This seminar was held on the 19th May 2016 at Heidelberg Nigeria Limited, Ikeja. With an accommodating atmosphere, Jakob Beger the Managing Director of Heidelberg started the forum with a friendly conversation on Nigeria’s economy and government with the organization present, it was quite fascinating to hear Jakob Berger speak about Nigeria with so much knowledge, 15 years in Nigeria has influenced his familiarity with our system. Nigerians are born optimist he said, never willing to give up. Talking about the Nigeria Market, Heidelberg is hopeful that Nigeria’s economy will bounce back, even though businesses are struggling at the moment, we are on the right track and I am optimistic with the present government. When you are sick you go through surgery after which you start recovering “Nigeria is in the middle of a surgery right now, and will soon get to the stage of recovery” once Nigeria recovers we will all have a nice time. Things become though before they become good, Heidelberg has been in Nigeria since the though days and we will always be ready for business even when Nigeria pick-up again, says Jakob.
The forum officially kicked-off with introduction to DRUPA’s Hall 1 overview, and the opportunity of partnering and networking at the exhibition. Talking about the new technology, Nigerians does not necessarily have to get the new technology but the essence of the seminar and visit to the exhibition is for them to have the idea, knowledge and directions of what is available and trends of the new technology so as to aim at it and embrace it, otherwise, you can’t participate in the race.
“Heidelberg being the preferred supplier in the digitized world, we are promoting DRUPA strongly, we will be doing things differently this year, customers from Nigeria will be able to visit Heidelberg’s two Print Media Centers and tour in Heidelberg’s factory free of charge on the 4TH of June” says Jakob.
He furthered by giving highlights on the latest technologies and their capabilities, focusing on Smart- the new technology allows for easy prints just at the touch of a finger, talking about digital, customers’ demand for variable digital printing. For instance, Heidelberg Versafire has:
* more spot colors
* perfect color matching with digital & offset
* integration into production workflow
* print on any offset media
* service responsibility from single source
* perfect register
* easy user interface
* low click price
* print on special media
* stable production
Heidelberg has gone into Digital full time, the machines at Heidelberg are:
Heidelberg Versafire CV and Heidelberg Versafire CP.
Gallus Labelfire 340 the new benchmark in digital converting for short-run label printing has: individual designs, marketing campaigns, regionalization, personalization, and last minute change, reduction of stock, and short-run & on- demand output. For Digital revolution- Heidelberg Primefire 106 has lots of functions. In Nigeria, we are far behind in technology and packaging in the world, Nigeria needs to embrace this new technology.
John Onuegbulem the business unit Manager started his presentation after a short break; he also gave highlights of the new technology and Heidelberg impact in the printing industry. Despite further penetration of electronic media world-wide print products volume (PPV) will grow moderately. Printing business can’t go into extinction; we can only encounter evolvement in technology. HDM serves both packaging & commercial print markets, leverage growth in packaging, building on solid foundation in commercial.
There have been developments over time in the Digital technology, in terms of quantity; printing digital in Nigeria is very low. Heidelberg hope in 2020 Nigeria would have grown. Printing has moved from craft man to industrial enterprise, there are ongoing trends in the global printing market which we all need to adapt.
Hallmarks of our industry, we provide additional services, integration of customers & partners into business processes and value chain, embedded system as well as (partly) autonomous machines and increasing interconnectivity. We always meet customers’ requirement in different area through our service, equipment and consumables, we are predictable, efficient, productive, flexible and easy to access. Heidelberg believes in the digitized world: the digitized trend transforms the entire industries and business model, within the next 5 years 80% of companies will have digitized their value chains. Digital will lead to higher production and resource efficiency, an important key is the integrated analysis and the utilization of available data. Digitalization of products & service portfolio is key factor for sustainable success; it enables new digital business models. The horizontal process integration is the best ways to fulfill customers’ requirement.
Still on the development of print media industry, until 1995 communication in print production was entirely walk, talk, and paper. From pre-press- press – post press and in 2016 we had full integration with prinect. The integrated speed-master is fully digitized, it enables production data analysis, delivering real time data, connecting for remote monitoring (the issues encountered on the machine can be spotted and resolved right from Germany through remote).
Finally, John stated Heidelberg’s product & service offerings. Technical services include maintenance, remote support, repair, original parts, installation, cleaning, relocation and overhauling. Performance services include consulting, upgrades, training, color management and the new values added are Remote monitoring and performance plus. An award-winning Heidelberg remote service has a decade of success in online support service since 2004, marking a technological milestone in the print media industry.
The seminar ended with discussions and summary between attendees and Heidelberg.
See you at DRUPA.