MAN Ferrostaal has introduced a comprehensive range of consumables, designed to work to the same high levels as the impressive range of equipment it represents
The consumables offering will boost its service delivery and complete the portfolio MAN Ferrostaal wants to represent in the market. For this purpose some impressive agencies have been acquired.With the launch of a new consumables division MAN Ferrostaal is making its presence well known in the market, and will be supported by leading brands. With the new division comes a new general manager of consumables, Ben Hartman, and an array of new suppliers such as Kodak, Lüscher, Techkon, Hostmann-Steinberg, Bottcher, Conti, Mosca, Bekaert that the company will be bringing to Australia.
The new consumables division will supply customers with a complete consumables solution including the service to implement the new range. To support the range of consumables a significant investment in manpower has been made. All the newly appointed consumables specialists have a solid background in printing and can trouble shoot when needed.
The range includes prepress equipment and consumables, pressroom consumables, through to the postpress department.
In addition to the well known brands, the company is launching its own consumables product range called EXXEL. MAN Ferrostaal will have the products manufactured under the guidelines from manroland and key suppliers and will not be involved in the manufacturing of it.
The benefit for the customer is that instead of dealing with multiple consumable suppliers, they will be able to source everything from prepress to post-press from a single supplier, making the task easier to manage and co-ordinate. MAN Ferrostaal is not only promising cost savings but a streamlined implementation of the consumables and to ensure productivity improvements in the pressroom.
This includes the implementation of the complete range of Kodak prepress solutions including conventional film and plates, violet and thermal plates and Kodak’s Matchprint colour management proofing solutions.
The equipment will include the full range of Kodak’s CTP platesetters, the accompanying Prinergy workflow, as well as Kodak’s Matchprint digital proofing solutions. Also on the prepress side, MAN Ferrostaal has acquired the agency for the Swiss-based Lüscher CTP manufacturer, well-known for its range of high quality CTP platesetters for the offset, flexo and screenprinting markets. Techkon completes the range with high quality densitometers and spectrophotometers.
Man in charge
The man in charge of the new division is Ben Hartman. He comes with considerable expertise in prepress and consumables, both in Europe with the likes of Corporate Express and Barco Graphics, as well as with Heidelberg in South Africa. He is still getting to know the local industry, but with experience from Europe as well as in a developing country he has learned that understanding the customer’s business is the key to a successful operation.
Hartman says, “We want to see highly productive and profitable print companies and the only way to do this is to understand the customer’s business model.”
Value added proposition
Printers are continuously demanding more from their suppliers to interact with them and in particular, are looking for complete solutions that are productive, easy to manage and cost-effective.
In addition to cost savings, the new consumables division will be looking to offer its customers a number of other benefits such as support to obtain ISO accreditation with environmental friendly solutions and colour management. For this the consumables portfolio must deliver a consistent performance. The MAN Ferrostaal products are designed to work reliably with most press manufacturers, and in particular manroland presses.
Ben Hartman says, “The carefully chosen suppliers represent years of R+D and are supported by the consumables specialists and the expertise of manroland’s press demonstrators.”
MAN Ferrostaal says pricing will be competitive. It says the main advantage lies in the compatibility of the range, ensuring efficiency and reliable production that can only result in an improved productivity and profitability for its customers.
