Heidelberg has this month provided the first signs of a new direction that will culminate at celebrations of the company’s 175th anniversary at the start of June next year. This follows the appointment of car industry executive Jurgen Otto as CEO at the end of June.
The first evidence of an uplift in confidence and a change in outlook came at Drupa where business exceeded expectations. Provided what were soft orders can be firmed up, finance allowing, the second half of the financial year will display a marked bounceback. It will be too soon to judge by the results of the first half, which ended in September.
Now the company has enlarged and redesigned its Print Media Centre in the vast Hall 11. Wall hangings declare this to be The Home of Print while a comprehensive array of technology is in action across the floor while at one end tiered seating faces a vast screen and stage for presentations. When complete in the first months of 2025 this will be more an industrial setting, with polished concrete floor, concrete walls and muted grey decoration, than a showroom with polished wooden floor and brightly painted walls. Equipment is grouped to come close to if not replicate a customer’s set up.
The emphasis is on integration of the technologies rather than the press as a standalone device. This is to emphasise the flow of a job under a single workflow, something that is familiar in the auto industry.
The workflow will be Prinect Touch Free, the beginnings of an AI enabled cloud based workflow that is technology, and even supplier agnostic. The first test site will be at a customer in the Netherlands linking digital presses. Installations where litho and digital presses are involved as well as a multitude of finishing equipment are being planned.
Heidelberg has around 4,000 customers currently using Prinect Production Manager, the jumping off point for the new approach. These will be the Heidelberg’s low hanging fruit.
The new PMC brings together packaging presses, which have always been in Hall 11 and the Print Media Centre for commercial print which has for almost a decade occupied a hall on the edge of the vast site. This was opened in 2015 and introduced a corporate design and styling which has endured since. A new design is likely for next year.
As well as sheetfed presses the new PMC houses the Boardmaster flexo press, possibly the largest and most productive press Heidelberg has built (aside from the short lived triple width newspaper press). This was developed to print cartons and is being extended to be able to print fibre based flexible packaging using food safe inks. To date four, including the PMC machine, have been installed with a further nine on order.
At the other end of the scale is the Versafire which along with the JetFire 50 inkjet press, represent Heidelberg’s digital presses for commercial printers.
The same industrial approach is being taken to other Heidelberg showrooms, albeit on a smaller scale. Thus China, Tokyo, Jakarta and Atlanta will have similar showrooms.
