{"id":120,"title":"How does a digital t-shirt printing factory work? A look inside Teemill's factory.","description":"Take a tour of our sustainable t-shirt printing factory in the UK! See how print on demand works and how we make it sustainable. Then, explore the tech we've developed to help you build a print on demand t-shirt business, fundraise for a cause or promote your band or social media channel. \n\nWondering how to make merch for your YouTube channel? Or just curious to see how a t-shirt printing machine works? Check out the digital printing technology inside our sustainable print on demand factory.\n\nWe built this tech ourselves and now we're sharing it with you for free. So you can build what took us 10 years in 10 minutes.","content":"<p>Pollution and waste are not accidents, they are a consequence of decisions made at the design stage. At Teemill, our ambition is to redesign the clothing industry and to make sustainable fashion possible, accessible and affordable - because after all, asking everyone to do their bit and buy less stuff <em>after <\/em>clothes are manufactured without consideration for the environment just won't work. So we built a whole new factory to change the way clothes are made, not just using natural materials and renewable energy, but also using systems that are so quick we can print stuff in real time - in the seconds after things are ordered. All of this is made possible by our technology.<\/p><p>This blog takes a look at how t-shirt printing works and some of the ways we hack manufacturing at our Teemill factory on the Isle of Wight.<\/p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/loxo_5Ehv1o\/?modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=highres\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><p><br>We wanted to only make products that people need, when they are needed but fashion is about speed. People want things the next day. So when we develop technology we have to make everything really fast. The fastest thing is the speed of light, so we send as much information around our digital printing factory as we can in data form. We use super lightweight machine to machine telemetry to let people connect with machines, and machines connect with other machines, and machines talk to people. Some people call this the IoT or Internet of Things.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5dadfb2f3f6676.00824482.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Teemill's digital printing factory with robotic machinery moving stock around as a team member works.\" title=\"Teemill's digital printing factory with robotic machinery moving stock around as a team member works.\"><br><br>We also have loads of automated equipment. If we can buy it we buy it, but these days we have to build a lot because what we need doesn't exist yet. We have a lot of 3D printers and use aluminium, air and some clever electronics to build our robotics.<\/p><p>Some people are worried about tech replacing jobs. In our view tech is neutral, it doesn\u2019t do anything on it's own. It only does what you tell it to do. It's like the AIs that run our logistics. We think of AI as sort of like a chainsaw. Power tools can be pretty scary, and actually they can really harm people. But if you\u2019re a lumberjack a chainsaw is your best friend because it helps you do your job more efficiently. People prefer using tools rather than doing stuff by hand.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5dadfb52d6b7a2.83311978.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"The Teemill factory where team members are working on a screen printing machine with a pile of black t-shirts.\" title=\"The Teemill factory where team members are working on a screen printing machine with a pile of black t-shirts.\"><\/p><p>The trick is to apply tech conscientiously. When you engage people and build the tech that they want, rather than replace them you improve their quality of life. A good way to do that is to involve the team in the building of the robots in the first place. That means making software easier to get into, then teaching our staff how to edit the code and build robots.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5dadfb8123c3b0.96440407.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Inside Teemill's digital printing factory where a team member is using the tech and machinery to sort orders.\" title=\"Inside Teemill's digital printing factory where a team member is using the tech and machinery to sort orders.\"><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5ca276d5602854.13772092.jpg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"An orange robotic arm connected to a screen in Teemill's digital printing factory.\" title=\"An orange robotic arm connected to a screen in Teemill's digital printing factory.\"><\/p><blockquote><p>This toy robot used for teaching employees how to code.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>We built a sort of lego kit from off the shelf components that, combined together with a few clever tricks, make our robots move and think. The parts we can imagine but cannot buy are printed on 3D printers. If one breaks we can redesign it in the cloud or email parts between our engineers who can then print another one and try that.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5dadfbc5ee78e5.13057894.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Team member using a 3d printer in the Teemill factory to print new parts.\" title=\"Team member using a 3d printer in the Teemill factory to print new parts.\"><br><br>All manufacturing software and robotics in our digital printing factory is built by our own crew. After all, they are the ones that do the actual work, which makes them the experts about how we should apply the tech. They use it to design out the dull and boring bits and make our factory better.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5dadfbdacb5aa5.63913399.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Team member mixing paint in Teemill's factory for t-shirt screen printing.\" title=\"Team member mixing paint in Teemill's factory for t-shirt screen printing.\"><\/p><p>The AIs that run the factory day to day are basically just models of the decisions our team would make if they had infinite time and computing power. Like how the factory moves things around to reduce walk time, or optimises production so that our staff can do full time regular hours (instead of night shifts and zero hours). We even have an AI that controls all of our stock, logistics and warehousing. His boss is a human, who helped write him and teach him so he didn't have to spend all day punching the calculator.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5ca2775cd6ab14.38373667.jpg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Teemill's digital printing factory where a team member is using the tech to pick an order.\" title=\"Teemill's digital printing factory where a team member is using the tech to pick an order.\"><br><br>There\u2019s about 10 containers on different boats at any one time and the contents were predicted, ordered and organised by an algorithm automatically. It\u2019s why we\u2019re never out of stock. Our team just keep track of how it\u2019s doing and tweak it from time to time.<\/p><blockquote><p>Our products are designed to come back to us when they're worn out, and we make new products from the material we recover. We write code on Raspberry Pis, which is a low cost educational chip, that runs the interfaces that do stuff like sorting returns.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Because our products are made from natural materials, they do not last forever which is a good thing. The fact that plastic lasts forever is the reason it is so harmful when it ends up in the sea, whereas natural material is not harmful to nature. Using natural materials has some weird and wonderful side effects like being easy to clean stuff up which is a big time saver and offsets some of the cost of using organic material. Stuff made from synthetic materials is sticky and sometimes requires solvents to break up whereas we can clean up ink with what\u2019s basically concentrated orange juice. That\u2019s why our digital printing factory is so clean.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5dadfc443cb057.06223039.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Team member wearing an octopus t-shirt showing how t-shirt printing works with a DTG printer.\" title=\"Team member wearing an octopus t-shirt showing how t-shirt printing works with a DTG printer.\"><\/p><p>And it\u2019s not just in our UK Teemill factory that tech is applied. In India we work closely with the team that cut and sew our material into tees to find new ways to share efficiencies that we can reinvest in making sustainable fashion possible - things like the on-site renewable energy at both factories.<\/p><p>The outcome is products that are made from recycled organic materials, and designed to be remade again in a renewable energy powered factory where products are made after they\u2019re ordered, so there is no waste. The price and the way it looks is just the same as fashion is today. It\u2019s just not harmful. It\u2019s made possible by developing and applying technology conscientiously and with a purpose: To redesign the fashion industry.<\/p><p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.teemill.com\/5d4025f85ee5c4.95112936.png.jpg?w=1140&amp;h=auto\" alt=\"Founder of Teemill stood in a factory that recycles organic materials to make new products.\" title=\"Founder of Teemill stood in a factory that recycles organic materials to make new products.\"><\/p><p>The best technology we built is our platform to share all this. We know that the solution needs to be as big as the problem and that means really big. We built a platform so that anyone with an internet connection can build their own brand using our systems and co-create the future of fashion.<\/p><p>Teemill gives away what took us 10 years so others can get there in 10 minutes, and the brands of tomorrow are being built on a circular supply chain from day one. For us that\u2019s what tech is, it\u2019s the stuff humans build, together, that makes the impossible possible.<br><\/p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zCD_bssV4ak\/?modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=highres\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>","urlTitle":"uk-digital-t-shirt-printing-factory","url":"\/blog\/uk-digital-t-shirt-printing-factory\/","editListUrl":"\/my-blogs","editUrl":"\/my-blogs\/edit\/uk-digital-t-shirt-printing-factory\/","fullUrl":"https:\/\/teemill.com\/blog\/uk-digital-t-shirt-printing-factory\/","featured":false,"published":true,"showOnSitemap":true,"hidden":false,"visibility":{"id":1,"name":"Everywhere","code":"everywhere","created_at":null,"updated_at":null},"createdAt":1554123806,"updatedAt":1683784854,"publishedAt":1683718504,"lastReadAt":null,"division":{"id":12,"name":"Teemill"},"tags":[{"id":30,"code":"marketing","name":"marketing","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/marketing\/"},{"id":40,"code":"inspiration","name":"inspiration","url":"\/blog\/tagged\/inspiration\/"}],"metaImage":{"original":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/9ex2peruficehxinbffbzhdhwkgr7qx0upyd1ej9cibrpuur.jpeg","thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/9ex2peruficehxinbffbzhdhwkgr7qx0upyd1ej9cibrpuur.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/9ex2peruficehxinbffbzhdhwkgr7qx0upyd1ej9cibrpuur.jpeg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"metaTitle":"How Does A Digital T-shirt Printing Factory Work?","metaDescription":"Take a tour of Teemill's t-shirt printing factory in the UK. 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Learn from successful entrepreneurs, read their journey to success and build an entrepreneurial mindset so you can make your brand a success.","published":true,"metaImage":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c8e29ea58d3b2.79971756.jpg.jpg?w=1140&h=855","banner":"https:\/\/images.podos.io\/5c8e29ea58d3b2.79971756.jpg.jpg?w=1920&h=1440"},"hidden":0}],"labels":[]}