PR & News

The insolvency administrator of manroland AG i.I., Werner Schneider, and the L. Possehl & Co. mbH, Lübeck, signed the contract for the acquisition of the web offset press business located in Augsburg. Therefore, the continuation of the business is long-term assured.

The business taken over by Possehl is to be conducted in the newly founded “manroland web systems GmbH”. Uwe Lüders, Chairman of the Board of the Possehl group, preliminary takes over the management of the company.

Uwe Lüders is being supported by a management team of five. Peter Kuisle, Vice President Sales for many years, leads the service and sales divisions, complemented by the technical division led by Dieter Betzmeier. Franz Gumpp is responsible for the production and purchasing division. Company development and human resources management are carried on by Dr. Daniel Raffler. Dirk Rauh is in charge of the financial department. With this management team the new company stands for a high degree of stability and experience as well as innovations.

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The privately owned British engineering group, Langley Holdings plc, has emerged as the investor behind the takeover of the sheet fed printing equipment division, its production facilities (including all real estate in Offenbach), together with the international marketing organization in more than 40 countries. 

„I am very pleased with the solution which will provide a long-term perspective to the Offenbach location and the sheet fed printing business”, said Werner Schneider, Insolvency Administrator. Roughly 840 future employees in Offenbach will be taken over according to the present staff planning. In addition, Langley takes over the international marketing organization.

„ Tony Langley, sole shareholder of the Langley Group, is well known as a long term investor who acts strategically. We are convinced that a lasting perspective has been found for manroland’s sheet fed printing business“, Schneider continues.

 „We foresee very good economic prospects for manroland sheetfed following the recent re-structuring…” said Tony Langley, “…this is a world-class business with an ...

The creditors’ committee under the guidance of provisional insolvency administrator Werner Schneider and chief representative of manroland Dr. Frank Kebekus was able to reach an amicable solution for an investor concept in the course of the company’s insolvency proceedings. During the meeting, which took place on Wednesday in Augsburg, the solution to divide the company into three independent units turned out to be the preferred solution. “Our shared goal was to place the company in the hands of investors who are interested in its long-term, independent continuation”, Werner Schneider explained after the meeting. He cited the existing operating concepts, the planned absorption of employees, as well as the rapid implementation of sales contracts as the main criteria guiding the committee’s decision.

According to the concept, the Augsburg site (webfed printing systems), will be sold to the Possehl Group. The family business from Lübeck in Northern Germany also plans to establish long-term supplier relationships with the manroland factory in Plauen in order to secure full capacity at that site. Prospects of a subsequent share in the Plauen f ...

PrintCity members Sun Chemical, UPM, manroland, Trelleborg and Sappi, plus alliance partners Fujifilm, GMG and Hammesfahr, have published an important new report on Process Colour Standardisation.

Process Colour Standardisation – Synopsis

The report is a guideline to better understand and use standardised process printing and workflow optimisation. PrintCity project members have shared their combined competencies to help implement standardisation, plus improve quality, consistency and productivity in offset printing. An important part of this project was the case study on PSO implementation and certification at the printer Hammesfahr in Germany.

Key topics in this extensive new comprehensive reference for all designers, printers, packagers and print buyers include:

• Introduction: Colour Management; Standards, Specifications and Implementation; Certification, Key Control Parameters; Measuring Devices and Software Tools, Frequently Asked Questions, Glossary
• Key Influences on Quality: Print Job Preparation & Design; GCR; PDF/X; Proofing system; Plates & Processing; Press ...
  

Bella Italia has become even more beautiful – in particular, this applies to two northern Italian printing houses. This is where new manroland sheetfed presses took up operation. Grafiche Antiga now uses a ROLAND 700 DirectDrive, while Print Duemila installed a ROLAND 900. The new printing systems allow these customers to expand their production capacities.

Located roughly 50 kilometers northwest of Venice, Grafiche Antiga is one of northern Italy’s most prominent graphic arts industry operations. To increase its capacities, the printing house invested for the third time in a ROLAND 700, this time in an eight-color perfector press of the DirectDrive generation. It replaces a competitor’s press. To remain internationally competitive, Grafiche Antiga offers its customers a wide range of products that are entirely produced in-house. For its more than 1000 customers, Grafiche Antiga processes 6,500 tons of paper in approximately 10,000 print jobs annually, producing advertising and publication print products as well as packaging.

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The Web Offset Champion Group (WOCG) are releasing some of its best practice guides in downloadable formats, and introducing accompanying posters. The first titles in this format are “Roll to Web Processing” and “Web break Diagnosis”.

The 36-page guides are available in two versions a screen-consultable format with 2-pages to view, or as a downloadable printing file.

“Our goal with this initiative is to make best practice information widely available to the global printing industry,” said Prof. Tim Claypole, joint managing director of WOCG. He adds “the downloadable posters are a unique new complimentary format. Their content has been developed from the guides and provides at-a-glance reference to key practices. The PDF format allows for them to be printed on either digital proofing systems or by other digital printing in a format that can range up to A1 size.”

These Posters and Guides are available in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian editions. ...

At the end of 2011 the strong Chinese printing market lived up to its reputation with printing companies busily ordering printing systems from manroland. In 2011 China once again proved to be by far manroland’s largest single sheetfed offset market ahead of Germany and Brazil. The trend towards high-end presses and Value Added Printing thus continues in China.

In China manroland has a tradition for being a markedly strong brand and customers’ trust in the Offenbach sheetfed printing presses continues to be very high. Now, just before the Chinese New Year on 23 January 2012, the level of investments reaches a peak. This is proved by three large orders summing up to an amount within the lower double-digit millions euro range. It is the ROLAND 700 HiPrint, often with a coating unit, that has been ordered especially frequently for years. Moreover manroland’s large-format presses are coveted in China.

With ROLAND 700 on the way to the leading printing company
Jiangsu Post Printing Factory in Changzhou City, a town in the West of China, has relied on manroland for 15 years. That’s why for the expansion of the machinery park ...

Vision in Print (ViP) is delighted to announce their contribution of Lean Process Improvement Expertise to the PrintCity Alliance for their drupa 2012 Lean and Green visitor attraction and project.

Drupa visitors will find a special information area for Lean & Green Opportunities at PrintCity in the centre of Hall 6. This special zone will have a focus on improving economic & environmental performance. It will be manned by a range of environmental, sustainability & business efficiency experts from many international organisations, to answer questions and give advice on good practice.

In addition, ViP are contributing to the PrintCity Lean & Green project report — Making The Print Value Chain Greener & Leaner, and will be speaking at the Joint WPCF - PrintCity International Environmental Conference at drupa on May 10, 2012.

Jean-Paul Wheater of UK-based Vision in Print comments, “ViP welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with PrintCity at drupa 2012, in raising awareness that becoming Lean and Green is not just a matter of compliance or ethics. It is a real opportunity to be seized, to i ...

The prospects of a successful investors' agreement for the insolvent manroland AG have improved further. Auditor Werner Schneider of the law firm of Schneider, Geiwitz & Partner has conducted numerous negotiations with interested parties in the  past few days. "We now have parties seriously interested in all three production sites in Augsburg, Offenbach and Plauen, with whom we are involved in ongoing negotiations," Schneider said, elaborating on the current status.

The ultimate aim continues to be the selling of key company segments by the end of the current insolvency proceedings on January 31, 2012 in order to ensure continued operations and to save as many jobs as possible. Given the promising interest of potential buyers, this remains a feasible aim. "However, nothing has been signed yet," Schneider added. Within this context he also thanked the representatives of the works council for their excellent cooperation and their constructive collaboration towards a quick selling solution. ...

The latest edition of PrintCity’s Webline magazine, edition winter 2011 / spring 2012, is now published and celebrates 10 years of success in the web printing market. Participating PrintCity Alliance members are manroland, MEGTEC, Océ, Procemex, Sun Chemical and UPM.

Featured Webline Articles

The headline title for this latest Webline magazine edition is Tune-Up Your Web Press, setting the scene for the shared PrintCity Alliance web printing hot topic attractions at drupa in 2012. This edition includes the following articles:

• Upgrades & Retrofits/Print Quality Audit/SUM-IT Training/Remote Web Monitoring
• Digital Meets Offset Power
• UWWO (Ultra Wide Web Offset) Installations
• VAPoN (Value Added Printing of Newspapers) Case Studies
• New PrintCity project reports available
• Joint WPCF/PrintCity drupa Environmental Conference – May 10, 2012

Webline Magazine Pedigree

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