HEIDELBERG TO CELEBRATE 175 YEARS
The world’s biggest offset press manufacturer, Heidelberg, will celebrate 175 years in business on 11 March, and has a series of events planned throughout the year to mark the achievement.
What began over a century and a half ago as a bell foundry in Frankenthal in the Palatinate region of Germany, has since developed into a leading global technology company and total solutions provider for print shops and packaging applications.
Along the way, Heidelberg pioneered many print industry innovations, including the Original Heidelberg Platen Press, of which it manufactured 165,000 over 70 years. Despite ceasing production 40 years ago, the Platen is still operating in large numbers of commercial printers around the world, including many in Australia and New Zealand.
Heidelberg started manufacturing offset presses in 1962 with the KOR, and a decade later launched the groundbreaking GTO, which quickly became the best-selling offset press of all time. The Speedmaster series came two years later, and soon after Heidelberg became the world’s biggest offset press manufacturer, a position it has retained ever since.
The 1980s and ‘90s were a period of growth in sheetfed offset, and of acquisition, as the company sought to become a one-stop shop, with Harris web offset, Linotype, Stork Contiweb, Sheridan Systems and finally Kodak’s office imaging division all becoming part of Heidelberg.
In 1995, here in Australia and New Zealand, Heidelberg established its own direct subsidiary, it had previously been represented by Seligson and Clare. The move heralded a time of unprecedented success for Heidelberg down under, coinciding with the launch CTP, which powered the newly launched eight and ten colour perfectors, with Heidelberg models racking up four out of every five sales to ANZ printers, who bought them in droves.
The new century though saw the company buffeted by a series of seismic shocks that impacted the whole printing industry. First, the Twin Towers attack on 11 September 2001 saw the advertising market plummet, and with it demand for printed products. Then came the GFC in 2008, the same year that the smartphone was launched, which the tech giants Google and Facebook exploited to hoover up a huge amount of advertising, again impacting print demand. The two years of Covid also had a huge impact.
Heidelberg though had seen which way the wind was blowing, and had acquired Jagenberg, manufacturer of folder-gluers early in the century, to help drive its packaging ambitions, and then entered a partnership with Chinese operation Masterworks. It also acquired leading label press manufacturer Gallus.
The development of its offset presses has never stopped, and at drupa last year its stand had the biggest crowds at the show, with the company showing its push-to-stop offset presses, including a Speedmaster XL106 with automated plate transport and loading. The company also announced a partnership with Canon, which will see it launch SRA3 and B2 sheetfed inkjet presses over the next two years.
"175 years of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen are a strong testimony to consistency, as well as innovative strength and thus future viability," said CEO Jürgen Otto. "Thanks to its impressive achievements over the past 175 years, the company is looking forward to further growth in the coming years with its current market position, the expertise of its employees and global customer relationships.”
Together with customers, employees and partners, Heidelberg is celebrating its anniversary year with numerous events and activities. In the (European) summer, for example, there will be a week of celebrations at the Wiesloch-Walldorf headquarters in the newly designed demonstration centre - the Home of Print - including an anniversary ceremony with guests from all over the world, including customers, suppliers, partners and representatives from politics and society. In addition, there will be an anniversary magazine in which the history of the company will be presented, and the future will be directed.
It has around 9,500 employees worldwide, production facilities in several countries and regions, including China and the USA, as well as the densest sales and service network in the industry, "Our history impressively demonstrates how entrepreneurship, technical expertise and the genuine creative power of our employees can have a lasting impact on a company over such a long period of time and, far beyond that, on an entire industry to this day," Otto added.
