What a week this is shaping up to be in press manufacturer land.

Yesterday Heidelberg, which is of course the world's biggest company of this ilk, announced that it would be cutting a further 2,000 jobs, almost 13% of its workforce, as part of a new efficiency programme aimed at restoring an acceptable level of profitability at the group.

Its 'Focus 2012' plan includes 'significantly reducing production capacities', by circa 15%, and reshaping the sales function to reflect the market dynamics in different regions - some are growing, while some seem to be going backwards.

There's an interesting line in the Heidelberg announcement about pooling sales and marketing activities, and restructuring operations for some individual markets. One can imagine that former Heidelberg UK MD George Clarke will have had a hand in this strategy via his new global role, am intrigued to learn more about how the detail of this will pan out.

Heidelberg also cites an industry that is reluctant to invest due to economic uncertainty, and said the insolvency of Manroland has exacerbated the situation. That particular uncertainty should approach some sort of resolution later today, when Manroland's creditors' committee mull the various offers on the table. Offers that may or may not include a proposal from the chaps in Baden-W?rttemberg. What's certainly a known known is that the Chinese have oodles of cash readily available to invest in any western assets that take their fancy.

I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to find out how this will all pan out. What a time to be investing in printing machinery manufacturing, though. To do so will surely require balls of the sort of high grade steel used to make, well, press cylinders.