Genesis Gets Serve from Print Industry

Release from Pride In Print

Genesis Gets Serve from Print Industry

Genesis Energy came in for strong criticism for “unfair” treatment of the New Zealand print industry, at the New Zealand Pride In Print Awards held in Auckland last night (subs: Friday).

Speaking for the Pride In Print patrons, Chris Agius of Heidelberg New Zealand said that in the last 23 years he had watched as the stable products produced by the print industry slowly disappeared under the veil of “green” initiatives by customers.

“As an industry we have unfortunately stood quietly by as we watched our bottom line diminish and listened to the spin used by companies as they justified their move away from print.

“But in October 2009 the bar was lowered and became personal, when Genesis Energy for their own personal/financial reasons attacked our industry by asking their customers to silence the felling of trees that manufacture paper and silence the noise of printing machines by receiving their account online.

“As an industry, we have done much more than many others to clean our backyard through technology and work practices with little to no fanfare.

“So we have the choice …we can both sit back and watch quietly allowing such misconceptions and untruths about our industry persist, or work as one to support to the Print NZ ‘Part of Life’ campaign and highlight the important and vital role that print plays in our everyday lives.

“So to those who have joined the cause I applaud and thank you. To those yet to sign up it’s never too late to support our vocation.”

Mr Agius said that New Zealand was one of the first countries to go into recession and though the numbers today show some positive growth, a simple sneeze will see us back in recession.

The need therefore is to do more with less, including less time, less space, less human effort, less machinery, less waste and materials. The key to profitability is cost reduction.

“The fact is that we must adopt new philosophies that will increase throughput, reduce operational costs and reduce inventory. In my role I have the opportunity to meet many of you, one comment made loud and clear is not that printers have nothing to print. It’s that the prices that are on a never-ending downward path.

“It might be selfish but we cannot continue to live in the past, barely holding on ourselves as we wait in the hope that our competition runs out of money first. We must work together for the future.”

Mr Agius said suppliers too must take some responsibility.

“During IPEX on a bus ride back to our hotel a fellow competitor told of a recent story that after nine months of a customer failing to meet their financial obligations the decision was made to repossess the equipment. On the day the equipment was being removed, the competition was wheeling in theirs!

“Is this fair to the first supplier who lost nine months of repayments, is this fair for the new supplier who may face the same fate, more importantly is this fair on you up against a competitor not playing by the rules but allowed to continue?

“For us suppliers the market is just as tough as we strive for market share in all areas, sales continue to elude us; pricing is competitive and in many cases difficult to understand or comprehend.”

Mr Agius said prior to the IPEX exhibition Heidelberg Australia and New Zealand along with a number of customers from both countries had the opportunity to visit a number of companies in the UK who are facing the same challenges as we here and have been able to overcome the obstacles before them and become profitable in an otherwise-depressed market.

Their strategy was the combination of technology and lean manufacturing.

“Technology that reduced make-ready times down to nine minutes on a 10–12 colour press and the use of make-ready sheets to as low as 75, all possible through new plate-changing technology and a colour management system that is integrated directly into the press. Resulting in super quick make-readies and low wastage.

“Probably though the thing that impressed all was the speed. All presses at all companies that we viewed, were running at max speed of 15,000 or 18,000 sph maximising the technology purchased and increasing the number of sheets to the floor. As one owner said ‘We now print by numbers’.”

Mr Agius said that “lean manufacturing” had a simple set of concepts. It identifies the fact that “customers will not pay for the mistakes or activities that doesn’t make their product more complete, but only for the value of the product or the service they receive”.

“The impact on this thinking is huge on the manufacturing process. … It made people define value of the product from the customer’s point of view, not from the internal manufacturing point of view.

“The companies we visited had successfully implemented lean manufacturing to varying degrees, but what is important is that they all understood the differences between lean manufacturing concepts to that of conventional manufacturing.

“Notwithstanding technology and lean there was one other factor common to all -- not one owner after implementing change went to the market with a new pricing structure setting new benchmarks for the rest to grudgingly follow. Instead they retained their prices and with the reduction in operational costs and increased productivity watched their bottom line increase.”

Mr Agius concluded with a call for the print industry to collaborate, and to work together to promote and bring change to the industry.

The Awards also featured the induction of former chairman John North into the Pride In Print Hall of Fame.

Mr North was one of the main drivers behind the introduction of the Pride In Print concept into New Zealand in the early 1990s and spearheaded the development of the awards for more than a decade.

ENDS

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