“To digitize, or not to digitizer – that is the question”
Well, it’s not quite Hamlet, but it’s an important question for you as an embroiderer.
Do you want the task of digitizing added to your list of duties?
There are pros and cons associated with doing digitizing in-house.
The pros:
1. You have complete control over the quality of your digitizing
2. You are not paying for the outsourcing of digitizing
3. You control the time it takes to complete a design
The cons:
1. If you are new to digitizing, quality may not be 100% and it may take you a while to create a design
2. The time you spend digitizing could be used somewhere else, such as running your business and finding new customers
3. Digitizing is a technical form of art, requiring a knowledge of fabrics, embroidery machine, and thread. Learning this may take time while your product delivery time and quality is affected
Decision Time
Many new embroiderers take the path of outsourcing their digitizing during their early days in business, however purchase low-end editing and lettering software such as Wilcom ES-21E to make small alterations when required. This really does make sense, when you consider the technical knowledge and experience needed to digitize, plus the large amount of time digitizing will take you away from growing your business and finding new customers.
Overtime, the embroiderer learns more about the embroidery process, and the affects a design has on a machine and end product. As this valuable information builds up, they gain the confidence to either take on digitizing themselves, or employee a digitizer in-house to supply their services. This is easily and quickly done by upgrading their existing editing software to a digitizing level. It is also a very cost effective way of arming your business with the right tools, as your investment into embroidery digitizing is made over an extended period while your business continues to grow.
Source a local digitizer who uses good, reliable software such as Wilcom ES. Ask your digitizer to provide you the original .EMB embroidery file. This is critical to the quality of the products you supply. Wilcom’s .EMB embroidery file format is 100% object based, and has the industries highest stitch quality and reliability. With the object based .EMB file, you can make size or density changes, without the risk of damaging your products.
To find a local Wilcom digitizer in your area, visit the Embroiderystart.com Wilcom Digitizer directory.