Cibitex is an Italian excellence in the design and production of textile machinery for pre-treatment and finishing of printed, dyed and ink-jet-printed fabrics. Cibitex has recently developed the ECOFLEX prototype: an innovative, eco-friendly, compact and flexible system for the post digital printing treatment of textiles. This study was focused on the evaluation the feasibility of the ECOFLEX system both from a technological and market point of view.
The first activities done, focused on the analysis of the digital textile printing market for the identification of market trends, forecast and the main needs of the sector players (through reports analysis and an ad hoc survey performed). In addition, a competitive intelligence activity has been performed in order to identify and analyse the main potential competitors. For each of them, the main products potentially alternative to ECOFLEX system have been described, highlighting pros and cons. The market analysis has been completed with the analysis of the main European and International directives and standards to be taken in consideration for the next project development.
Moreover, the feasibility study allowed isolating and analysing the main technological innovations of the ECOFLEX system, focused on: energy recovery, waste water filter and recovery and operations management and optimization. Each innovative solution has been analysed from a technological (through patent analysis) and commercial (through the identification and analysis of potential technology providers) point of view. In particular, the patent analyses allow identifying patent trends, main areas of research and the main players in the examined fields and the commercial analyses allow identifying potential technology providers to be contacted.
The output of the study is a revised conceptual design of the ECOFLEX system which will be the starting point of the future developments. In addition, a Business Innovation Roadmap analysis has been performed focused on the identification and characterisation of the related business opportunity, the creation of a clear view of the potential market and the identification of the target share that could be addressed by the ECOFLEX system. A preliminary business model has been also developed.
The main results of this study confirmed the effectiveness of the ECOFLEX system, and related Cibitex evolution strategy, with respect to the market landscape. For this reason, a Phase II proposal will be submitted.
