Now in its fourth consecutive year of profitability, Manroland Sheetfed GmbH is set to record one of its most successful years, according to the company's CEO, Mr Rafael Penuela.

In a joint Asian industrial media interview attended by the company’s six Managing Directors from Greater China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia & Singapore and Thailand & Indonesia, Mr Penuela said that 2015 was set to become Manroland Sheetfed’s most profitable year in recent memory.

Expressing satisfaction with the company’s development, Mr. Penuela pointed to an increase of new order intakes, up 30% from the previous year. He expressed confidence that “2015 will be the fourth year in a row where we will remain profitable – and most probably it will be the best out of the last four years.”

Discussing the company’s operations in the light of the global print market, Mr. Penuela reaffirmed the importance of the Asian region, emphasizing Manroland Sheetfed’s strong commitment to the region and its growing contribution to the company’s recent success.

Developing this theme, Mr. Penuela said that the Asian market would still represent a large share of Manroland Sheetfed’s turnover for new machinery and that further improvements in the economic climate would see even more growth, as printers take advantage of new technology to stay competitive domestically and also to explore new export markets.

On the outlook for the global print industry generally, Mr. Penuela said that while this was positive for the foreseeable future, it would continue in a consolidation phase but that some areas, including packaging print, were set for appreciable growth. Asked about offset versus digital printing, he pointed out the advantages of both, explaining that they had co-existed for many years, as they would in future. On the lower costs offered by offset, he said: “I am still convinced that there is no cheaper and more efficient way of industrial production of paper and board than offset printing when it comes to cost per copy,” and that offset printing offered “nearly endless possibilities of inline enhancements.”

In order to address current problems of market maturity, lower profitability, environmental issues and lack of personnel training, Mr. Penuela urged printers to learn from the mistakes of the past and to adopt two important strategies to deal with them. The first of these was to become a cost leader by specializing in certain products and the second was to specialize in value-adding processes. He also pointed to the importance of training staff to take full advantage of the latest technology, as addressed by Manroland Sheetfed’s TOP (Technology +Organization+Personnel) program, which some of the larger global printers have started to adopt, with encouraging performance results.