manroland

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• Jörn Gossé
• Uwe Lüders

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• Anthony J. Langley
• Rafael Torres Penuela
• Bernard A. Watson

Manroland AG (until 2008 MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG ) was a German manufacturer of printing presses for newspaper web offset, web offset and sheetfed offset for newspapers, publishing, commercial, and packaging printing. Spread over the three sites in Offenbach am Main, Augsburg and Plauen employs manroland last 6,500 employees (as of November 2011).

The Manroland AG presented on 25 November 2011 at the District Court of Augsburg application for the opening of insolvency proceedings, on 1 February 2012, the District Court of Augsburg opened bankruptcy proceedings.

In 2012, the manroland AG was after the sale of parts of sheetfed to different investors in manroland manroland web systems and split.

History

19th century

Carl August Reichenbach, nephew of KBA - founder Friedrich Koenig, and Carl Buz take 1844 Sander'sche machinery factory in Augsburg and thus call the Reichenbach'sche Maschinenfabrik into life. Six months later the two printing press pioneers supplied their first press to leave the Augsburg printing of Nikolaus Hartmann. In 1857, the company was transformed into a joint stock company Maschinenfabrik Augsburg and in 1872 a complete newspaper printing set - with steam boiler and steam engine.

Besides the automatic press, the 19th century has produced another innovation in printing press. As with the invention of high-speed press a newspaper editor, as was also an entrepreneur the offense. In 1850, the question whether the rotating machines principle was suitable for letterpress printing. On behalf of John Walter III, publisher of the " Times ", developed and built the two engineers JC MacDonald and John Calverly the world's first rotary press for newspaper printing. This printing machine became known as " Walter Press". Maschinenfabrik Augsburg sent its head of development Gustav Bissinger June 1872 to England. Travel information of German engineers to the workshops and factories of England, the leading industrial nation in this era, had a long tradition. The first rotary printing press from Maschinenfabrik Augsburg was then constructed quickly. Although they are worked according to the Walter principle, this equipment was smaller and lighter, the machine parts were easily accessible. In May 1873, the Augsburg they presented at the World Exhibition in Vienna.

Two years earlier, the two founded mechanical engineers Louis Faber and Adolf Schleicher the company Faber & Schleicher as " Associationsgeschäft for the fabrication of lithographic Schnellpressen ". For the history of lithography Offenbach am Main plays an important role, because Senefelder itself has built some of his first lithographic presses for the André music publishing here. The first built in 1879 by Faber & Schleicher quick press for lithographic printing, the "Albatros", reached an hourly capacity of 600 to 700 sheets.

20th century

The " United Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG and engineering company, Augsburg " was founded in 1889 through a merger, then in 1908, Maschinenfabrik Augsburg- Nürnberg AG - MAN AG renamed. The great advances in rotary printing allowed - along with the experience and know- how from the lithography and the zinc and tin printing - early 20th century offset printing. The inventors Ira Washington Rubel and Caspar Herrmann took over the well-known from the pressure plate principle of indirect pressure and developed between 1904 and 1907 this new printing process. The specialization in offset printing began for the Offenbacher mechanical engineers in 1911 with the model "Roland", the world's first sheet-fed rotary printing machine for offset printing. This new development is achieved at the exhibition in Turin a gold medal, the name "Roland" was chosen because " Faber & Schleicher " is hardly pronounceable in English speaking countries. 1921, the first prototype of a three-cylinder web offset printing machine in the Berliner format was developed. New single-color offset press Roland Klein- 00 was introduced in 1922, which could print up to 5,000 sheets per hour.

With a rotary printing machine can be printed in one hour from 1931 25.000 Zeitungen/16 pages. After the Second World War in 1951 the first printing and paper - drupa a four-color printing machine ( model Ultra) was presented. Three quarters of the total expenditure of all German newspapers from 1960 were made on plants from Augsburg. Held in 1972 with the ROLAND 800 integrated color control system in the sheetfed offset feeder that enables the printing of 10,000 sheets per hour. Two years later, the biggest rotary printing press in Europe was built in Augsburg: the 17- web-offset rotary press COLORMAN with 62 printing units.

1979 the company MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG ( Offenbach / Main) was founded. It was created from a merger of " Roland Offset -und Maschinenfabrik Faber and Schleicher " with "Augsburger MAN - pressure and mechanical engineering ". In web offset printing machine LITHOMAN was introduced in 1986, had the cylinder with 60,000 revolutions per hour and an electronic control technology. PECOM 1990 is inserted into the console technology, combined with a new automation concept for medium-format ROLAND 700, which can print 15,000 sheets per hour with this technique. Five years later, the press LITHOMAN was presented at drupa with a new machine concept for the web offset. With a variety of additional components it can be expanded into a multifunctional production system for every requirement. The ROLAND 900 was also presented a sheet-fed offset machine for large format in the same year at drupa in Dusseldorf.

In July 1990 the company was taken over Plamag Plauen.

21st Century

After poor financial years, triggered by the global crisis in the printing industry, MAN Roland was in the years 2001-2004 in a serious crisis. In this phase, MAN Roland lined up on the future. In 2002, the company acquired a majority stake in the software company ppi Media GmbH. The Hamburg-based company is active worldwide and develops workflow solutions for the automation of design and production processes of the publishing and printing industry. ppi Media was founded in 1984 and employs approximately 150 people in Hamburg, Kiel and Chicago.

In 2005, MAN Roland was profitable again after extensive restructuring. In January 2006, MAN sold the majority of its subsidiary MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG to the investor Allianz Capital Partners GmbH ( ACP) - Allianz Private Equity, a subsidiary of Allianz AG. The shares are now held by an associated company, in which MAN involved to 35% and ACP 65%. The shares also the entire business operation and all subsidiaries, including existing liabilities was acquired. The aim was to promote the world's second largest printing systems manufacturer and bring a few years later to the stock market. This understood the company as a good opportunity to further extend its lead in printing technology.

A new technology for sheetfed offset printing was introduced in October 2006 in the city of Mainz Gutenberg: Direct Drive. This makes it possible to reduce setup time by 60 % by directly driven plate cylinders.

In May 2008, from the MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG, manroland AG. The new logo was unveiled on 28 May 2008 at drupa press conference in Dusseldorf. manroland pursuing the vision of a printing press, the press of a button - allows the highest level of automation in the offset printing production - One Touch. It was then introduced in 2010 auto print. manroland implements the concept in the roles and in sheetfed offset. auto print enables to process more jobs in less time and to realize fast job changes by an intelligent control system. autoprint increases production efficiency through automated workflows.

Since 2010, manroland also markets inkjet printing systems from Océ. In the same year, the first 96-page web press LITHOMAN was sold. manroland manroland offers the industry service personnel services with highly qualified technical staff since 2011. manroland is the global market leader in web offset presses.

Insolvency

After the failure of negotiations with a potential investor was requested in November 2011 by the joint-stock company, the opening of insolvency proceedings and also filed a petition for an order to self-administration in order to complete ongoing restructuring measures. The District Court of Augsburg named as provisional administrator experienced in large bankruptcies Werner Schneider. According to the company was the " new dramatic slump in orders, which has been observed since mid-July and has recently accelerated " cause of the step to the district court. It has also been referred to more difficult financing options to customers as a result of the financial crisis as well as competitive pressure and consequent declining profit margins. From the unpredictable bad development, the entire industry was affected. On January 18, 2012 it was announced by the official receiver that the Augsburg plant is sold to the Possehl Group from Lübeck. The factory in Plauen is supported by Possehl through subcontracting. The British entrepreneur Tony Langley and the privately owned engineering group, Langley Holdings plc, took on 9 February 2012 the sheetfed division in Offenbach and the manroland sales organization in more than 40 countries.

Products

The product portfolio of the company include printing machinery for

• Sheetfed offset printing machines such as Sheet- large format; At drupa 2008, a machine was introduced in small format 00
• Newsprint and commercial printing
• Print Value: services, supplies and consultancy services