It’s just over three months since Manroland Sheetfed was rescued by Langley Holdings – are things settling down?
Coming out of the insolvency is a long process, but Tony Langley is accelerating it enormously. He spends two to three days a week with us, learning about the sector, and was amazed to see at the show how big the print community is.

Are you still trying to win back the confidence of your customers?
That’s our main target at the moment. We have to demonstrate our commitment and can’t just do that through marketing – we have to prove we are back through our service, consumables and product offering.

Looking to your deal with Landa to integrate its digital technology, when will you start work on that?
If you look at the technology, you will see he needs 18-24 months to have a ‘sellable’ product. But what we like is his new approach: higher speeds, larger formats and broad substrate range. This technology is unique, but we have to identify the benefits and applications that will work for our customers.

How will you differentiate your Landa products from, say, Heidelberg’s or Komori’s?
When a customer buys a litho press it will be in use for at least five to 10 years. But often their market is dynamically changing, so we have always focused on upgrades so that customers can adapt their existing machines. We would use the Landa technology in a similar way, so that customers can retrofit it.

Is the future of the litho industry hybrid technology?
There will still be a market for ‘conventional’ presses for a long time. But we need to face the reality that more and more printers are dealing with digital print. Why should we fight it? The technologies are complementary.