“Don’t do every printing job that comes along” – Bernard Schreier

Printers who do not differentiate between jobs but try to take all the work that comes their way are unlikely to survive in the new competitive print market, according to Bernard Schreier, ceo of Heidelberg, who was in Melbourne last week for the opening of the Heidelberg HQ. He spoke with Patrick Howard.

Operating an undifferentiated strategy is no longer a viable plan for the future with too many printers chasing the same diminishing amount work. Although the visiting ceo of the world’s largest press manufacturer is decidedly upbeat about the prospects of printing in general, he claims that, by and large, printing companies are not making sufficient profit margin on their work. Much of this he attributes to a lack of specialisation, with too many printers operating without a considered market approach or business plan.

 
Bernard Schreier (right) with his regional management team (from left) Glenn Plummer, general manager marketing and product management, Andy Vels Jensen, managing director HAN and Bent Mortensen, head of region Asia Pacific.

There is good money to be made in printing with Heidelberg’s own healthy balance sheet serving as a fair indication of the robust health of the printing industry as a whole. But rather like the press manufacturer itself, which divested its non-core activities in web and digital press manufacturing to concentrate on its sheetfed workflow, the rewards will only be achieved by those printers who have a clear and creative business plan.

Confirming that the overall amount of print on paper is no longer growing in industrialised countries, Schreier maintains that business share will only be won by those companies that are able to achieve greater productivity in such areas as shorter delivery times. “Overall, be consistent in your strategy. Don’t try to do everything,” he advised during his visit to Melbourne to open the new Heidelberg HQ at Notting Hill.

Doing the business at drupa

Dubbing the upcoming drupa as the “the business drupa,” he confirmed the primacy of sound commercial strategies over the implementation of technology. Or perhaps that should be, along with the implementation of technology, as Heidelberg moves towards ever larger presses in the XL range. He quotes approvingly of the fight back by German printers against invasion of low cost printing from the former Eastern Bloc countries. By upgrading their equipment (Germany has the most XL 105s in the world) and developing innovative printing methods, German printers are winning back a lot of the work that went to the east.

Schreier draws a parallel with the threat from China to Australian and New Zealand printers. He is sanguine about the dangers, emphasizing that everyone in the world is facing the same type of challenges. The key is to increase productivity by implementing digital workflows and to integrate production from prepress through the system. An avowed enthusiast for seamless electronic production control, he believes that with more Australian and New Zealand printers stepping up to the mark and upgrading their equipment, the local industry is quite capable of holding its own against overseas competition.

From little things big things grow

The revolution in large-format, long perfectors that Heidelberg kicked off has undoubtedly changed the dynamics of the industry. Moving on from the introduction of the XL 105 Schreier flagged even larger presses for drupa, with an emphasis on the requirements of the packaging industry. With 18,000 sph and an ever larger format the goal is higher throughput and productivity.

Although the Speedmaster CD 102 is the largest single press model rolling off the production line, Schreier is also keen to promote the company’s continuing stake in small offset. He is enthusiastic about the Anicolor dampening technology that has made offset a serious contender once again in the battle for short run printing against digital presses. Fitted to the SM 52, which can be configured into a long perfector for even greater productivity, it is a remarkable technology advance, producing press-ready sheets within the first ten to come off the press.

While in Melbourne Bernard Schreier visited Gunn & Taylor where he admired an SM 52 working alongside an SM102 and CD 102. He is a firm advocate of mixing and matching different press sizes in the production mix.

The view from Heidelberg reflects the received wisdom that consolidation will continue in the industry with printing companies growing larger. According to Bernard Schreier, Heidelberg is uniquely placed as the only company that can supply these modern printing plants with the complete equipment workflow from prepress, through press to finishing. With no plans to enter the digital or the inkjet sector, he is putting into practice his belief in not trying to be all things to all people.