Custom-made Roller Blinds Produced with Roland Printers

Custom-made Roller Blinds
Produced with Roland Printers

Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands – Artex knows innovation. Established more than 60 years ago, Artex produces semi-finished roller, fold, plissé and slat blinds and is always on the look out for new and innovative technologies. In 2005, the company began a partnership with Roland DG for the digital production of roller blinds. The results have been outstanding: in the next year Artex expects to produce about 50,000 digitally printed custom roller blinds.

Artex was founded in 1947 in Aarle-Rixtel, near Helmond in the Netherlands. In 1990, Artex became part of a multinational company, and currently has more than 200 employees. Originally, Artex’ main focus was weaving, but now it controls the complete production process - from weaving, washing, painting and coating to printing and pleating.

Eric Hendrikx explains how Artex incorporates digital printing into its production process

For years, Artex’ R&D group researched ways to eliminate the use of pigment inks and transfer techniques for its finished products. Technology specialist Eric Hendrikx and his colleagues tested different brands of digital printers and the Roland SOLJET SJ-1045 grand format printer ultimately emerged as the clear leader. Eric Hendrikx explains the advantages of digital printing: “The new generation of digital printers is faster, better and cheaper. Thanks to the digital printers, we can offer our customers very detailed work and a wide variety of color combinations.

Example of digitally printed roller blinds

And, compared to more traditional production methods, it’s easy to add capacity. Roland DG helped us with the transfer to digital technology and the implementation of our new production environment. We currently use six Roland printers that produced about 115,000 square meters during the past year.”

Artex prints using two passes bi-directionally at a speed of 18 to 19 square meters (194 to 205 sqft) per hour. The company is currently investigating opportunities to optimize efficiency by adding more digital printing capacity. Roland DG remains the provider of choice. Eric Hendrikx said, “Last year, Artex won an important competition for being the best curtain manufacturer.

Key among the criteria the judges used were quality and punctual delivery, which required excellent planning and collaboration with our partners and reliable, efficient machines. Roland DG offers us the high level of service we need. Maintenance is executed at prescribed times and is done very thoroughly. Our employees also follow the maintenance guidelines and thanks to this good cooperation, we can count on excellent and consistent results from our printers. Roland DG is the ideal partner for all of our digital printing needs.”