Heidelberg is a strong partner for training the industry’s up-and-coming talent – focus on digitization

09/26/2017

  • Wide-ranging support for students and lecturers from educational institutions in the graphic arts sector
  • First Open Day for students and lecturers at the end of September in Wiesloch a huge success
  • Also involved in skills competitions and designing virtual learning content

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09/26/2017 - Press Release

Printing presses? Heidelberg! If you ask students at graphical vocational training schools, technical colleges, and universities, you almost always get the same answer. This should be no surprise. For some decades now, the world’s biggest printing press manufacturer has been cultivating intensive and at the same time diverse relationships with educational institutions for the graphic arts industry. The best example of this is the fact that almost all of the 120 teaching institutions up and down the country for basic and further training in print media are equipped with machines, equipment, or software from Heidelberg. It is mostly smaller-format presses in the A3 and A2 format classes that are found in the print workshops used by the students.

“The size of the machine is actually of secondary importance,” explains Bernhard Nahm, training manager for media-related occupations at Heidelberg. Ultimately the primary aim is to teach the students how an offset printing press works, in a practically relevant way. As well as traditional offset, digital Heidelberg technology is also finding its way more and more into the educational institutions. “Ultimately the print media industry is also undergoing a very definite transformation in the direction of digitization – and we at Heidelberg are helping to shape the digital training,” adds Nahm.

Students and lecturers welcome guests in Wiesloch
First “Student Lecturer Open Day” a huge success
Main sponsor of the WorldSkills Competition
Virtual reality: in the thick of it instead of on the sidelines
Real plus digital equals optimal
Photos

Download

09/26/2017 - Press Release

Hilde Weisser
Public Relations Officer, Trade Press Tel.: +49 (0)6222 82 67971
Fax.: +49 (0)6222 82 9967971

Thomas_Fichtl

Thomas Fichtl
Pressesprecher Tel.: +49 (0)6222 82 67123

Heidelberg is a strong partner for training the industry’s up-and-coming talent – focus on digitization

09/26/2017

Printing presses? Heidelberg! If you ask students at graphical vocational training schools, technical colleges, and universities, you almost always get the same answer. This should be no surprise. For some decades now, the world’s biggest printing press manufacturer has been cultivating intensive and at the same time diverse relationships with educational institutions for the graphic arts industry. The best example of this is the fact that almost all of the 120 teaching institutions up and down the country for basic and further training in print media are equipped with machines, equipment, or software from Heidelberg. It is mostly smaller-format presses in the A3 and A2 format classes that are found in the print workshops used by the students.

“The size of the machine is actually of secondary importance,” explains Bernhard Nahm, training manager for media-related occupations at Heidelberg. Ultimately the primary aim is to teach the students how an offset printing press works, in a practically relevant way. As well as traditional offset, digital Heidelberg technology is also finding its way more and more into the educational institutions. “Ultimately the print media industry is also undergoing a very definite transformation in the direction of digitization – and we at Heidelberg are helping to shape the digital training,” adds Nahm.

Students and lecturers welcome guests in Wiesloch

The main focus of the close contacts with the educational institutions is to get future print media technologists and also the future media designers excited about the Heidelberg technology early on. The industry’s leading trade fair, drupa, has long played an important role here.¬ At the last event in spring 2016, around 1,000 students and lecturers invited to Düsseldorf by Heidelberg found out about the latest trends and the current challenges in the industry. Since then, the same number of interested students and lecturers came to Wiesloch again for presentations, seminars, and plant tours. “The size of the Wiesloch-Walldorf plant, the modern production technology, and the high quality standard in assembly are downright fascinating for most of them,” says Karl Saueressig, who spent more than four decades working at Heidelberg and today builds bridges to educational institutions, students, and lecturers as an advisor. Also of great importance here is the further training of lecturers, for example with specialist seminars on current industry issues and new application-related processes. Heidelberg works closely with Lehrerarbeitsgemeinschaft Medien (LAG) based in Berlin to this end.

First “Student Lecturer Open Day” a huge success

The first Open Day for students and lecturers was held on 21 September in Wiesloch. For the first time, around 160 future print media technologists, media designers, technicians, and master printers from almost all corners of Germany were invited to Wiesloch for an entire day. Presentations on the development of the market, technological trends, and digitization in the print media industry were complemented by plant tours as well as demonstrations in the Print Media Center. “This combined and at the same time very varied knowledge transfer was extremely well received by our young guests and their trainers,” states project manager Karl Saueressig with satisfaction. Similar events are planned.

Main sponsor of the WorldSkills Competition

Heidelberg also plays a very important role in the “WorldSkills” world championships for professional skills including printing technology. The company has been a main sponsor for the printing discipline in the biennial competition for more than ten years, providing all offset printing presses, digital printing presses, and cutting machines as well as the matching consumables free of charge. As a founding member of Worldskills Germany, Heidelberg has hosted the national championship in its Print Media Center in Wiesloch for eight years, with the winners qualifying to take part in the Worldskills Competition. The German representative undergoes a comprehensive training program at Heidelberg as intensive preparation for the competition, being held this year in Abu Dhabi. Incidentally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the patron of the German “national vocational team” at the competitions in the Arabian Gulf. The Print Media Center in Wiesloch is expected to be awarded the status “National intensive training center for print media technology” by Worldskills Germany in the coming months.

Virtual reality: in the thick of it instead of on the sidelines

The progressive digitization is also changing the form and content of training in the print media landscape. Together with the ZFA (Zentral-Fachausschuss Berufsbildung Druck und Medien), the University of Wuppertal, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Rostock among others, Heidelberg is currently involved in a three-year project to develop new virtual learning content. Entitled “Social Augmented Learning”, its purpose is to give those training as a print media technologist virtual impressions of the highly complex inner workings and operating principle of a running printing press using state-of-the-art digital technology. The trainees can see the operating principle of hidden components on the screen using tablets and a special app for easier understanding.

Real plus digital equals optimal

“This not only improves the training itself, but also makes the career of print media technologist more attractive to young people,” explains trainer Bernhard Nahm. The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. Heidelberg is the only cooperation partner in all of Germany in this research project for digital learning content. “We regard the fact that we were chosen as the industrial partner as a huge honor,” stresses Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberg.

Tablets and apps are primarily intended for use in the vocational colleges for the graphics art industry. The feedback from the first tests in 13 institutions nationwide with around 200 trainees was very positive. “Studies have shown that young people today learn more successfully if you expand the real world to include the digital one,” says Bernhard Nahm. The app contains the design design for a Heidelberg press from the SX 74 model series, which is the one mostly widely used in the students’ training workshops.

“Open Days, visitor groups, skills competitions, virtual learning content – no other company is as committed to the basic and further training of the printers of the future as Heidelberg,” summarize Bernhard Nahm and Karl Saueressig in closing.

Photos

Photo 1: The Heidelberg Open Day saw around 160 future print media technologists, media designers, technicians, and master printers from almost all corners of Germany invited to Wiesloch for an entire day.

Photo 2: The print media industry is undergoing a transformation in the direction of digitization. Heidelberg is pursuing this rigorously, as the visitors to the Open Day were able to experience live with the Heidelberg Assistant.

Photo 3: With Social Virtual Reality, the real world is expanded to include the digital one. The app contains the design design for a Heidelberg press from the SX 74 model series, which is the one mostly widely used in the students’ training workshops.

Contact

Hilde Weisser

Public Relations Officer, Trade Press

Tel.: +49 (0)6222 82 67971

Tel.: +49 (0)6222 82 9967971

Thomas Fichtl

Pressesprecher

Tel.: +49 (0)6222 82 67123

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