That laser focus
It is a waterless, non-chemical technology that replicates the varied washing and distressing that the denim industry indulges in. It eliminates the distressing job of hand scraping. It is largely automated and Industry 4.0 compatible. Lasering ticks all the boxes... or does it?
The high cost of the sophisticated machines, their maintenance and upgrades, would be one reason that laser technology adoption is slow. Jeanologia estimates that around 35% of the five billion pairs of jeans produced worldwide yearly are made with its technologies – laser machines being its flagship product. The current energy crisis and skyrocketing cost of electricity would be another issue. While it may avoid excess use of water, it is energy intensive to generate the beam of light that scrapes away dyestuff. Futhermore, productivity is not where laser finishing shines.
The technology is not new and has multiple applications in the textile industry. It is used to cut fabrics and to weld two textiles together. It has arguably found its most creative and elaborate use in denim for its ability to achieve any type of wash, from light fading to heavy distressing, including holes, whiskers and whatnot.
Jeanologia, a company co-founded by current CEO Enrique Silla and his late uncle José “Pepe” Vidal Royo in 1994, is widely viewed as a pioneer in applying the technology to denim and its first laser machines were launched in 1999. In the two decades since, the company, based in Paterna, Spain, has expanded its range of devices to address different needs but it has specifically focused on improving their efficiency. “We have gained the confidence of the market with our laser technologies, giving value to our customers by offering the best return on investment,” Carmen Silla, marketing director, tells Inside Denim. “Since the creation of the first laser, there has been a total evolution in marking times that has allowed laser technology to be much faster and more productive today. Image resolution has been greatly improved, marking and programming processes have been simplified, and there is greater production flexibility, precision and power.”
Italian machine manufacturer Tonello also introduced its first laser machines in the 1990s. Company founder Osvaldo Tonello had discovered the technology during a trip to the United States where he met a group of Kodak engineers. They had developed a machine that produced a stonewashed effect by applying a laser beam directly on a garment, says Alberto Lucchin, marketing & sustainability manager for Tonello. The company worked on addressing some of its limitations, then. It overhauled its entire range more recently with the introduction of THE laser in 2020, designed to achieve the desired result faster and more economically.
For its ability to etch out the tell-tale signs of years of wearing and washing, laser finishing is widely credited as having contributed to reducing the industry’s excess use of water. Jeanologia calculated that its machines helped save 15.5 million cubic metres of water in 2020, a volume that is said to be equivalent to the annual human consumption of 844,815 people, roughly the population of a city like Amsterdam.
For others, its advantage lies not in saving water but in eliminating other, more hazardous denim finishing processes. “If we compare the laser with the procedure it is designed to replace, namely manual scraping, both do not require water. I would therefore not say that this is an advantage of the technology,” says Mr Lucchin. He insists rather that “if we compare the two in terms of energy consumption, laser is much more energy intensive than manual scraping.” The true advantage of the technology would then be social, related to worker health and safety. Laser finishing “replaces the repetitive and uncomfortable process of manual scraping, which requires respiratory tract PPE equipment to protect operators from the dust that is generated. It also creates a new job position, that of the laser designer,” he says, adding that laser allows graphic patterns, logos and lettering that are not possible using other fading methods. The company has also focused on developing more efficient machines that can achieve the desired result faster and more economically.
From manual to digital
Laser machines have long been automated as manipulating the beam of light is dangerous. Robotic devices direct the “light amplification by simulated emission of radiation”, the original acronym that gave the technology its name. Each new generation machine features more sophisticated mechanisms. Jeanologia’s Handman device, operated by two workers, has two robots that emit eight lasers at a time. “It can produce 10,000 unique vintage jeans in 24 hours with zero waste,” says Ms Silla.
Productivity is a key concern for laser machine suppliers as machines can usually only treat one or two garments at a time. The two newest NRay machines developed by Nexia, a manufacturer of equipment for the denim industry based in Rosà, Veneto, automatically turn garments upside down to speed up production times. The NRAY 4 has a double conveyor belt, two rotating mannequins, and can apply the laser beam both horizontally and vertically. “This allows customers to work faster and in two different areas, on the conveyor belt and on the mannequins, for double production,” says a company spokesperson. Macsa Textile’s Lasertex Unno Agile also features a double workstation to speed up processing. The Catalonia-based company specialises in laser technologies for all textile applications.
Hardwear and softwear
The high-tech nature of these machines means they are not only automated but also completely digital. The hardwear needs software and suppliers are constantly upgrading and simplifying their programs to speed up pre-processing phases. Jeanologia says that its efforts to streamline the integration of hardware and software has increased productivity and reduced processing times, ultimately offering a better cost per garment ratio.
Laser companies have created vast libraries of washes and vintage looks that form a database from which a product developer can work. Many are now adding machine learning to make the system smarter. At Jeanologia, better data management will enable the machine to learn to eliminate what does not have to be marked and propose solutions if there is an incident in the marking, says Ms Silla.
The software used to create the high-resolution patterns rely first and foremost on a designer’s vision, and ability to operate high-tech digital platforms, but algorithms are now being tapped to assist both the design process and the productivity. Nexia says its software is now powered by a new algorithm. Turkey-based VAV has recently enhanced its Fabrotech software platform with Fabro Fusion whose algorithm is said to suggest more authentic signs of ageing.
Be On Point, or BOP, the latest development at Tonello, calls on computer vision and machine learning. “In short, it allows garments to be placed on the worktable without any particular accuracy or precision on the part of the operator. The garments can be placed on the table differently each time, but the design will always be precisely placed by the system in the position chosen by the operator,” says Mr Lucchin. The work of the laser designer, he adds, is thus simplified and within reach of any operator, even without any graphic design training.
From garment to fabric roll
The development of smarter software, product conveyors and various robotic devices has admittedly increased productivity and worker safety. But the process of placing a garment on a mannequin, and removing it, is mostly manual. Tonello’s new BOP does give workers more latitude in the placement of a garment on a flat surface. Italian laser specialist Sei Laser has eliminated the entire process with its Matrix machine. It applies the laser not on a garment but on a bolt of fabric.
“All current laser machine technologies are designed to apply the laser on a finished garment. But this has a number of physical limitations,” says Diego Fior, textile application manager for Sei Laser. “Despite their high level of automation, they can only laser a half or a quarter of a garment at a time. The insides of pockets cannot be lasered, nor the backside of a fabric.“ This means that some areas will remain dark blue, and will need to be touched up, adds sales manager Ivan Romano. This inspired the company based in Curno, near Bergamo in Italy, to rethink the process entirely, in what can also be considered a pioneering step. “We shifted our mindset and completely rethought the process,” Mr Fior tells Inside Denim. Lasering a fabric before garment making, the company claims, does not rule out the creation of frayed edges or highs and lows on seams.
This radical new approach significantly reduces production times, claims Sei Laser. “The laser treatment of a finished garment can take up to 15 minutes, whereas ours can bring processing time down to 50 seconds, 1.5 minutes max, depending on the design. On average, lasering one item of clothing takes one minute,” says Mr Fior. As an additional logistics perk, each piece of the future garment is inscribed with its pattern-making number.
A tool furthering Industry 4.0
As part of its investigations into on-demand jeans making, Turkey-based Ereks Blue Matters bought a Sei Laser Matrix machine that it uses to make Unspun’s made-to-measure jeans. It has set up a complete production line dedicated to the partnership. “We receive orders from Unspun every Wednesday, and we then have two weeks to make the jean and send it to the customer,” says Pelin Birsen, operations and sustainability manager for Ereks. On average Ereks makes 25 to 30 jeans per week, each personalised with the name of its owner.
For Romain Narcy, Ereks Blue Matters board member and partner, this is the future of no-waste on-demand manufacturing. The project, which the company is fully committed to developing, has yet however to be fully streamlined. “The entire process is digital. Unspun sends us a digital file with a made-to-measure pattern, but we need to adapt each one to our own software, and this takes time, roughly two hours per item,” he says. To make the process workable on a larger scale, pattern conversion time would need to be brought down to 15 minutes per item. This glitch aside, the concept relies principally on Sei’s Matrix. “There is no bottleneck at the lasering stage,” he says. A digital file is sent directly to the machine that engraves the patterns, and numbers each piece. “It would be very tricky if we didn’t have the numbers; this feature contributes greatly to the process,” he adds. The ability not only to fade but also to mark each piece of a pattern may be one of the most useful characteristics of applying laser finishing before garment manufacturing, he says.
Another advantage of the Matrix, says Mr Narcy, is that it is a compact machine that can be placed close to a cutting table. It is the solution that he sees as best suited to on-demand, pre-order and drop-shipping business models. “A brand or retailer can test a new product, wash or fabric. If it sells well, it can have the bulk manufacturing done in a low wage country,” he says. A “must” for personalised products and perfectly suited for small batch runs, he concedes that it is slow for bulk processing.
Laser-friendly fabrics
The development of laser finishing has impacted how mills make their denim fabrics, with new processes designed to achieve optimal results using the technology. The beam of light needs to be able to reach the yarn’s white core and has trouble breaking through dark indigos and deep blacks. The more time and energy spent removing colour, whatever fading agent is used, the more expensive the product. Mills have been tweaking dye penetration to speed up the ageing process. To make a denim fabric more laser-friendly is the goal of special dyeing processes such as Soorty’s Cascara, and foam dyeing, from Arvind’s Quantum to Royo’s Dry Indigo fabrics. Chemicals companies are also pitching in with laser boosting auxiliaries. Lab102, the denim-focused division of CHT Group, presented such a product last year.
Lasering has been accused of singing a fabric and yellowing its cast, but the issue is rarely raised anymore. That makes one less box to tick on the list. There remain some who would not tick the box for authenticity, as they say it is not capable of replicating true vintage looks. Here it is easy enough to contend that, barring a pair of genuine vintage jeans worn for years, all of the new denims on sale today have been artificially aged. And for the companies that can afford the technology, it does so automatically and with absolute laser focus.
The ray of light that sears away indigo at work. Shown here, Jeanologia’s High Dynamic Range (HDR) marking.
Photo: Jeanologia
