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| Interview |
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By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor
WhatTheyThink spent time with MAN Roland’s North American CEO, Yves Rogivue, always an interesting interviewee, to get his perspective on the state of the company and the state of the industry as we approach Print ’05. This two-part interview covers: Part One:
Part Two:
WTT: Yves, first of all, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today amidst your busy preparations for the upcoming show. It was encouraging to see the printing machines division of MAN identified as a core focus for the parent company, but honestly, is the outlook for the printing machines business really all that rosy? YR: Together with many colleagues, I met with Mr. Samuelsson, the new chairman of the MAN Group, early this year. Shortly after he took office, he invited the top management of the MAN Group companies to a work session where he shared his vision for the future of the company: A focus on five core divisions – trucks, printing machines, diesel engines, turbo and industrial services and a push to all his divisions to meet or do better than competitors’ performance. He made his expectations very clear, including challenging financial performance ratios which have to be reached by 2007: 18% return on capital investment and 6% return on sales. To answer your question in regards to printing, while things are not rosy, business is definitely looking up. MAN Roland’s order income group-wide is up over 40% compared to the same period in 2004 and our North American Sheet Fed division has recorded almost 30% more orders compared to an already strong performance in the first half of our highly successful drupa year 2004. Our industry is driven by advertising, which in turn is very closely linked to the state of the economy. Our North American economy has rebounded which gives advertising a very well needed boost. Business for our customers is up. We are bullish. WTT: What role does maintenance, service and support, and parts play in your business? YR: Maintenance and support goes hand in hand with the equipment business. We supply technology which promises uptime and takes cost and labor out of our customers’ business to make them more profitable. With that promise comes our responsibility of creating a support infrastructure that can deliver and warrant that uptime. This has always been a critical requirement on the newspaper side of our business - if a newspaper press goes down and your newspaper is not on your doorstep in the morning, that is a catastrophe. And as the market leader in the supply of newspaper systems we are proud to say that this has not happened as of yet. Today in the markets of book, commercial and packaging printing, you need to give the same type of 24x7 support with a qualified human voice at the other end of the line, not just an answering machine. That includes 24x7 support on spare parts. As a result, over the past four years, MAN Roland has heavily invested in people and technology. As you might have heard, our company has recently won a PIA/GATF 2005 InterTech Technology award for TelePresence, our remote press diagnosis system that enables MAN Roland’s Rapid Response Team experts to troubleshoot any press, monitor the press system’s vital signs in real time, and provide detailed error reports that map out the historical performance of the press. WTT: I understand you have recently had some interaction with Bruce James, the Public Printer. YR: We have visited one of our customers together last week. Valassis, located in Durham NC, was recently named to IndustryWeek's "50 Best Manufacturing Companies" list for the second consecutive year. They have four 64-page LithoMAN presses, each the size of a house. From where the paper rolls come in and the finished product goes out, everything is robotized. It is a very lean, mean and clean manufacturing environment. In the heart of their command center stands a Printnet-PECOM workstation, where operators set up print jobs around the clock. This CIM manufacturing concept is exactly the approach we are preaching for web and sheetfed printers, no matter what size. I was delighted to get the opportunity to take Bruce James to visit this outstanding company. I love our Public Printer’s vision of taking the GPO into the 21 st Century. WTT: Are "long" perfecting sheetfed presses eating into the market for selling new webs? YR: Long perfecting sheetfed presses consist of presses with 8, 10 and 12 units, often equipped with InLine roll-sheeters, providing them with great flexibility. We have delivered quite an impressive number of 8- and 10-color presses into the North American market and 12-color presses into other markets of the world. Long perfectors are definitely a trend. Nevertheless I also see a corresponding trend into “Bigger is Better”: If you are looking at a 10-color 40-inch press, you can alternatively consider a 5-color 56-inch press with an inline slitter and pile turner that will allow you to produce double the amount of 40” product using the same finishing line as before. On top of that, due to recent automation in technology, you can operate a large press with the same number of people you would need to run a 40-inch press. We see the trend moving to 56”, 64” and even 73” presses, especially as more printers add book printing and/or packaging to their product mix. I do not see long perfecter sheetfed printing presses “eating” into the commercial print market nor vice versa. Our success on the commercial web front with our RotoMAN and LithoMAN technology is mind blowing. As on the sheet fed side, the commercial web printers are also under pressure to “do more with less,” to run their manufacturing operation in the leanest and most cost efficient manner possible. And that’s exactly where our technology hits: more throughput, more uptime, less cost. For more information, visit www.manroland.com Search the industry's largest archives for Man Roland This Interview was conducted by Cary Sherburne. She can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463. -- Click here to tell us what you think about this premium feature 
Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Cary Sherburne was the Vice President of Marketing Communications and Outsourcing Solutions at IKON Office Solutions. In that capacity, she developed and implemented a branding campaign to build brand awareness for IKON in the marketplace as well as enhance employee pride in the organization, and was responsible for all internal and external communications, including trade shows and events, corporate newsletters, and industry and press relations. In the outsourcing role, she set strategic objectives and priorities for IKON’s product and services portfolio in its Outsourcing businesses, including development of programs and sales support materials for that environment. Sherburne was a Director at CAP Ventures, an internationally known firm specializing in market research and strategic consulting for the digital document and print on demand industry, before joining IKON, where she launched and managed the company’s Document Outsourcing Consulting Service. Her tenure in the printing and publishing industry has also included sales and marketing positions at Xerox Corporation, Indigo America and Bitstream. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and a recognized author. Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463. |
August 8, 2005 -- MAN Roland has been much in the news lately, from its participation in the “