Labelmakers, the largest labels manufacturer in Australasia, will have Australia’s first manroland eight-colour ROLAND 700 Evolution sheetfed press with coater up and running at its Melbourne premises later this year.
“A new press gives our customers and employees much confidence that we are continuing to invest in the world’s latest printing technology,’’ said Paul O’Sullivan, MD, Labelmakers Group. "This technology needs to perform at a different level than previously required to adapt to the evolving Australasian market and consistently turn around the work in the fastest time possible.”
Labelmakers has had two six-colour Roland 700 with coating module presses and an eight-colour Roland 700 with coating module perfecting press running smoothly in its plant for some time. But with more business coming in from long-term customers including Coca Cola, Nestle, Schweppes, Kraft and Heineken, the label manufacturer decided to invest in the latest sheetfed offset model from manroland Sheetfed. The eight-colour Roland 700 Evolution with coating module is equipped with InlineColorPilot and InlineInspector, which will further minimizes make-ready time and wash ups.
The Evolution press is the latest technology from the revitalised Offenbach production line of the iconic manroland brand and has been redesigned from the ground up. manroland Australasia MD Steve Dunwell said the extra productivity from the sleek looking press would give customers many automated features resulting in significant productivity benefits.
“The printing industry of the future will be made up of those who are prepared to invest now. Those who don’t will disappear,” he said.
The sheetfed press’s arrival is a nice counterpoint to the success of the main business of manroland web systems. (manroland Australasia, a 100% subsidiary of manroland web systems GmbH, Germany, is also the Sales & Service Partner for Manroland Sheetfed GmbH.) Although there were no large web presses installed in the local market during 2015, the local company still posted a profit from its parts and services business. Long recognized for punching well above its weight, manroland Australia has accounted for 12% of the global company’s revenue over the past four years, ever since it was bought by German conglomerate, Possehl & Co.
Dunwell said the profit performance vindicates his business model of moving away from reliance on one-off machinery sales in favour of being a support business to his customers. Not that he is unhappy with the rate of press sales over the past 4 years. In this drupa year he believes there is every prospect of another sale or two from the Düsseldorf show, but because of the time it takes for presses to be manufactured, shipped and installed, they will likely feature in next year’s figures.
Part of the reason for being able to successfully move away from traditional equipment supply dynamics is the industry’s changing attitude towards contracted proactive maintenance as opposed to the traditional ‘break & fix’ model. Being able to monitor and schedule maintenance requirements not only increases a printing company’s efficiency, it also allows manroland to employ more service engineers. With an installed base of 78 web and over 200 sheetfed presses in the region, he has just hired two more service engineers to lift his total complement to 27 dedicated to service activities. This at a time when many press suppliers are contracting out service to freelance companies that have little in-depth understanding of the machines.
“If printers, assisted by services that optimise their presses, become more successful they will continue to invest, not only in new presses, but in the services we offer,” reflects Dunwell.
More market share
manroland’s printcom business is mostly centred on the web press sector where manroland web systems have unassailable market dominance in the local market. With colour catalogues still enjoying growth, you have to go back a long way to find a sale other than manroland in the local commercial heatset web market. If last year was the first one for while without a major installation for manroland, it stands in stark contrast to the ongoing drought of the other manufacturers who haven’t sold a heatset web here for many years.
This local success is also reflected in the dominance of manroland web systems worldwide. Despite worldwide demand for commercial and newspapers large offset presses declining by 9% last year, manroland web systems actually increased its sales by 31%. This brought its turnover to €161 million representing 52% of the overall €310 million market. In the declining market this growth in sales figures can only come at the expense of competitors such as GOSS, KBA and Komori, etc.
Having centralized production to its single Augsburg plant, manroland web systems last year won a staggering 73% of the €180 million global commercial web press market. The embattled newspaper web press market is a harder task with many more competitors; especially in sectors where the German company has no competitive product, yet even here it had a leading 22% of the €130 million market last year.
There is little doubt that the newspaper sector will continue to decline, even as the commercial market appears to be steadying. Dunwell is confident there is still a strong demand for commercial, as well as some newspaper webs in Australia. Despite being able to rely on a sustainably profitable business in parts and services, he is still excited by the prospect of a couple of web sales in the near future.
That will certainly boost his bottom line in drupa-year 2016.
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