It’s almost winter in Shanghai, the weather being considerably cooler than what we have in Delhi. And though it rained over the past two days, the weather couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm here at the official opening of the Print Media Center (PMC) at Heidelberg’s manufacturing facility at Qingpu. At the press conference on 29 October 2015 and in its official inauguration later, one thing was very clear – Heidelberg has refocused and re-strategized itself in order to attend to the growing and evolving needs of its customers in the emerging markets.
The single biggest change in terms of its brand image has been the change of its logo, according to Stephan Plenz, member of the management board, Heidelberg. He said, “There are four different colors in our new brand logo now in which the green stands for consumables, yellow stands for service, blue stands for equipment and the dark blue remains the symbol for our traditional strength which is quality. This new logo shows the change in Heidelberg.”
Heidelberg started its manufacturing in Qingpu near Shanghai in the year 2005. Plenz said, “Apart from our factories in Germany, we decided to set up the plant here to attend to the increasing needs and demand of the Chinese and the Asian markets with dedicated products for our customers. This has been a significant contribution from Heidelberg. This set up is based on a land of more than 100,000 square metres where the built-up area is already almost 44,000 square metres. And this investment has been well worth it for us, exceeding our initial expectations. We have shipped more than 1,400 presses from here with around 6,000 printing units already delivered to our customers.”
The new PMC is for the technical and business training of the large number of Heidelberg customers in the region. According to Plenz, “Our other international PMCs are based in Atlanta in the United States and in Wiesloch in Germany. This new PMC is not only intended for our Chinese customers but for the entire Asia Pacific region. This facility will not only train our employees but also our customers who can help themselves with training from the experts over here. This facility will also help our customers gather more information about the solutions they seek and can carry out their test runs or printing tests to understand our presses better.”
This PMC in Shanghai was conceptualized in 2012 and the construction started in June 2015. The first phase of the construction consisting of 2,250 square metres is now complete with five basic areas: digital printing – training and demo area; prepress and prinect – training and demo area; printing and postpress – training and demo area, service and consumables area and comprehensive training rooms. The digital printing area houses a Linoprint CV press whereas the printing and postpress area contains a CD 102 6-color with coater, a 4-color CS 92, a 4-color SM 74, a 4-color SM 52, a BH82 Stahlfolder and a Polar cutting machine.
Heidelberg’s Chinese customers have the benefit of yet another PMC which is already operational in Shenzhen. However, that facility is only part of a regional plan serving Chinese customers and focussing on activities within China. “This modern facility in Shanghai is part of the overall plan of Heidelberg, serving Chinese and Asia Pacific customers and shares its resources with Germany. Overall, we thank our customers for their patronage but we want them to know that Heidelberg is listening to their needs and we intend to do whatever is necessary to keep this trust,” Plenz said.
