The Future of Direct-to-Object (DTO) Printing – Delivering Automation and ROI

The Future of Direct-to-Object (DTO) Printing – Delivering Automation and ROI
By Ken Stack, Executive Chairman, Engineered Printing Solutions

When people talk about the future of direct-to-object printing, the conversation still too often starts in the same place: print quality, resolution, color gamut, adhesion, substrate compatibility. For years, that made sense. The technology was still proving itself, and manufacturers wanted to know whether digital could match the demands of real production.

Today, that is no longer the central question.

The bigger story is not whether direct-to-object printing can produce the quality manufacturers need. It can. The right question is what happens when that print capability is combined with automation, robotics, vision systems, and process control in a way that fundamentally changes the economics of decoration. That is where the future of direct-to-object printing automation is heading.

Why automation defines the future of direct-to-object printing

Walk through any modern DTO installation and the evidence is there. Full-color graphics are being applied to complex, contoured parts. Medical components are being printed with precision. Brand decoration is being delivered at production speeds on objects that were once considered too difficult, too variable, or too labor-intensive for digital processes. The quality problem, for the most part, has been solved. What manufacturers are dealing with now is a cost problem, and more specifically, a labor problem.

For decades, the industry has focused on optimizing consumables and reducing fractions of a cent from the cost of ink, pads, plates, clichés, or thinners. Meanwhile, the real cost in most decoration environments has been sitting in plain sight. It is labor. It is the cost of training operators, managing turnover, living with shift-to-shift variance, absorbing ergonomic risk, and losing productive time to manual setup and changeover. When you look at the true cost per decorated part, labor is often the dominant number in the equation. Sure, consumables are part of the equation. But labor dominates.

The future of direct-to-object printing is inseparable from automation.

The shift is already underway. In the last five years, several forces have come together to make highly automated decoration cells commercially viable for far more manufacturers than ever before. Collaborative robotics have lowered the cost of entry. Vision systems have become smarter, faster, and easier to integrate. Industrial printheads have matured into truly production-ready components with the reliability and uptime needed for continuous duty. And perhaps most importantly, the labor market has changed. Manufacturers are struggling to find and retain the operators who once made manual decoration practical. In many operations, automation is no longer a strategic “nice to have.” It is becoming the only realistic route to maintaining output.

This is where I believe the future of DTO gets especially interesting.

No manufacturer needs to jump from a manual process to a fully autonomous cell overnight. The path can be incremental, and that matters. The first step is often operator-assisted automation, where printing, curing, registration, and inspection are automated during the cycle, but an operator still loads and unloads the part. Even that stage can remove a significant amount of labor, improve consistency, and shorten payback.

From print department to integrated manufacturing process

From there, the next step is semi-autonomous operation, where robotics take over part handling and vision systems reduce or eliminate manual alignment and fixture changeover. At that point, one operator can often supervise multiple cells instead of physically running one. The final stage is lights-out decoration, where printing is fully integrated into the production flow and parts move from upstream manufacturing through decoration and downstream handling with minimal or no human intervention.

That progression matters because each stage funds the next. The labor savings and productivity gains created by early automation create the business case for deeper automation. This is not a giant leap of faith. It is a series of increasingly intelligent capital decisions built on measurable returns.

And those returns are not limited to labor alone.

Lights-out decoration changes the entire operating profile of a production line. Quality becomes more consistent because it is no longer dependent on who is loading the machine or what shift is running. Traceability improves because every print event can be logged and linked to production data. Changeovers become recipe-driven rather than manual, which is especially important in operations running high SKU counts or short-run work. Maintenance also becomes more predictable because the process moves from operator-dependent variability to monitored, controlled system behavior. In short, DTO stops being a separate decoration department and becomes an integrated manufacturing function.

That, to me, is the future.

Why automation defines the future of direct-to-object printing

At EPS, we have spent four decades watching direct-to-object printing evolve from manual pad printing workstations to digitally controlled, automated production cells. We have seen how the technology has matured, but we have also seen where manufacturers still lose money, time, and consistency. The real opportunity now is not simply to print “better”. It is to engineer labor out of the process, reduce variability, and build decoration systems that scale with production rather than depend on human workarounds to keep moving.

The future of direct-to-object printing will not be defined by who can show the best sample part under a magnifying glass. It will be defined by who can deliver a stable, automated, traceable, production-ready process that performs the same way at 2 AM as it does at 10 AM.

The technology is here. The economics are increasingly clear. The labor market is pushing manufacturers toward the same conclusion. The question is no longer whether the industry will move in this direction. It is how quickly.

Ends

Frequently asked questions about direct to object printing
What is direct to object (DTO) printing?
Direct to object printing is a digital decoration process that applies graphics directly onto finished or semi finished parts without labels, transfer media or secondary application steps. It is widely used for industrial, medical and branded consumer products where durability, precision and flexibility are critical.
Why is automation shaping the future of direct to object printing?
Automation removes manual handling, alignment and inspection tasks that traditionally drive cost and variability in DTO printing. By integrating robotics, vision systems and process control, automated DTO systems reduce labour dependency, improve consistency and enable scalable, production ready decoration.
What role does labour play in the true cost of DTO printing?
In most decoration environments, labour is the single largest contributor to cost per part. Training, operator turnover, manual setup and shift to shift variation often outweigh consumable costs. Automated direct to object printing addresses this by standardising processes and reducing reliance on manual intervention.
What does a lights out direct to object printing process mean?
Lights out DTO printing refers to a fully automated decoration process that operates with minimal or no human involvement. Parts are printed, cured, inspected and tracked as part of an integrated production flow, delivering consistent quality, improved traceability and predictable output across all shifts.
How can manufacturers transition to automated DTO printing?
Most manufacturers move to automation incrementally. Early stages often involve operator assisted automation, followed by robotic part handling and vision based registration. Each stage reduces labour and funds the next, allowing automation investments to be made through measured, data driven capital decisions rather than a single disruptive leap.
How does EPS support automated direct to object printing?
EPS designs and integrates direct to object printing systems that combine industrial printheads, automation, robotics and vision technologies into production ready solutions. With decades of experience in industrial printing, EPS focuses on engineering repeatable, scalable decoration processes that align with real manufacturing demands.