Business News
“We have the right PRINTVALUE solution before a problem even starts.”
Friday 15. October 2010 - Dr. Markus Rall talks about manrolands range of service
Printing companies expect perfect services from press manufacturers for the printing press, all its components, and the entire printing process. Today this means not just a well-functioning press, but quick, reliable service, process-compliant system components for a stabile printing process, seamless pressroom networking, and results-oriented consultation expertise. manroland brings all these activities together within the concept of PRINTVALUE.
manrolands PRINTVALUE offers a comprehensive range of services: on-site, supplying customers with original manufacturer spare and wear parts, and consumables of all kinds – always on time. The manroland service strategy ensures the sustained optimization of all production processes by reducing costs and increasing press efficiency. The resulting advantages for manroland customers are optimized servicing and maintenance of the complete pressline, as well as long-term planning and financial security. Today, printservices is helping printing companies in almost 200 countries around the world. Printcom offers comprehensive system competence gained from decades of experience and continuous research and development work. printnet is a single workflow solution offering computation, press control and networking from a single source. And printadvice is backed up by EUROGRAFICAs 35 years of experience as a consulting partner of the printing industry.
1. Dr. Rall, give us a summary of the PRINTVALUE offer.
Dr. Markus Rall: Our approach is simple: we guard against problems before they can even start. Our years of experience enable us to ensure that presses run at their optimum in tough day-to-day operations, and also provide a respectable profit. Because of PRINTVALUE weve long since established ourselves as a comprehensive supplier. We offer our customers not only press equipment, but look after the entire life and application cycle.
2. What do these kinds of services mean to customers?
Its always about money. High press reliability and preventing problems are essential for a profitable printing company. So our customers benefit from our preventative services thanks to higher press utilization, for example. Our printcom system components are developed and tested in our own laboratories. They ensure stabile, high-quality printing operations. printnet also ensures smooth handling, and printadvice gives our customers ideal support when they optimize their operations.
3. Whats your view on the subject of digital printing?
Weve always said that were following the subject closely. Were interested in partnerships in digital printing, and were on the right path, even if were not at a critical decision-making stage yet.
4. Whats on offer for sustained production?
PRINTVALUE enables companies to improve many things, even their ecological balance sheet. To take just one example, we offer sheet printing inks that are not only free of mineral oil, but which also use binding agents based on renewable natural resources. Or the fact that we dont use isopropyl alcohol in our dampening solutions – this means alcohol-free printing, which has been in our inventory for years. These examples extend all the way to printadvice planning services for the construction or reconstruction of printing plants. How do I integrate and make use of a heat cycle to conserve resources and in turn reduce carbon dioxide emissions? This is precisely where we offer extensive competence.
5. What other things are consultation services comprised of?
Decisions for the future are made in the present, and this is where we offer our expertise. As weve said, for us comprehensive service begins even before the investment in the press is made. The entire range of consultation services for sheetfed and web customers are brought together in printadvice, and this includes expert advice on investing, building planning, organization structure, management, systems design, and process optimization. EUROGRAFICA Systemplanungs GmbH, the competence behind the printadvice consultation services, has been a consultation and planning partner in the graphic arts industry for more than 35 years.
6. What sets manroland apart from other suppliers in this regard?
Cumulative experience makes the difference. Its the continuous, unwavering guarantee of reliability and high performance. To achieve this we had to create the necessary structures and bring the entire company in line with customer demands. Our customers appreciate that and see an increase in productivity in all their teams. And customer proximity plays a very important role: newly-founded or expanded sales and service companies in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, south-east Asia, and Turkey, for example, prove the point, which we take very seriously.
7. In a nutshell, what does printcom offer customers?
Simple. As a physicist, its what I always say: “Leave variables where they belong: in mathematics.” With printcom we ensure constants. printcom products and expertise provide a decisive advantage for print quality, productivity, and performance over the entire life cycle of the press system. This means higher productivity, reduced production costs, better print quality and overall higher press system availability.
8. Are printcom products more expensive than comparable pressroom products?
printcom products are excellent value for money, since theyre tested and certified in our own laboratories, and ensure consistent printing processes at the highest possible quality. Our customers trust us and honor the manroland seal of quality. This distinguishes us completely from dealers who simply sell, then resell products. We work closely with several select suppliers and are able to give our customers objective recommendations.
9. Everything from a single source – doesnt that scare the customer a little?
Quite the contrary. We concentrate on printing. This is our core competence. We win our customers over with outstanding products and services that help them throughout their business. We show them the best solutions, and they have always have lots of alternatives.
10. Why should someone sign a maintenance agreement?
Printing presses have to render consistent performance and high availability from the first day of production to the last. Preventative maintenance ensures the long-term preservation of performance and a high degree of press reliability. This can keep downtimes to a minimum. And thats a strong economic argument for any printing company, because only running presses make money. So a maintenance agreement offers companies production certainty at annual constants and calculable costs, with no surprises.
11. What are the demands made on services today?
Even today speed is everything. Our most important task is to help our customers immediately, without delay. Today we do that with TeleSupport, ready 24/7, and we often provide support remotely. More than 600 manroland sheetfed presses, for example, are equipped with TelePresence, meaning theyre able to benefit from remote diagnosis. But this is just one aspect of the whole. Our customers are in a field of competition that is getting tougher, and they have to get the maximum from their presses. On the one hand that means press availability, but on the other an increase in productivity by optimizing the entire process. printservices offers upgrades via maintenance, as well as spare parts and training; everything thats necessary for a performance-oriented business operation.
12. What does printservices do for performance over the press life cycle?
Our retrofittable upgrades give our customers the possibility to take part in current advances. These are modules with various functions. While software upgrades or ink mist extraction, for example, can increase the overall performance of a press, upgrades like our InlineCoaster smart are aimed at increasing the range of applications of a press. For packaging printers, upgrades that enable them to comply with new certification regulations, such as those that apply to food packaging, for example, are important. Whats also important for a printing companys performance is the faster and improved supply of spare and wear parts. As in the web offset sector, weve introduced the manroland STORE in the sheetfed sector, an online ordering portal specifically designed for our customers. Were in the rollout phase, and the first customers are now connected and others will follow shortly. Its already getting very positive feedback. This is where wear parts are listed in a single catalog that is specifically put together for each of a customers presses. The results: significant time savings and convenience.
13. Networking is still a hot topic; what does printnet have to offer?
printnet makes printing faster. printnets network and integration offering accelerates a printing companys processes thanks to significantly increased workflow performance. From data acceptance and graphics processing, to prepress and the mailroom, printnet offers a unique end-to-end solution, in addition to highly efficient solutions that cover everything from networking to full automation. We intentionally make use of open standards and can integrate special systems and software solutions of third parties into our productive data handling. This open system architecture creates for our customers outstanding flexibility combined with superior process control.
14. Where is the printer profession headed?
Its certainly true that printers used to have other tools and therefore other tasks compared to today. This also applies to secretaries or surveyors. The organizational and monitored share of work is increasing. The printer today operates modern computer systems to control the press. His focus is on ensuring and increasing productivity through the optimum utilization of all the possibilities offered by engineering technology. Print has to reposition itself within a multi-media market, and place itself at the disposal of the market with improved business and production processes. Meeting this challenge is what makes PRINTVALUE services, in addition to ideas and technology, so very important.