In a ceremony at the production site Heidelberg Graphic Equipment Shanghai Ltd. (HGES), the packaging printing company Xian Jun Long was presented with a certificate recognizing the manufacture of the 9,999th printing unit in China.
In a greeting sent via video link, Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg), paid tribute to the high level of commitment and successful engagement in China.
“Our factory in Shanghai has proven a real success story for Heidelberg in our core business and our customers," he said. "China is the largest individual market for us, and we want to continue to expand our market share of over 50% as well as our technological leadership in what is an important market for us by continuing our program of investment: we will be expanding our team in China in Service, Sales, and Production to over 1,000 employees in anticipation of strong market growth in China.”
Despite the COVID 19-pandemic, the print volume in China is once again picking up speed and has already exceeded the figures for the previous year, per Heidelberg.
The printing company Xian Jun Long in Shenzhen is set to take delivery of a Speedmaster CD 102-9+L featuring the 9,999th printing unit.
As a special design feature, a picture of the Great Wall has been painted on all the printing units to tie in with the wall’s historical length of 10,000 li.
Xian Jun Long specializes in packagings for spirits, cigarettes, and luxury goods.
“We already have the first Speedmaster CD 102-8+L from the Heidelberg Shanghai plant and look forward to the new Speedmaster CD .102-9+L... due to be installed here in the near future," said Kelvin Chong, information engineering director of China Xian Jun Long Printing Group. "We will have another two sets of Speedmaster CD 102-8+L presses delivered to China Xian Jun Long Printing Group in August this year. Our goal is to grow successfully and to offer our customers products with more added value."
The anniversary press is in operation as part of an extensive fleet of Speedmaster CD 102 and Speedmaster CX 102 systems.
“The market in Asia is evolving, and we are seeing strong demand for customer-specific machines and a wealth of variants, especially for packaging printing,” said Achim Mergenthaler, manager of the Heidelberg site in Shanghai. “We are proud of our high quality, which – thanks to the high standards of the Heidelberg production network – is equal to that of the machines from the production facility in Wiesloch-Walldorf.”
Heidelberg intends to further accelerate the expansion of its production in China.
More than 30% of all printing units are already built in China.
The Shanghai production site will further increase the manufacture of standard models for the Chinese and Asian market and add special machine configurations, especially in packaging printing, to the portfolio.
“With the extended portfolio and higher production capacity in the Shanghai plant, we have reached a new milestone for Heidelberg China in further expanding our solutions for packaging printing,” said Benny Huang, CEO of Heidelberg Greater China at the presentation ceremony. “We have been producing the Speedmaster CD 102 in the Shanghai plant since 2009. It is a classic sheet-fed printing press for packaging, label, and commercial printing companies featuring increasingly innovative and optimized technologies that are widely accepted by and popular with Chinese users.”
The Shanghai production site has a workforce of around 430 people. Printing presses in 50 x 70 cm and 70 x 100 cm formats are produced there, mainly intended for sale in China, but also other Asian markets and the rest of the world.
More than 10,000 printing units have now been delivered 15+ years.