Business News
manroland passes a package of measures to safeguard its future
Friday 23. January 2009 - The Supervisory Board of manroland AG has today approved the package of measures proposed by the Executive Board to increase the companys competitiveness and has instructed the Executive Board to conclude agreements for a balancing of interests and a social plan.
The package covers the cutting of 515 jobs in indirect functions in the Sheetfed Press Business Sector and 110 jobs in indirect functions in the Web Press Business Sector over the years 2009 and 2010, as well as closing the Mainhausen factory and integrating the product lines assembled there into the main sheetfed press factory in Offenbach.
The objective of the personnel adjustments is to comply with the existing supplementary wage agreement and thus do without redundancy due to business operations. To safeguard the companys long-term performance, manroland must align factory and fixed cost structures and thus its cost basis to the difficult situation. Constructive discussions have commenced with the employees representatives.
At the same time manroland works intensely on the expansion of the services and system components business, as well as successful positioning groundbreaking products in the field. Some examples are the autoprint technologies for fully automated newspaper production, the press solutions for high volume magazine and catalogue printing (LITHOMAN), and value-adding components in the sheetfed sector such as cold foil laminating with the ROLAND InlineFoiler or the DirectDrive technology.
manroland has been seriously affected by the reluctance of customers to invest due to the financial crisis and recession. The Groups order intake in the 2008 fiscal year declined by around 20 percent compared with the previous year. However, manroland still managed a positive operating result in the 2008 fiscal year. The company already reacted in good time to the economic downturn following the declining order intake since July 2008 in the sheetfed printing systems sector and introduced short-time working on 1 October 2008 – for both production areas and administration – at the Offenbach and Mainhausen locations. Due to the ongoing decline in orders, short-time working has meanwhile been extended and will also start for the Augsburg web press operations in March 2009.
manroland has 8,656 employees worldwide (as of 31 December 2008). At the production sites in Germany, 2,494 people are employed in Offenbach, 285 in Mainhausen, 3,055 in Augsburg and 890 in Plauen, with a further 1,932 employed in subsidiary companies in Germany and abroad.