MAN Roland has predicted that its plants will be working at full capacity well into next year in the wake of a 10% rise in new orders for the first quarter of 2001.
Net sales also rose 14% to 260m (E414m), with new orders hitting 368m.
"Our expectations of continuing growth in 2001 despite the noticeable economic gloom in basic selling markets are based on full order books in the web-fed sector and the introduction of new products in the sheetfed sector," said chairman Gerd Finkbeiner.
The number of employees in the group worldwide rose 7%, mainly due to the expansion of digital systems.
Executive vice president of digital printing systems Dr Josef Schneider said all DICOweb presses in testing at pilot customers were "performing well".
Schneider said that although MAN Roland had not achieved all the goals it had set out, "the test results on the DICOweb convey no problems".
Impac, now AGI Media Packaging, and Wyndeham Press signed up for the DICOweb at Drupa (PrintWeek, 26 May 2000).
A single web-fed press business sector is also being created within MAN Roland, which will merge MAN Plamag with MAN Roland Druckmaschinen.
The group has appointed Dr Ingo Koch as deputy member of the board for financial management, information technology and legal affairs, replacing Anton Weinmann, who joins MAN Nutzfahrzeuge.
Story by Andy Scott
Have your say in the Printweek Poll
Related stories
Latest comments
"Hi Keith, perhaps there was a misguided belief that when a company goes bust that spreading out the pain ( debt ) was a reasonable response, after all so many businesses must be making loads of profit..."
"Hit the nail on the head there Dave, it becomes smoke and mirrors as we here about the jobs being saved at say Celloglas or Folio or RNB etc but we rarely get to hear about the negative effect further..."
"Remember the days when you could buy quality at a fair price? Seems like Kodak are finding it a little hot in the kitchen."
Up next...
Two-thirds of readers against pre-packs
Pre-packs largely frowned upon by sector
Pending final report
US authorities confirm import duties on some plates
"The next era of e-commerce"
Gelato integrates with TikTok Shop
€15m purpose-built manufacturing facility