The Mattias Bäuerle folding machine business has been placed in administration in order to implement a reorganisation of the company.
The announcement does not affect GUK, the specialist folder manufacturer that is part of the MB group.
Managing director Stefanie Glunk says: “The trigger for the filing for insolvency was a weak order intake in recent months. This resulted, on the one hand, from the general changes in the entire printing industry, the associated market concentration and, on the other hand, from the reluctance to invest before the Drupa world trade fair.”
The company has not yet reported on developments at Drupa, but states: “The great interest in the world’s first automated ten-plate folding machine for pharmaceutical applications, which was presented as a joint project between MB Bäuerle and GUK is particularly pleasing and gives confidence.”
This uses the automation that MB has pioneered over the years with GUK’s expertise in folding lightweight papers. The development helps both with makeready times and with addressing skill level issues.
From the job details all plates on the folder shift into position automatically, the only folder of this sophistication to have this style of automation. GUK was also showing an implementation of robotics in producing patient information leaflets. After these have been folded, the robot will grasp a number of these to load into a small carton on a temporary basis. A similar system will access the folded PILs to place in the final packaging.
The administration provides MB time to reorganise and to put its business on a sound financial footing. It is not the first Germany company in the finishing sector to make use of the system, Polar-Mohr used administration to reorganise when suffering a similar drop off in orders and Renz has more recently used administration for the same purpose.
And as with Renz, the procedure has not affected customers or business outside Germany. Encore Machinery is the UK dealer for MB where managing director Paul Davidson says: “It is business as usual as far as we are concerned. We have the same supply chain, the same access to spares as well as the stock we hold. There is no issue whatsoever for us or our customers. The administration is a legal procedure in Germany used to sort out the internal administration of a business.”
One of those issues may be a close integration of manufacturing and assembly of the folding machines, with perhaps greater integration of components across the portfolio.
