Digital print excited us from the outset. Here was a production method that promised an irresistible range of benefits:

• We no longer needed to hold a huge range of differing base stock - we could print everything onto plain card
• We could regard everything on the card as variable data - colour product images could vary to match the exact item; we could print varying promotions. there appeared to be no limits
• Our per-item production costs would be the same for one ticket as they were for thousands

If only life were that simple. As we quickly discovered, the hurdles to be overcome made it crystal clear why so few people were exploiting the new printing method.

The Deadly Delay

Here's an example: Think of what happens to your office laser printer when you create a document made up of text and images. You drop your background image into place, type in your text and click print. Your printer thinks for a few seconds - or minutes for a large document - and then out comes your printed copy. Change some text and print again and the same thing happens. Large digital printers can achieve throughputs of hundreds of copies per minute. And copies is the operative word; change something, and you're stuck with that delay that you're used to with your office printer. A ten second delay to prepare the image means that 20,000 tickets could take more than two days - a clearly unacceptable time.

The problem doesn't lie in the hardware; it's capable of delivering the performance claimed by its manufacturer. But the standard software that prepares the image isn't capable of delivering a constantly changing print file.

You find this out shortly after you've bought the printer. A quarter of a million pounds into the idea makes giving it up as a bad job a somewhat unattractive proposition. We had virtually to develop our own print software, capable of creating a print-ready image of the fixed data, holding it memory, and inserting the variable data directly into the print stream. Not something I'd relish doing over again!

On-line Artwork

Of course, changing the image on demand necessitates on-demand availability of artwork. We'd managed to get the digital press operating at full speed, but we were still finding delays on job changeover. Fortunately, the Internet's there to provide solutions to this kind of problem. We developed a powerful on-line artwork repository that allows us to pick up and manage any required artwork at a moment's notice. Later in the year we'll be releasing this system for use by customers.

The problems don't end with the print itself. Digital print is essentially a toner transfer process, rather like a "wet" version of the office laser printer. Like laser printing, it's not resistant to abrasion. For tickets that might be subject to rough handling in transit, we foresaw serious problems. Initially this necessitated the development of an over-lamination process to seal and protect the image. Since that time we've developed a pre-treatment process that anchors the toner to the base stock.

Where does it end?

Now think about finishing and packing. On a normal press you run a job, change the set-up and run the next one. There's no difficulty in separating one job from the next. In theory, a digital press can run 20,000 tickets, changing jobs every time. Clearly, separating and collating the jobs would be close to impossible. This places demands on data management; we have to be able to order our print data for minimum handling at the end of the machine. Depending on the type of job, this might mean sorting data by size, by style, by order, or countless other criteria. Building this flexibility into the print stream required substantial re-thinking of our systems.

So has it been worth it? The fact that we've recently invested in a second digital press provides a clue to our viewpoint. We're finally in a position to reap the benefits that digital print offers. The humble retail ticket can carry messages as relevant and persuasive as the sales teams' creativity can make them. We can print offers that tie the sales of one garment to a related item, build loyalty schemes, localised incentives and more. It's now possible for store managers to access a centralised promotions base, giving flexibility at outlet level without loss of central control.

The road to digital efficiency has been strewn with more than its fair share of rocks, but the destination is worth the journey.

John Fuller is Gresham's Director of Production. He has been instrumental, along with Gresham's in-house IT resource, in delivering digital services to fashion retailers and suppliers worldwide.