manroland Establishes Industrial Services Business

OFFENBACH, GERMANY—April 12, 2011—manroland has established a new business sector, Industrial Services, which markets the technological expertise of manroland’s staff and offers the services of highly qualified personnel, technicians as well as engineers, to other manufacturers.

manroland subcontracts highly qualified technical personnel for a wide range of tasks, as well as engineering services and projects. The deployment pool includes mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, industrial mechanics, milling machine operators, IT specialists, electricians, electronic engineers, and mechatronics engineers.

Since April 1, 2011, Felix Wolf heads up the operations. Wolf is a mechanical engineer who was previously the regional director of YACHT|TECCON, a Randstad subsidiary. In that position, he had overall responsibility for the operative business, sales and recruiting in Southern Germany.

Commenting on his new assignment, Wolf said, “The challenge we face as a newcomer to the personnel services market is to position ourselves properly. The staff of manroland Industrial Services are highly qualified and determined to deliver top quality workmanship. To be accepted as an employer in this field, among other things, this means equal pay for equal work for the permanent workforce and the contract workers. We already have staff available for the widest variety of services during a product’s life cycle.”

As CEO Gerd Finkbeiner explained, “Our new business sector manroland Industrial Services is another step along the way to our strategic reorientation. We already have many years of experience in contract staffing and we are looking to grow this business. Customers in the region are aware of and appreciate our highly qualified technical personnel, not least through the dedicated efforts of our production manager Heinz Treu who will be working with Felix Wolf in his new function.”

Jürgen Bänsch, Chairman of the Works Council, added, “Thanks to the knowledge and capabilities of the staff, this is a new business model that could develop nicely and significantly reduce our exposure to the extreme fluctuations in our core business of press manufacturing. manroland Industrial Services safeguards jobs and if it succeeds will create new ones. Anyone who joins manroland Industrial Services remains a manroland employee. New opportunities arise with the same pay and the same working conditions. This is anchored in a wage agreement with IG Metall (Industrial Metalworkers’ Union). Here we are taking a completely new direction in contract staffing.”

Commented Jürgen Kerner, IG Metall (Industrial Metalworkers’ Union) Augsburg: “Using new business ideas to keep staff although the structures in the classic printing business are changing deserves recognition. Staff members have already shown that that they can help other companies in the region with their qualifications and expertise, for example at MAN Diesel & Turbo or at the Kuka Robot Group.”

“manroland Industrial Services is a real gain for Swabia and Augsburg, and represents another approach to solving the shortage of skilled workers problem. Such a model project can show the way for other activities in the region and strengthen innovation in the engineering sector,” concluded Dr. Kurt Gribl, Lord Mayor of Augsburg.

Source: company release.