issue remotely, and the specialist can provide verbal, written or even video guidance on problem resolution via the smart glasses. If an on-site visit is required, a local technician, supported by a remote specialist, can be very effective. And as a side benefit, the knowledge level of the local technician is also boosted. The good news about smart glasses? There are more of them available, and they are increasingly more affordable. In the remote maintenance scenario, even a $1,500 pair of smart glasses will quickly pay for itself in terms of reduced travel costs, increased machine uptime and less customer frustration. Don’t have smart glasses? Not quite as sexy, but valuable nonetheless, is a cell phone Zoom call. The Upshot The demand for and the capabilities of remote technologies for predictive, preventive and even on-site maintenance has been accelerated by the pandemic. We don’t expect to see the use of these technologies decline, even post-pandemic. Rather, they will continue to gain critical mass and increased sophistication over 2022 and beyond. If you are not sure about your equipment supplier’s position on remote monitoring, smart glasses, predictive maintenance and the like, now is a good time to schedule a Zoom call with them to find out.