UK garment decorator Fifth Column has expanded its capabilities with the installation of a Kornit Atlas Max Plus system. The investment increases its capacity for short-run production and print-on-demand fulfilment.
Based in the UK, Fifth Column provides garment decoration services including screen printing, embroidery, digital printing, garment finishing and print-on-demand production. Its customer base includes breweries, music merchandise companies, workwear providers, designer brands and retailers.
The investment marks a shift towards greater digital production, enabling the company to support increasing demand for short-run, full-colour work, lower-volume customised orders, faster sample production and print-on-demand fulfilment.
“For years, we felt the DTG technology simply wasn’t ready for the production standards we required,” said Fifth Column director, Damian Rys. “Years ago, we had smaller DTG systems, but the print durability and reliability simply weren’t good enough for professional production. With Kornit, we finally saw a solution advanced enough to fit our business.”
Fifth Column first engaged with Kornit Digital at Fespa 2025 before attending a Kornit customer event at HFT71 in Poland, where it saw the Atlas Max Plus platform in operation.
“The Atlas Max Plus demonstrated a level of automation, durability, and print performance that significantly exceeded previous generations of DTG technology,” Mr Rys explained. “Durability was always our biggest concern, but Kornit completely changed our perception of what digital production could deliver.”
The company installed the system in April and said it was fully operational within weeks. Fifth Column also cited Kornit’s All-Inclusive Click commercial model and onboarding support as factors in its decision, with the model intended to help manage production costs while supporting scalable digital production.
Previously, the company maintained minimum order quantities of around 250 pieces for multicolour screen-printed jobs because of the time required for setup, colour matching, screen preparation and sampling.
The new digital workflow enables Fifth Column to produce customised multicolour orders of between 50 and 250 garments, while also simplifying sample production, speeding up customer approvals and increasing manufacturing flexibility.
“Fifth Column is a strong example of how screen printers are leveraging digital production to expand flexibility, support shorter production runs, and create more agile customer-focused manufacturing environments,” said Guy Yaniv, president of Kornit Digital Europe. “Their adoption of Kornit technology demonstrates how modern garment decorators can successfully combine traditional production expertise with advanced digital capabilities to unlock new growth opportunities.”
