Mueller's VSO press is the cause of the division being shut down VSO presses have now shutdown 2 press manufacturers first Drent and now Mueller
You might be right about the VSOP web press being a factor in the demise of these companies. Even though it is an interesting concept, it is not unique enough or in demand enough to sustain a press manufacturer alone. Of course the VSOP press was only one of many presses in the press line of these companies but possibly too much hope was placed in it as a revenue generator.
Also part of the problem is that web offset is possibly losing ground to more advanced flexo printing technology for packaging. I used to work for Tetra Pak and they are in the process of shutting down their last offset plant which is in Holland. After almost 30 years of experience running offset for their packaging operation, in which they also had Chambon presses and lately VSOP presses from Drent Goebel, they have decided to go to advanced flexo in some of their other plant locations.
This was a 30 year experiment with offset and for the most part, Tetra Pak is giving up on that process and going back to flexo and gravure, which they have been doing for a much longer time. They gave up on offset about 20 years ago in Canada and the USA and now in Holland.
Personally, I think Drent Goebel made a mistake just over ten years ago. At that time, I gave them a seminar on press design related to density control and they also tested a simple prototype of my ITB technology. There was even talk about developing a new press design based on some of my knowledge. They used my ITB technology on their test press for about four years for running their normal tests of different substrates and inks etc. They kept the ITB on that press because it worked better than what they had. And that prototype ITB was only a simple piece of nylon scraper blade and a new roller. Very crude but still effective for their test needs.
I think their mistake at DG was that the owner did not allow the engineers to develop the ITB and other press concepts and just tried to market the VSOP. Personally I think developing the capability to have consistent and predictable printing with no ink water balancing is a much more important development than having the light weight VSOP cylinders. That would have made a bigger impact in the industry and it could have also been applied to their other press models. Just my opinion for what it is worth.
Yes, decisions of managers have a big impact on the health of companies. Without hindsight, many wrong decisions are made that seem to be the right ones at the time. Most of the key bits of knowledge I learned and developed about the offset process were done at Tetra Pak but Tetra Pak could not commit to taking the opportunities when they were offered.
The Drent Goebel engineers liked my concepts but were not allowed to develop them. Mueller Martini for over ten years never thought they were in need of help although last Spring, I was asked for an opinion from one of their executives who stated that their customers had basically no operating window when running UV inks on plastic. He thought there was an opportunity but had to wait and see what upper management would do. I waited for months until I realized what the delay was when I read that press manufacturing was to be discontinued.
Decisions are what cause the problems not technologies, but it is very hard to know what the right decisions are. But on the other hand, I would say that for the general printer, most would not care about variable repeat length and more would care about consistency and predictability that results in very short makereadies.
