Discussion

By Erik Nikkanen on Jan 22, 2009

I have said this before, press manufacturers would rather go bankrupt than look at new ideas and fundamental concepts. I had meant that to be related to press design but it seems to be true with respect to some manufacturing concepts. What century do they think they are in? Having large inventories of pre-made parts is so past tense. What about JIT thinking. Make the parts when they are needed.

So it now seems that besides the fact that they do not want to make fundamentally different technology based on new thinking, they also don't seem to understand important business issues.

Maybe the report is not totally correct, but I am getting the sense that a disaster is coming.

 

By Andy McCourt on Jan 22, 2009

Erik,
I'd love to disagree with you, Heidelberg still is the bell-weather of our industry; if HBG does well, we all do. But in my heart I think you are closer to being right, unless a 'white knight' does indeed inject that 'low three-digit million (Euro) amount'. That means 100 to 500 million Euro I guess. If any Russian Oligarch, Oil Sheikh or Chinese quasi-state run investor does, they will be getting a slice of a great, great engineering company at a bargain price. The Handelsblatt article indicates the European banks are less than interested. I believe the no-compete agreement with Kodak on digital expires in March 2009 or thereabouts. If Heidelberg can ramp up or partner in a digital initiative soon after that, it could save the company. Making more, faster and bigger offset presses, alas, will not no matter how excellent they are. Maybe Hartmut Medhorn was right after all...he just needed a little more time, continued R&D and for investors to keep their nerve. He now runs the German railways, Die Bahn. Just 2 weeks ago he said:
"Precisely because worldwide economic growth is being assessed so skeptically, we must have the courage to invest in the future," Medhorn said. "Efficient, high-capacity transportation systems require a state-of-the-art vehicle fleet with energy-savings trains that can be flexibly combined and driven."
What kind of Heidelberg would we be looking at if he was applying this thinking to the firm today?

 

By Ralf Schlozer on Jan 23, 2009

Having worked for one I agree with Erik's view that offset press manufacturers are risk averse and rather procrastinate (or make too little steps) in the face of an ever shrinking market. But I probably would not blame for starting production on presses they sold at drupa but for which the orders got cancelled.

Heidelberg is a bargain - if somebody wants great heavy metal engineering technology and the best directory of printing companies around.
Unfortunately Heidelberg did not have the patience to make Mehdorn's acquisitions work - also not the guts to cannibalise some of their own products to get into growing markets. It did not helped that the former owner of RWE wanted to disinvest at that time and needed a short term profitable company.
So what would be if Hartmut Mehdorn would be still running Heidelberg? An ever delayed privatisation and the presses would always be late. ;-)

 

By Dr Joe Webb on Jan 23, 2009

George Alexander's translation is at http://www.beyond-print.de/site/content/en/channel_news/news_0785.html?fromRss=true

It is quite interesting that HP's graphics performance has been so strong as noted in its earnings reports, in stark contrast to the Heidelberg news. The company has stumbled greatly. The culminating event for me was its stock buyback which was around 33Euros per share, and now shares are around 1/9 or 1/10th of that. It was a horrid use of resources at the time, and looks worse now. A few months ago, they were concerned that Russian investors would take over the company; since oil prices collapsed, that's not likely any more. Nearly every earnings report for the past few years has cited declines in advertising spending as their reason for difficulties. The media shift has barely been acknowledged or understood by the company. At the time they complained that ad spending was down, advertising employment was increasing as agencies were building e-campaigns and infrastructures for their clients.

Now that things are this bad, any reluctance to merge with another press manufacturer will probably disappear and instead would be encouraged by the German government. I doubt that the company is a bargain for acquisition. Negative cash flow, inventory significantly out of balance, and an inability to get costs down ahead of the decline in sales, are not very attractive. Things may actually have to get worse before a buyer would want to jump in and save the day.

As for Heidelberg being a bellwether of our industry, that time is past. The process mix is changing radically. The company sold the wrong businesses, and stayed in the part of the print business most likely to be negatively affected by digital media and digital printing.

I miss the old Heidelberg just like I miss the old Kodak, 3M, DuPont graphic arts film and proofing divisions. They were considered bellwethers, too. It breaks my heart to read these Heidelberg stories, though I never had any direct connection with the company other than to speak at some events once or twice. Everyone knew someone from Heidelberg, and the legends of their post-WW2 craft-trained sales force's relationships with their customers were basically all true.

But it reminds me of the story of the makes of the great boats when the steamships came to market. Their answer was to make bigger ships with bigger sails.

 

By Dan Kreppein on Jan 23, 2009

I can't help but think that Heidelberg's entry into VLF is like Ford's disastrous attempt to compete with the Chevy Suburban. They spent a ton to develop a product where there was already a dominant player and did it for a market segment that is fairly small.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 23, 2009

There are two thing that really catch my eye about lessons to learn.

Ralf said,. . .also not the guts to cannibalise some of their own products to get into growing markets.

Dr Webb said . . . and the legends of their post-WW2 craft-trained sales force’s relationships with their customers were basically all true.

New customer acquisition is going to be slow and expensive. I hope the signal breaks through the noise for some other household brands in the industry.

Meanwhile, maybe Heidelberg is looking at Printed Electronics as a possible growth market for sheetfed offset?

 

By Ralf Schlozer on Jan 23, 2009

Heidelberg has some investments there. But they could either reinvent themselves and focus on being the best equipment manufacturer for printed electronics and focus all resources on that (which dismissing anyting else mid term) - or do a bit of business in that market with a few ressources spared from other units (and produce something slightly adapted to electronics based on general press components)
The first approach is a gamble, but could pay off hugely. The second will have minimal results on the bottom line. Which one will HO take?

 

By Rob on Jan 23, 2009

Funny, you never hear about companies like Komori having these issues.

They build great machines, whose reliability and productivity are legendary, and they are profitable.

Their customers are satisfied...and profitable.

That is rocket science!

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 23, 2009

Ralf,

Given that it seems that printing solar panels might go mainstream, sooner rather than later and Heidelberg must have lots of unused capacity, both physical and intellectual, that might be the new growing market they need.

You have to believe there will be an explosive demand for printed solar panels. Sirgey Brin, of Google fame, invested in a start up that is doing exactly that now. From what I think I remember I read, they are already up to capacity selling mostly in European markets. And will probably go public at some point.

 

By George Alexander on Jan 23, 2009

I think printed electronics is a promising market, but before we prescribe it as the salvation for Heidelberg, let's remember that most of the commercial production in this (young) field so far is not sheet-fed, is not printed by offset, and is not being done by companies from the printing industry.

That doesn't sound like such a great fit for Heidelberg, and I'm not optimistic that it could be the key to a turnaround.

 

By Ralf Schlozer on Jan 23, 2009

thanks George, that is what I mean.
This market is potentially huge, but will a modified Speedmaster be able to be the most efficient production method?
There is a lot of precision coating knowledge at HD (this is also called printing), but i do not believe a slight tweak will do. And if you want to breakout of a home market, you really want to focus resources and go through difficult times (like with digital print)

Btw. the latest financial report from Komori I could find is from 2006. Remember that was when Lehman Brothers still made billions.

 

By Vito on Jan 23, 2009

Maybe all the "Heidelberg to Buy Agfa" rumors will invert themselves and come true. Heidelberg was too often the price leader in the market, and their parts and service costs to the customer are legendary. Of course, some of those same problems are true of Agfa. But at least Bayer may have some money to throw down if they wanted.

And then they'll let Screen buy them out.

 

By Rob on Jan 23, 2009

2008 Komori has over $400 million in the bank, Invested in expanding what is now the largest, most advanced Printing Press Manufacturing plant on the planet (Tsukuba).

They emerged from Japan's financial woes of the 80's and 90's, and learned the necessary lessons on how to not only survive, but prosper through best practices. All the while maintaining best in class position through all product lines.

Referencing Lehman Brothers has no relevance, other than to expose just how far ahead Komori is compared to everyone else.

Remember the facts...Komori sells more 40" presses in North America than anyone else, with technology that far exceeds thier competitors.

You just have to get beyond the marketing.

 

By Rick Littrell on Jan 23, 2009

Many great comments above, but it seems the bottom line is that Heidelberg does not have any products that are in growth markets and have too many products that are targeted at declining markets. Their focus on sheetfed offset and workflow will not save them. They have good, if not great products in those areas, but their infrastructure can not be supported by the revenue that they produce from them. Their short sightedness relating to digital imaging systems may end up being their downfall. They have no digital presses that are toner or inkjet base (not to mention that they have little IP in that area) and they have nothing to show in wide format. An OEM strategy in those areas will be short term at best, but will not provide enough profit given their overhead. Can they survive long term by focusing on servicing existing installed base, I doubt it. Will replacement market save them, I doubt it. Will merging with Agfa be a long term solution, I doubt it. They are a heavy metal manufacturer, which is their core expertise, that has not been able to evolve given the reality of the New World of Communications. Without a significant upheaval in their infrastructure and business mentality, I fear that they will only be a memory to the next generation of printers/marketing communications solutions providers.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 23, 2009

Rick,

You raise an interesting point when you ask
"Can they survive long term by focusing on servicing existing installed base . ." Probably not just by selling supplies, etc.

But consider this:
I would assume that Heidelberg has deep connections with printers all over the world. Maybe there is a way they can leverage this investment in social capital to get new revenue streams.

One possibility is growing a global "distribute and print" network. Standards based printed anywhere on the planet. Membership comes with running a Hedielberg and being certified.

Given what I understand about their culture they would probably be best partnering with an ecommerce company to implement.But some of the best ones are in Sweden and/or Germany. Or maybe they should talk to Google or Amazon?

At any rate, they could work with local printers who are inventing new Print products that meet local needs. Product innovation usually happens when a successful use emerges in a local market, is modifed slightly in another and then scales.

Given their global network connections they should be able to focus on taking successful Print products in one part of the world and bringing it to another.

 

By George Alexander on Jan 23, 2009

I agree with Rick that Heidelberg was short-sighted in getting out of digital printing, but I don’t think Heidelberg sees it that way; nor is the company likely to move back into digital printing, even if an OEM deal made it possible to do so relatively quickly.

Two months ago, Heidelberg CEO Schreier spoke with Austrian journalist Knud Wasserman about the company’s decision to exit digital printing, and Schreier was adamant that the company had made the right choice. Here is a snippet:

Knud Wassermann: By exiting the digital-printing business, right when the market for sheet-fed presses is heading into decline, did Heidelberg sacrifice a bit of its future?

Bernhard Schreier: Even today, the growth rates for digital printing are lagging the predictions made at the turn of the century. Offset printing has by far the largest print volume of any printing method, and it continues to grow, even if it is only by 2-3% per year. It offers the best price/performance ratio with respect to quality, productivity, and length of print run. None of that will change, even in the long run.

(More of that interview, in which Schreier talks about the steps Heidelberg is taking to deal with the economic situation, is available at www.beyond-print.de/site/content/en/channel_news/news_0630.html)

 

By Henk Gianotten on Jan 23, 2009

Komori will be faced with troubles too. The stock was 2400 Yen a year ago, today they lost another 5% and are at 919.

 

By Andy McCourt on Jan 23, 2009

George,
Thanks for the insight to the Schreirer/Wasserman interview. He is right to say Offset still represents the largest print volume of any method, but did he forget that most of that is web, and Heidelberg exited that business when it sold the Harris/Hbg division to Goss? Drill down the numbers shown in the latest PIRA survey and, yes you do see growth in offset 2002-2007; and then a moderate decline 2007-2012. Coupled with the huge growth in digital sheets and reels, the forecast is digital will be about line-ball with sheetfed (not web combined) offset by 2012.
As for digital growth rates lagging predictions at the turn of the century....technically correct but they are still astronomical compared to offset. Check the HP lead story just up on WTT. Check the PIRA forecast of over 100% growth in the value of digital print 2007-2012 -vs- 5.7% decline in offset. You can't keep your head in the sand forever, resolutely insisting on the superiority of a technology or methodology, no matter how true, when the entire world is voting with its cash for new technologies. It's a human tragedy but it's the world we live in. MP3 downloads are vastly inferior in quality to a Deutsche Gramaphon (sp?) recording of the Berlin Philharmonic played with a needle, but today, only enthusiasts represent a market for the latter.
Heidelberg needs some lightning-speed lateral thinking way outside of the square. A monetary bail-out is not enough because, when this financial crisis ends, the big investment dollars will be going into digital print networks more so than offset.

 

By Andrew Tribute on Jan 24, 2009

This is a very interesting discussion and there are many good points being made. The first point I feel is Heidelberg did the right thing in getting out of digital when it did, but it made the wrong decision in not continuing development of early work it carried out in the inkjet market. Its work in digital printing with the cooperation with Kodak for the Nexpress 2100 was deeply flawed, and the product while producing excellent quality was highly uncompetitive. Heidelberg created the problem by designing a press that worked more like an offset pres than a digital press. One can see today that while the the re-developed Kodak Nexpress range of presses are really impressive they only sell in small volumes and I'm sure don't make money for Kodak.

If you recall Heidelberg was a very early player in inkjet and at one time had a 6% share in Spectra. It showed at drupa 2000 the fastest monochrome single-pass inkjet printer. This never became a product. It was Heidelberg's lack of vision perhaps brought about by their failure with Nexpress that stopped them developing a high-speed inkjet business.If they had the sort of faith shown by Screen in their transition to an inkjet business, perhaps today Heidelberg would be a world leader in this area.

Having divested themselves of both digital and web offset businesses Heidelberg made what is proving to be a very poor decision to invest heavily into the offset VLF business. This is a relatively small market mainly in the packaging area, and has been well supplied by manroland and KBA. To expect a rapid ramp up of the VLF business following the launch of the new VLF presses at drupa was a poor decision and has been the main cause of today's problems. The Heidelberg investment in VLF has been huge with a major expansion of their manufacturing capacity. The plan of expanding in a contracting business into an area that was already well supported by excellent suppliers has shown itself to be a dangerous and so far unsuccessful gamble.

What is the answer? At this stage there really isn't one apart from an investment from outside at a bargain price for someone wanting to acquire a great distribution channel into the world print market, and acquire a superb engineering facility. Heidelberg has been building up its annuity business in the supply of consumables. This is particularly successful in SE Asia where it is generating substantial income. Other parts of the Heidelberg empire have been far slower to move forward in this area. While the consumable business is generating increasing revenues for the company the increase is by no means large enough to cover the current financial problem. As far as being a player in the digital area it is too late. The company can compete in this area as its non-compete clause with Kodak finished last year. It would take Heidelberg a long time to build up a digital sales business with an OEM product. The logical thing for Heidelberg to have done a few years ago would have been to get close to Ricoh in offering them a worldwide sales channel from March 2008 when the Kodak non-compete agreement finished to get them into graphic arts markets. That however is now too late. Heidelberg has developed its inkjet business slightly with its new Linoprint operation but this is only as an inkjet peripheral add on business for monochrome printing on presses and finishing systems. This however is a small business and the product is far away from being capable of competing in the evolving high-speed inkjet color area.

Heidelberg is like a large ship and turning it takes a long time. It has major restrictions on movement from the strength of its manufacturing trade unions. Unfortunately Heidelberg started turning the wrong way a few years ago and it is too late now to start turning back. We just have to hope its gets the investment it needs to keep it going until the markets improve for its press sales to take off again and to make a major change in direction for the future.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 24, 2009

We are looking at the problem of a successful large formal organization that succeeded in one environment. Like all large formal organizations the problem is the speed of response.

It's likely that many at Heidelberg understand what is changing, but they have to craft a response that both protects what they have and moves to take advantage of changed landscape by leveraging their core strengths.

The small business advantage is only agility and speed. Everything else is on the side of big business.

Kodak and Xerox are caught in the same trap. It's a signal v noise problem that is compounded by the need to service their present customers.

The things that caught my eye in the interview at Beyond Print was..

"The steps we have announced—pending the results of discussions with employee representatives —affect primarily the areas of production, R&D, and management; and to a lesser extent, our sales and service organizations. This means our customers can continue to count on Heidelberg’s legendary service. This is a point of differentiation from our competition which we are not going to tamper with."

and

"The fact is that in developing countries, for example China, the development of the printing market is still practically at the starting line. So we are also successfully building small and middle-format presses there for the Chinese market. In addition, we are continuing to expand our package-printing business with service and consumables, so that we can be less dependent on the state of the economy."

It makes sense to me. But is there enough time? That's the problem for all the big players.

My two cents:
Servicing their customers in developed areas might include creating the web based infrastructure to enable global Web to Print, primarily between Europe and the States. The value add is "distribute and Print."

The presses for China might benefit from taking a closer look at Erik's invention concerning ink density. I'm not an expert, but if Erik is right it could mean orders of magnitude reduction in cost of manufacturing presses which is what they need to price correctly for these new markets.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 24, 2009

A third cent:
Whoever enables global distribute and print will benefit by harvesting the transaction information.
What is being printed by whom, where and when. It will lead to standard based pricing and performance.

Yes, I appreciate there will be privacy issues, but consider Google.

 

By Clint Bolte on Jan 24, 2009

Komori's 62% drop in stock valuation this past year, as Henk points out, is certainly a concern except that only KBA was better at among the dominant press manufacturers in the entire world.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 24, 2009

I don't think that stock price is useful except to understand what Big Money thinks.

Given their unimpressive recent track record, it's not a very useful lens to clarify the real threats and opportunities and/or value of businesses in the "real economy."

 

By Erik Nikkanen on Jan 24, 2009

I shall add my Canadian 2 cents worth :-) and give my views on the problem in general and what I think is a way out for a supplier like Heidelberg. Also these comments are related to the problems of consistency and predictability of the printing process as they affect manufacturing and business goals.

There is a crisis in general in the industry and I have said this before on other forums that it is my belief that the industry is still in the Dark Ages. Most people with probably say that this is a crazy statement since we have such fantastic technologies in the printing industry.

People in the Dark Ages did not know they were in such a state. They would not wake up in the morning and say, oh hell, I’m in the Dark Ages and I can’t wait for the Enlightenment to arrive. On the contrary, they had wonderful technologies and skilled craftsmen and institutions who decreed what was true. This situation exists now in the printing industry and only some rational thinking will break us out of this condition.

Science and technology are not the same thing. Very different animals. The printing industry has lots of technology but the science is weak. You have a crisis in science in the industry which is a result of the people in the industry not being really interested in science. They love technology. They love myths. They don’t love the pursuit of truth.

Most engineers, who use scientific principles all the time tend not to do science. I am an engineer but to understand the fundamental issues in the process, I had to develop a science to describe the rules. This had to be done because it was not available. It has given me a very different view of what needs to be done and I can very clearly understand how difficult it is for other engineers to work on press performance issues when they don’t have a science to use as a guide.

Ralf stated that I felt that press manufactures were risk averse. This is not exactly correct. It is wise for engineers to be risk averse, especially when they don’t understand the science behind the problem. In fact, the industry has not been risk averse enough and has produced a number of technologies that have not performed as hoped both from a technical point of view and from a marketing point of view. I won’t go over the long list but Andrew’s portrayal of Heidelberg’s VLF effort as being an “unsuccessful gamble” is a good one. When one develops technologies that are not clearly thought out from those multiple perspectives, you are then gambling.

Michael and others brought up the topic of Printing Electronics as a potential. Ralf suggested that it might not be a good fit even though Heidelberg had knowledge of precision coating. The problem here is that printing is not a precision coating process. Any process that needs an operator or a added closed loop technology to keep it within tolerances is not a precision process. Also the tolerance in printing with respect to ink film thickness does not reflect a need for precision. One can be in tolerance with a tolerance of +/- about 8% in ink film and you can be within the +/- 0.05 density points limits. When looking at a "density/ink" curve it clearly shows that a high level of precision capability is not required for printing.

On the other hand, I think that offset has more potential than flexo or gravure for producing Printed Electronics due to the potential control on ink feed. With flexo or gravure, in its present state, the ink feed can not be as well controlled. Also the control of line dimensions and detail is better with offset. Yes, most probably normal offset presses would not be used but special purpose printing units could be developed and could be developed by non traditional press manufacturers without much of a problem if they had the science to guide them.

Development cost at times has been stated as a barrier. Well this is partially true. Developing technology without a science to guide one is expensive but with a valid science it does not have to be. The real barrier is not cost but attitude.

As an example, my technology replaces the traditional ductor technology that has been in presses for over 150 years. The technology is potentially a product but what it also does is demonstrates the science of the fundamental cause of ink water balance and density variation and lack of predictability. To do a test on a small press would cost probably under $1000 to demonstrate the science. But for 12 years, large printers and major press manufacturers have not been interested. It is not because of the cost but it is that any cost, no matter how small is too much to spend to learn an important scientific rule of the process. The industry wants to be ignorant. It still wants to be in the dark. The real aversion the industry has is to the knowledge of what is true.

So let’s think of a strategy that a press manufacturer like Heidelberg could use in this severe economic time, to not only move to develop better technology but also attract new investment and restore stock value.

Let’s look at the near short term and the long term possibilities.

Near term solution “Pimp my Press”.

Press manufacturers have lots of customers. Their presses are already out on the market printing daily and their customers are in stiff competition. Also customers do not have or can not get a lot of funding for new equipment.

There is a great potential to modify legacy press equipment and improve performance well above what exists. In doing so, it addresses the need for printers to reduce waste, increase capacity, streamline operations, reduce the cost and availability of skilled labour, meet environmental and sustainability issues, etc.

This can be done with the development of retrofit technology that can address:
consistent and predictable ink feed
lower cost and better performing application of fount solution,
modification to reduce or eliminate mechanical and starvation ghosting etc.

A press manufacturers ability to design, mass produce and distribute these kinds of retrofits, based on low cost development that can be done with existing science, can be not only a source of income but also the foundation for future press concepts.

Long term “Obsolete old technology”

With the scientific knowledge obtained and was partially the basis for the retrofit technologies, new press designs can be more safely developed that will perform better and cost less to manufacture than older versions. The aim is not to only obsolete ones own previous technology but to also obsolete the competitors technology.

With an understanding of just what is required to print precise film thicknesses, specialized machines can be developed for the Printed Electronics industry.

The development of web fed technologies is a must for not only the Printed Electronics market but also for the commercial printing market. Web presses that have low cost variable repeat conversion capabilities and sheeting at the end.

Saving the print industry?

Not so much will save the printing industry. It is in a downward trend. The goal is to save individual companies, which are willing to innovate, to survive the upheaval and come out stronger.

Investors can smell future money making potential but they need to see steps happen in the short term that they can believe will lead to earnings in the long term.

The goal is not to be the largest press manufacturer but to be the most profitable.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 24, 2009

and here's the description :
Nano-solar -- This is a company that as the potential to change the world. It has developed proprietary technology that makes it possible to simply roll-print solar cells that require only 1/100th as thick an absorber as a silicon-wafer cell (yet deliver similar performance and durability). It has so far raised over $1Bn US and is building a factory in the US, Germany and Wales. Their technology dramatically lowers the process cost and complexity involved in the production of thin-film solar cells and makes it possible to scale production very rapidly.

 

By Greg Imhoff on Jan 28, 2009

A great interesting thread thanks. I nearly always applaud innovation especially for our print industry. Where would we be without innovations? This may be a central question historic or not to HDM and this thread.

Another German company KBA I think formerly "East German" has made their technology grow by building solid solutions appealing to and satisfying a VLF market a need others would not or could not serve.

This is culturally interesting. For our indusrty this thread or dilemma is also interesting because in the WSJ and wtt.com last week global awards in the "heavy Indusrty" were made to the "best run" companies.

Caterpillar is #1 and KBA #7 as best run companies based in part on patent awards. I do not know if there is a cash crunch at KBA but it seems they are growing and growing well.
The Wall Street Journal reference is in the wtt.com pick up - snipped in below.

Is VLF not the opposite of digital printing?
Innovations to satisfy growth needs if from a well run company bring us home on this thread.

It is up to us individually to innovate which is to thrive in this industry no mean feat given current conditions.

See snip in below and ask yourself what is the value to innovation?
Solutions. Growth. Profits for all who create and participate.
Sincerely,
Greg Imhoff
(708) 557 - 2021

KBA ranks 7th among innovative plant manufacturers

Friday, January 23, 2009

According to The Patent Board’s latest Patent Scorecard for the heavy industrial equipment industry, which was published on 21 January in the Wall Street Journal’s Market Data Centre, press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer ranks seventh among the top 50 and has thus moved up a place since the last Scorecard was issued in May 2008.

While the table is headed by leading global players such as Caterpillar (no. 1) and Deers & Co (no. 2) from the USA and Komatsu from Japan (no. 4), KBA ranks well ahead of other German press manufacturers and is the highest placed European operation behind Swiss lift manufacturer Schindler (no. 5), which however is very much bigger.

Founded in 1968 as a patent analytics and research institution, US patent consultancy The Patent Board regularly tracks seventeen industries on a global basis according to the number of patents awarded in the USA, the application of scientific knowledge, the speed at which patents are transformed into new products and the business value of patent assets. The individual companies are also assessed according to their technological strength and the intensity of their research activities.

 

By Tom Wilson on Jan 28, 2009

I have been in the Printing Industry for almost 40 years and it has been very good to me in many ways. 29 years have been with Heidelberg in the USA. To Rob, you need to get your facts straight on who is the number one seller of 40 inch presses in North America. If you check with NPES or independent companies like State Street Consultants you will see that not only is Heidelberg the number seller but at the present time it has over 50% of the marketshare. Rob to keep it simple that means that Heidelberg sells more 40 inch presses in the USA than all of the competition combined. I wonder why? Could it be VALUE. When printers ask our compettion why Heideberg sells so many machines the only answer they can come up with is that we are great at Marketing.

 

By Jan Eskildsen on Jan 28, 2009

You wrote (George Alexander's translation):

"Since Heidelberg traditionally produces many components for its machines ahead of time, these are sitting unused on the warehouse shelves and can’t be converted into cash."

I have been following Heidelberg for many years, and visited them more times, than I can remember. We have always been told - also from customers - than they don't start to produce a machine, before they have got the money or a bank guarantee from a customer.
I hesitate just to read the above statement as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
If it turns out to be the truth, it seems that they have not learned a bit from the "just in time" philosophy. Very surprising, if that is really the situation.

 

By Jan Eskildsen on Jan 28, 2009

Heidleberg's stock is low a never before:

http://www.heidelberg.com/www/html/en/content/articles/investor/stock_information/stock_chart

In December 2007 their manager gave consultants and people from the trade press the advice to invest in Heidelberg stocks - at that time the price was appr. ten times the actual price .... need I say more about his discernment?

 

By Erik Nikkanen on Jan 28, 2009

The number of patents is not what is important but the quality of the patents is.

I have looked through lots of patents over the years related to printing and I have to say, a large number of them will never see the light of day commercially. Some are quite foolish.

There are hundreds of patents on ink fountains which are basically the same concept, which is an adjustable gap between a fountain blade key and the ink fountain roller.

Although, one was unique. Man Roland had a US patent (#4328748), which has expired, and was a binary ink fountain. The gap was open or closed and the rate of ink feed was determined by the percentage of time it was opened. This is basically a great idea. I had the same idea and would have patented it myself but I found out it had already been done.

The great thing about this innovative approach is that it is binary and therefore does not require expensive positional devices like stepping motors etc.. It can be driven with a simple solenoid. The accuracy in general would be great because the consistency of the ink feed in the single open position would be high and the error low. By opening the gap for only small percentages of the time, low coverage control becomes very accurate. Timing of a single ink flow rate is easier to control than very small continuous flow rates of ink.

The unfortunate fact about this binary ink fountain is that it will not work with a conventional ductor. But it will work very well with my ITB. The result would have been a highly accurate ink feed system that costs less. I am so happy the patent has expired.
:-)

Some press manufacturers seem to use patents as perks for their employees. I have seen in the past, patents with very many inventors listed. Gee, How many germans are required to invent a light bulb? :-) I guess each one can go home and tell their wife and kids that they have a patent but maybe not mention that there are 10 other guys who are coinventors.

Quality of the patents are much more important than the quantity.

Maybe if the investment community gets the idea that a company is wasting money on useless patents as a form of marketing, they may not look on the high numbers of patents so positively.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 28, 2009

Erik-
A quick question:
Would the innovation you suggest significantly improve the ability of offset presses to do printed electronics?

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 28, 2009

Tom-
Isn't that level of market ownership a bug as much as feature in terms of further growth?

Is there enough post sales income to make it sustainable in a mature market?

 

By Erik Nikkanen on Jan 28, 2009

Yes Michael it would but there are other interesting ways to supply the conducting or semi-conducting material to a press.

There also needs to be work done on the design of a small roller train that prints very consistently in any part of the image, which in this case is the printed electrical wires and components.

Get both done and there is a good opportunity.

I am not sure commercial presses would be good enough.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 29, 2009

Re: "commercial press would be good enough?" But, if an outfit like Heidelberg or Komori or KBA focused on this, I would think a retool would be technically well defined and thus trivial. Is this close enough to be a engineering problem instead of a science problem?

 

By Michael Mittelhaus on Jan 29, 2009

May I remember everybody, that the current crisis was caused by the crisis of the financial sector?

May I then ask, what the financial crisis has to do with Heidelbergs product portfolio ?

May I also remind, that we had lots of financial reports recently (Agfa, Kodak, Océ), stating that their bad figures were caused by investments into digital and Inkjet presses?

And may I also point out, that as usual the financial magazine Handelsblatt does not understand our business, as Jan Eskildsen pointed out with his reference to the total improbality of Heidelberg keeping a stock of parts worth more than 200 Million Euros?

So my resumée is, that is always interesting to discuss the future of conventional Offset vs Digital; but the current crisis is not a point to start such a debate.

PS: IMHO if Mr. Mehdorn had continued in Heidelberg, there wouldn´t be any debate at all, as Heidelberg would be out of business for a couple of years.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 29, 2009

Thank you, Michael!

Stock prices are only indicators of the buzz du jour and fear and greed in mostly hedge funds and pension managers.

They are a pretty good indicator of how those folks feel today. That's why bubbles and busts are a natural part of history.

But as for information in the real world, where the serious people in Print have to solve real problems, it's just more noise that obscures the signal.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 29, 2009

I can't resist but...
when all the blablabla was about the Internet, they all got excited about the internet.
But the internet is just TV+Telephone+a really big filing cabinet and the most awesome way to buy stuff ever invented.

As the global distribute and print network continues to evolve, they will sooner or later get all excited about that. We're going to hear lots and lots of blablablabla about how Print connected to the Cloud is the "Next Big Thing".

Then like the fearful lemmings they are, they will try to figure out how to game that. Until the Big Thing du jour gets them all stampeding in a different direction.

 

By Erik Nikkanen on Jan 29, 2009

I don't think a commercial press would be good enough because there is too much ink storage in the roller train. It really also depends on the specifications for how much variation these printed electronic structures can have.

One would design the press to meet the design tolerances of the product. It is a matter of capability. It would be a mixture of science and engineering, but the problem just now is whether there is the science available to the engineers to make the design. My point has been that they don't have it.

I suspect that engineers other than engineers from press manufacturer, would have a better chance since the latter group has not thought much about the kinds of problems that need to be solved for printing electronics. Trial and error engineering will not cut it.

The other issue, which is hard to determine is the inventiveness of people. Invention is not science and not engineering but some kind of skill a person has that brings things together based on understanding relationships and the practical actions that can create a new concept. Very many engineers and scientists are not inventive.

 

By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 29, 2009

Thanks for the thoughtful response. Makes sense to me.

 

By Jan Eskildsen on Feb 02, 2009

At IPEX 2002 the stock price was discussed at the press meeting. To a question about it, the answer was that the share price didn't reflect the values of the company. Maybe, but lots of value as spare parts don't do no good, if they can't get capitalized.

 

By James Janison on Mar 05, 2009

I think any business would be foolish not to have proprietary parts unavailable to customers. Sorry mister customer, your livelyhood will have to wait while we produce the spare part you need.