French print shop Montligeon, based in Saint-Hilaire-le-Châtel near Mortagne-au-Perche in Normandy, recently inaugurated its new building. It now boasts one of the most cutting-edge operations for folding carton production and commercial printing in Europe. The Business Consulting section of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) gave Montligeon a great deal of help with both factory planning and process optimization. This has enabled it to achieve a big increase in throughput and boost productivity by 10 to 15 percent, even though the new building is smaller than the old one. Quality assurance costs have also fallen dramatically.

Montligeon's plans for change were already beginning to take shape back in October 2006. "Our former production facility was located next to the famous shrine and basilica of Montligeon. We had grown steadily over the years but were unable to achieve streamlined production on an industrial scale at this location," explains Raymond Leiris, CEO of the Montligeon Group. The print shop was founded by the curate of Montligeon in 1888. The Group currently has production facilities at two locations in France and generates total sales of 28.7 million Euro with a workforce of 220. The new facility has 128 employees and generates annual sales of more than 18.2 million Euro. The product portfolio consists of folding cartons for pharmaceutical companies, drugstores and frozen food manu-facturers, while the commercial section produces advertising brochures for Citroen, Volkswagen, and Audi, together with various other publications.

Heidelberg held a four-day workshop with the top two levels of management at the company. This was used to collect data, analyze problems, discuss the company's future, and define measures to boost performance.

Following a little over two years' planning, construction and relocation work, production was able to continue without interruption at the beginning of this year. The new building has everything a state-of-the-art media company needs:

- Clearly structured production lines for folding cartons and commercial printing
- Extremely flexible use of premises for both products
- A closed-loop material flow incorporating warehouse, production, and intermediate buffers
- Joint high-bay store with narrow-aisle stacker for raw materials and finished products
- Joint incoming and outgoing goods sections
- Compact buffers for an instant overview and simpler production control
- Options for expanding production capacities and finishing operations
- Warehouse expansion options
- High ceiling for a good printing climate and water cooling of peripherals on two presses
- Smaller floor area
- Fewer unnecessary activities
The specifications for the ideal plan were implemented to the letter and further enhanced. Compliance with all the new environmental directives and ISO 14000 was ensured. The facility has also been prepared for ISO 12647-2 color calibration.

Heidelberg Supports its customers with Business Consulting
The print media industry is changing. As a result, there is a growing demand among print shops for consultancy services. Heidelberg has a long tradition of providing print shops with such services, and it has further strengthened its Business Consulting section. Heidelberg offers management consultancy services to print shops all over the world. One of its key focal points lies in optimizing its clients' business processes. Experience has shown that there is still considerable room for improvement in print shop processes in particular. Taking the example of companies producing folding cartons, the capital tied up in warehouses and intermediate buffers can be reduced, liquidity increased, and batch sizes optimized.

Heidelberg consultants also help print shops realign sales and marketing strategies, provide personnel with training, make safer investment decisions, and improve their controlling and financing structures. With its consultancy operations, Heidelberg is pursuing its objective of enhancing its service offering.

The Business Consulting section currently employs just under 30 people worldwide. Its aim is to achieve lasting improvements in customers' competitiveness.