Across recent weeks I’ve been in a number of apparel manufacturing factories producing hoodies, t-shirts, and other garments using DTF. One of the things that has really surprised me is just how manual the film cutting and order association stage is in the manufacturing process—and how much labor cost and time go into this part of the workflow.
Many business owners see DTF as a lower-cost replacement for DTG, but from what I’ve observed, most aren’t accounting for the labor costs and extra handling required in the DTF process and there is the opportunity for removing a lot of cost by a) automating cutting of the film and b) automating order and film association (and making it a lot more accurate).
The key ingredient is having a system like ZenSmart, which is based on imposition recipes so that it’s possible to define in the imposition recipe both a barcode in a safe space and a cut and perforation layer in the file – all totally automated.
From a film cutting perspective this means that the DTF roll can be loaded to a DTF cutter like the Arc127 and the whole roll cut completely unattended at a speed of around 40” (100cm) a second. For a dedicated DTF cutter (which have vacuums that suck the film to the cut bed) expect to pay US$13K-$20K (I know expensive compared with a standard XY plotter-cutter). But a machine like this can replace 1-2 headcount and so break even is fast.
Then from an order association perspective the key to this stage is adding a barcode in a safe space on each piece of artwork in the film. At the order association stage, which can be done at pressing (no dedicated staff member required), a small thermal label is placed on the hem of the garment. This thermal label can be generated in one of three ways:
- Batch-aligned co-printing – The batch sequence is aligned between the film order and the thermal label order, ensuring everything stays in sync. The thermal label is a richer design with a thumbnail providing also a visual check
- Real-time scanning – The barcode on the film is scanned, instantly generating a thermal label that is placed on the garment’s hem. The barcode on the film is then either torn or cut off (the Arc127 can do a perf).
- Swing tag transfer – The barcode is masked at the pressing stage so that it transfers to a swing tag, which is then attached to the garment. This method can also add a cool branding element to the finished product.
By implementing processes like this it is possible to completely remove all labor effort from cutting and order association and enabling those staff to be applied to more high margin value added tasks in the factory.
So, if you are still using scissors to cut film and visually matching orders with film – maybe it’s time to have a fresh look.
