manroland web systems opens
horizon full of new prospects
Broadening integration of digital press applications
Just when it appears everyone in the industry is keeping fingers crossed about the
shrinking of the printed newspapers market, manroland web systems discards all fear
and speculation by bringing a sigh of relief as its presses of varied configurations
now crack a new dawn of fresh business prospects. Such advantages are revealed by
Timothy Ruth, Vice President Sales Americas, Africa and Asia Pacific, manroland
web offset systems GmbH, Augsburg (Germany) in an exclusive conversation with
All About Newspapers editor SK Khurana in New Delhi, flanked by Erich Wagner,
Deputy Vice President, Sales India, USA and Canada, manroland web systems GmbH
(Germany) and Pankaj Bhasin, Managing Director, manroland India Pvt. Ltd.
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Even though manroland
web presses keep carving
a persistent entry into
varied printing domains, its
long-established presence in the
‘newspapers’ arena, according
to Timothy Ruth, will linger
to be the focused area in the
Indian printing market. Having
a quick run through of their
highly demanded Newspaper
web offset press portfolio of
COLORMAN e:line, GEOMAN,
UNISET, CROMOMAN 4-1
and 2x1, Timothy points out
CROMOMAN 4-1 as the
most important and suitably
engineered web offset press for
the Indian newspaper market.
“We have already installed two
of the presses at The Times of
India (Pune, Kolkata) and we
sold presently one CROMOMAN
4-1 to Namasthe Telangana.
About the fate of printed
newspapers, which many predict
coming to an end in near future,
Timothy is very positive about
the Indian market as he could
see movement in the segment.
“Customers in India are now in
the mode of investing in new
machines; for this, we are here
and always ready with our local
market organisation manroland
India to help them with cordial
support from Germany,” he
mentions. To this point, Erich
Wagner adds that they are in
several discussions about new
press projects.
Commercial side
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The Indian Market
is still a growth
market in the
midsize range
of newspaper
publishers and is
in the focus of
manroland web
systems.
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Being the worldwide leader
in commercial web printing,
manroland web systems boasts
its LITHOMAN and ROTOMAN
presses running successfully in
this domain at global levels. “In
India, as we see and understand
about the current commercial
printing market is that customers
predominantly demand used
presses; we look into this and
trying to take up relevant strategies,”
says Timothy. The company’s
portfolio of commercial web
presses viz. ROTOMAN (16
page), EUROMAN (32 and 48
page), LITHOMAN (32, 48,
64, 72, 80 and 96 pages) are
perfectly designed and developed
for magazines, catalogues and
the like. For example, a 96-page
LITHOMAN prints 4.3 million
A4 pages per hour and this is
a serious alternative to Gravure
Printing.
Digital segment is yet another
domain where manroland
web systems is now giving
a deeper penetration; digital
majors like Hewlett Packard
(HP), Canon and Kodak are
partnering with the company
in the venture. In this, Timothy
mentions the company’s flexible
finishing solutions, as they are
FormerLine and FoldLine. “With
the FormerLine we pay critical
attention on the Book Printing
market of India, which is big
and now gaining a momentum
and the FormerLine enables the
user to acquire new markets for
Perfect Bind Products such as
brochures, books, magazines and
catalogues”, he remarks. The
FormerLine follows the trend
of batch production, meaning
that different titles or editions
are processed automatically
without stopping the system for
changeovers.
“With the FoldLine we have
a multivariable pin-folder for
newspaper production for small
circulation upto 50,000 copies.
We have just started a FoldLine
at a company named Mengis in
Switzerland which prints over
30,000 local Newspapers a night.
The FoldLine can be flexibly
used for different applications.
From Newspaper to Commercial
products like flyers or brochures
and for Book production, too.
Due to this flexibility it is the
ideal production system for
local print providers,” mentions
Timothy.
Retrofitting and
relocations
Almost half of the total revenue
of manroland web systems comes
out of services. “Retrofitting,
servicing and upgrading existing
presses take up a big contribution
to our business,” says Timothy,
citing some good examples of
big projects they have completed
in the recent past. manroland
web systems has just closed
a landmark project of Fairfax
Media Group in Australia, one
of the most diversified media
companies in the continent,
operating news papers,
magazines, radio, digital media
and others extensively covering
up to New Zealand. “Fairfax
Media Group recently closed
some of their print sites and put
them together on another site;
we helped them to complete
the project. Even some of
their presses in Australia
were shifted to New Zealand,”
mentions Timothy, adding that
manroland web systems has
been working with the group
for a number of projects
over the last one and a half
year, carrying out retrofitting,
transporting, combining two
different press types and many
other tasks of such kind. In
context of the Indian market,
he says similar trend has
also been picking up in the
country, “Leading dailies like
The Times of India, Hindustan
Times keep on upgrading their
existing machines from time
to time.”
Pankaj mentions about
manroland India’s routine
check-ups of obsolete parts and
timely updates of their 10-15
years old machines running in
the production facilities of some
big newspaper houses around
the country. “This is an ongoing
activity of manroland India,” he
says, citing an example of a
recent relocation job in which
the team of technicians from
manroland India successfully
relocated a few towers from a
facility in Mumbai to another one
in New Delhi. There are around
170 manroland web offset towers
running productively in India.
Service support system
Excellence and expertise of
manroland web systems go
further than the company’s
high - end web presses.
Service support system of the
company is highly appreciated
throughout the industry,
globally. A team of wellqualified
technicians, trained
in Germany and elsewhere in
the world, is looking after the
press installations all around.
Pankaj says a full-fledged team
of engineers available in India
for service support
system consists of
highly experienced
professionals,
which include
veterans having
over 30 years
of experience
in the industry.
“Perhaps, this is
the unique position
of manroland India,
which none of our
competitors in the
market could come up to this
way,” he asserts.
“There was a point of time when
the service support system team
in India was totally German
technicians. But today, I’m
proud and satisfied with the
fact that up to 95 percent of
the jobs is done by the Indian
engineers, except the last stage
check by the German engineers,
particularly on software parts,”
says Pankaj. To this, Timothy
adds that manroland web systems
has put a lot of effort in training
technicians at local market
organisations to keep them
updated and trained at worldclass
level for letting them
engage in installation jobs in
any part of the world or those
regions closer to India. The team
of manroland India technicians
was recently deputed to install a
COLORMAN e:line in Nairobi.
According to Timothy, “We
believe that there is the need
of local engineers as it will
not always be possible for
technicians from Germany to fly
often for every single installation
project in far-off locations
around the globe.” Throughout
the world, manroland web
systems has a string of local
market organisations based in
different countries, namely,
India, Australia, UK and US.
Timothy explains that local
technicians are required to fulfil
the needs of local customers to
the utmost satisfactory level,
whether it could be installation
of a commercial or cold set
newspaper press.
Indian market context
When the nature of the current
Indian newspaper market is
studied, presses running for
30,000 to 45,000 cph are
popular among medium and
small newspapers at regional
levels. “Our CROMOMAN 2-1
is developed for high outputs
and full automations; it could
run up to 70,000 cph; so it may
be oversize and too expensive
for the customers running for
35,000 to 45000 cph,” mentions
Timothy.
Eying what could
be possible in
future, he remarks,
“Yes, we were
thinking about
developing a 2-1
press that may
perfectly fit into
the Indian market
as well as other
markets. But we
keep hold the
initiative for the
time being since we need to
know and observe the pulse and
size of the market first. Then,
if the market is speeding up
or picking up, why shouldn’t
we immediately go for such
press. In addition we will also
explore if the FoldLine can be
a solution.”
Contract printing is one of
the lucrative activities in the
present newspaper market
of India. Many contr act
printers are burning midnight
oil to churn supplements or
whole newspapers, tabloids,
weeklies based out of big
or small cit ies for other
publishers. The Indian Market
is still a growth market in the
midsize range of newspaper
publishers and is in the focus
of manroland web systems.
“Our press portfolio will help
the clients to grow in their
home markets significantly,”
mentions Pankaj. In this, he adds
digital printing using FormerLine
and FoldLine could provide a
comfortable solution to dealing
production of lesser number of
newspaper copies.
New attractions
As innovations always being
main forte of manroland web
systems, some of the latest
inflows in the digital realm
include the further developing of
FormerLine and FoldLine, which
they consider top priority and
something they would like to
give a special highlight at drupa
2016 in Duesseldorf. Newer line
of software will also be among
the new attractions from the
company at the international
expo. “In our automations and
workflow management, we have
our Inline Control Systems for
both newspaper and commercial
presses; our complete workflow
system is operative through MIS
system,” explains Timothy.
Since the spotlight on new
attractions from manroland web
systems at drupa will beam
upon software, an update on
COLORMAN e:line for higher
level of automation may turn
out to be a crowd puller at the
show. The company’s race towards
persistent updates on automations
and workflow management has
fresh advantages in many ways,
particularly in the Indian market.
In the recent past, when the Wage
Board increased labour charges
steeply to a new height, directly
affecting the cost of production of
newspaper houses, automation,
would be the ultimate costeffective
measure to save the
day in such market situation.
Word of wisdom
Observing the constant growth
in both the printed newspaper
and commercial printing
segments in India, Timothy
articulates, “The newspaper
market of India is still a huge
and potential sector; in order
to make it flourish, printers
need to be creative with their
products as there are a lot of
possibilities to make printed
newspapers attractive to readers
as well as advertisers.” Then
his word of wisdom for the
commercial segment goes
on, “When you compare to
other countries, commercial
printing in India is moving
up with a lot to be exploited
in book printing and retail
spheres.” He thus pledges
that manroland web systems
is always ready to help in
this affair as their presses
bring a lot of flexibilities
and possibilities in both
newspaper and commercial
printing parameters. “I see a
very positive development all
around which we can bring it
together,” Timothy assures.
