Broadening Your Horizons

Since the middle of 2007, customers from all over the world have been traveling to Eppelheim, Germany, to the Print Media Academy's Educ@te Center. And with good cause: here, they do not just get comprehensive hands-on experience on Heidelberg technology but also several superlatives in terms of training.

Eppelheim, which lies about five kilometers (three miles) outside of Heidelberg, is a small town like many others. If it were not for Heidelberg's Educ@te Center, that is. Opened in July 2007, it draws printers and prepress experts from customer businesses worldwide, as well as service technicians and instructors from Heidelberg. All want to complete one of the more than 800 training courses offered by the Centre each year. "Reception is enormous. Our original calculations are being exceeded already. We now expect around 8,000 participants per year, of which a large portion comes from abroad," reports Bernd Schopp, Director of the Print Media Academy. The training is rounded off with a visit to the factory in Wiesloch, the world's largest and most modern printing press factory, as well the headquarters and Print Media Academy (PMA) in Heidelberg.

More Machines Nowhere to Be Found
At Heidelberg, Educ@te, the PMA's new training center, stands for a comprehensive training program for service technicians, instructors and marketing staff. It has established itself as the worldwide home of high-quality Heidelberg training courses. Most of the 20 training courses, which take place weekly, last five days. Training is limited to a maximum of eight to ten people to encourage the best learning environment for participants. Roughly 70 percent of training time is used for hands-on practice and 30 percent for the necessary theory. Participants are trained and closely accompanied by a pool of 140 certified trainers. The Educ@te Center's equipment is a further distinguishing feature: alongside the entire range of Prinect solutions, there are currently 20 printing presses with state-of-the-start equipment on a surface area of 12,000 square meters  (129,167 square feet). "We have all machines - from the small models like the Printmaster QM 46-2 to the long perfectors and the Speedmaster XL 105. Some are equipped with Anicolor, perfecting or CutStar. This allows our customers to receive practical training on the machines they have in their businesses at home, which ensures the greatest gains," says Wolfgang Pretzsch, Director of the Educ@te Center.

Safety Shoes à la Educ@te
At the training courses in the Educ@te Center, German safety standards are indirectly acquired and even exported. The safety shoes mandated by German lawmakers, for example, are a real sales hit in the courses. "Some participants don't just buy one pair but secure a second replacement pair for themselves right away, too. We could really open an additional business selling shoes here," Pretzsch jokes. "Just yesterday a Mexican purchased five pairs of shoes for his colleagues at home."

Pretzsch and his team do everything to make sure customers do not just learn a lot but also feel at ease. They hire interpreters and organize excursions and a range of food options to accommodate the various cultural and religious dietary habits. Now and then, they encounter very specific notions of German cuisine as well. "At evening events in Heidelberg, sometimes a few order a hearty knuckle of pork and sauerkraut because they saw it in their travel guide. But then when the steaming knuckle is finally on their plate, one or the other loses their courage after all," says Pretzsch with a small grin.