AT NEOCON, THE MART SHOWROOM 1169
NORWALK, CT, June 10, 2024 – The Create, Visualize, Realize (CVR) Center at HMTX’s World Headquarters is the space where creativity knows no boundaries. It’s the flooring leader’s hub for the design team to experiment with new ideas, explore new possibilities, collaborate with customers in real time, and transform the future of flooring through rapid-fire digital printing.
CREATE
The journey begins in the Create space, a lounge-like conference area where architects, interior designers and end users come to collaborate with the HMTX design team to articulate their vision and purpose for a new flooring design that will become uniquely theirs. The innovation begins here, enabling visitors to co-design on a large monitor, adjust pattern or color anomalies, and print out the design on paper for tweaking in the adjacent Visualize lab.
VISUALIZE
This color-controlled area with a raised platform beneath high-tech ceiling lighting enables the team and customers to view and evaluate what the design will look like in indoor or outdoor lighting and everything in between. The next step is seeing the design on a floor. A film projector and an algorithm that auto-populates the pattern enable it to be evaluated for anomalies within the design. Whether it’s knots that need to be removed, color that needs to be tweaked, or graining that needs to be added, this process is important to understand the big picture of how the customer wants their visual to appear on the floor.
REALIZE
Once they are happy with the design in place, the design team starts the process of getting it ready for the digital printer in the Realize space. While design is the foundation, engineering is the cornerstone, and that’s where the new Hymmen digital printer comes in to make the prints tangible on an actual sample plank.
HMTX’s on-site Hymen digital printer is a revolutionary device that can print high-quality images and text on any surface, including flooring. The printer uses a patented technology that combines inkjet and laser printing, resulting in crisp, vibrant, and durable prints that can withstand water, heat, and abrasion.
Said Kevin Rausch, HMTX Chief Digital Transformation Officer, “The realization space is where we digital prints become reality. Our state-of-the-art Hymmen digital printers replicate our mass production digital print capabilities ramping up in our Chinese factory. Here we can actually print these designs out in 3D. You can even feel a texture of the embossing that we use with a UV topcoat. It looks like and feels like a genuine sample of these bespoke designs.”
Depending upon the level of immersion – Level 1 Design Inspiration for architects and designers, Level 2 Education and Awareness of digital printing for buyers/distributors, and Level 3 Community and Outreach experience – the CVR process takes stakeholders through the collaborative design journey, so they take home planks of a design that didn’t exist a day ago. Said Kevin, “This place of collaboration and co-creation makes our partners part of the process to create great flooring designs together.”
ABOUT HMTX INDUSTRIES
Headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, HMTX Industries is a global flooring company serving a diverse cross section of the construction and renovation marketplaces. The HMTX family of companies includes four subsidiaries. Halstead is the leading supplier of resilient flooring to the home center market. Metroflor provides flooring products under its signature residential brand Metroflor™ in North America. HMTX Commercial markets the Teknoflor™ and Aspecta Contract™ commercial brands to designers and architects in North America; and HMTX Global serves the residential and commercial sectors worldwide through diverse channel partners focused on Aspecta™, Allure™, and OEM-private label brands.
As a global leader in sustainable practices, HMTX sets industry standards for quality and performance as well as superior product design. Its manufacturing processes, workplaces and product ingredients all reflect a significant dedication to sustainability, transparency, and societal impact. HMTX has received numerous accolades for innovation, supply chain performance, online excellence, and customer partnership.
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PRESS CONTACT AT NEOCON:
Ellie Priester
HMTX Industries
ep@hmtx.global
(615) 686-7599