Heidelberg’s incoming CEO Jürgen Otto will run the business with a firm hand on the tiller. Even ahead of taking over formally on 1 July, Heidelberg had instigated a shake up in its route to market by bringing almost all of its sales and service units under the direct control of head office in a single sales and service holding company. This came into force on 30 June.
This is among what he says is needed to return Heidelberg to growth. In a powerful presentation at the company’s AGM last week, Otto outlined the ethos that has enabled him to turn around successes in other, most automotive businesses. “To leverage the full potential of a company, I think you need an ambitious, dynamic and strategic approach. Above all though you need the courage to take on difficult issues and challenges.”
He is not shying away from these. The centralised approach will mean standardisation of what is offered through Heidelberg across the world. The partnership with Canon, he suggests is just the start of this. “We are currently examining potential partnerships that would enable us to use our global sales and service to tap into new sectors too,” he says.
There will also be a salary cost cuts across the board to reduce the 30% of the price of a press linked to its labour costs. The savings will be directed to a future fund “to enable structural investments in the future, such as IT”. Negotiations with unions have started and Otto points out that he has done something similar on previous occasions.
The carrot for this is a commitment to manufacture in Germany. Heidelberg’s staff have only now returned to full time working thanks to the boost to the order books received at Drupa.
There was a feel too the presentation that this is the vision for Heidelberg and in the industry that ought to have been presented at Drupa. While Otto was at the show, Dr Ludwin Monz was still CEO.
Addressing shareholders rather than customers, he said: “I’d like to share a technical vision with you. Imaging an autonomous print shop that completes three shifts on a highly automated basis overnight, once you’ve logged the orders and switched off the lights.
“We’re currently working on an AI supported version of a cutting edge print shop of this kind. The benefits for customers could be huge and extend far beyond compensating for the skills shortage.
“AI will take over the scheduling, production control and monitoring tasks for orders on the presses. Following production an automated transport system can be used to take the palletised products to the dispatch area. This automation can help customers in Germany run competitive production operations.”
Implementing this kind of technology on night shifts “will take competitiveness in the printing industry to the next level – and Heidelberg supplies crucial components for that in the form of software machinery and robots.”
The first step in this direction will be Prinect Touch Free to be launched next year as an AI powered software to control the entire production processes across a print shop, managing scheduling and assignment of jobs to the most suitable production path.
The lack of sentimentality has already put paid to its investment in Zaikio and long standing investment in printed electronics. These had a combined €5 million loss in the last financial year. The company is also eliminating the cost of consultants trusting internal staff to do a better job that external consultants. It will introduce a new style of collaboration and responsibility he says and will “deliver even better performance with the same staff”.
That extends beyond an expanded sales operation, development of further packaging technology (the Boardmaster flexo press will offer a version for paper as well as film with inline rotary die cutting included), and into expanded use of other assets.
Production in Germany, says Otto, will be an advantage as it protects against disruptions to extended supply chains, changing the way that companies look at risk. “We firmly believe that our skills and capacities will once again take on a greater and above all dependable significance in the future,” he says. And that includes as a supplier to external customers, as a source of future growth.
