Schenk

Hi Winston.
Agreed with all of that. MnR and MHM have good footprints in China and India. I am not sure in a global economy that smaller companies have either the future in terms of limited output and duplicate R&D on their machines. Bigger companies can hold parts, offer better support, training, range, faster leadtimes and importantly reinvestment in technology which is expensive. In the future you would have to have something special to be small and viable I imagine. Lots of companies have and will go to China.
Few manage to keep top staff on the ground overseeing strict standards and replicating western production lines. A couple of Graphic presses have been made decently in Taiwan and China, but there is so much disappointment with machines at have potential but are just never finished right. Outside of China there are other countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand etc which do produce some good industrial machines, roll printers etc to a higher standard.
We are metric here and it's great to have MnR offering both models for different markets.
One other thing we do love here is side clamps. Have to say I am a really big fan of the 2M RPM / Mustang because of that feature. Great to see them on Richs Diamondbacks, but haven't seen them on other models.
Interesting is I see graphic press manufacturers selling light boxes for colour matching, but never see them around textile sector yet plenty of factories operate shifts with poor and artificial lighting. In the US GTI GraphicTechnology make the MiniMatcher and I think it's essential for every shop to own.
One thing I saw with Schenk I think was they had rigged up a sensor that you flicked your hand through after loading a shirt and the whole machine indexed then, so if you were loading something with a tight fit onto a pallet and the load time was variable it could run by just breaking the beam on your way to pick up the next item, and I thought that was cool.
IMO they should have merged with MHM as similar companies with a good fit. I'm not a fan of Italian machines, design or management practice. Sure a couple of good cars are made there, but Italy produces a lot of capital machinery across all industries and does not have the reputation of German or Austrian quality, but they may make it cheaper.
America is lucky to have the population to justify infrastructure, support and be able to make its own brand with scale and affordable technology. Nowhere better to be than have the leader in your own back yard, but like anything, you need competition to drive things forward and keep innovation and momentum up, so even though companies like Schenk may not be suitable for most, they are still part of the mix.
There are plenty of good companies out there. SRoque is another. Without copying machines or anything silly they need to understand what the good companies do well, working backwards. Look at who buys machines, what they want physically in value, price versus functions, and service, support, training, local agents, compatibility etc then change their business to supply what and how a printer wants. I feel the European MFGs are all into engineering and not customer support or service. I mean no other company has the owner following up the smallest of complaints virtually immediately for quickest resolution like Rich of MnR does. That is why he is deservingly the biggest, and he is awesome at it. Unbelievable even, how many other companies in any other industry would have the CEO at any time available to sort something out, even a trivial forum request. Screenprinting is lucky to have a passionate driver like that, but disappointing other companies don't lift their game. TAS, Printex, Anatol, SRoque, MHM, Schenk, RPM, and others, none of them come close, and if they did lift their game, I believe the direct result would be a lift in sales. Of course that is them handling ethically, professionally and looking how Rich does it rather than Roberts approach....

Seen the Askme presses in Ningbo, China. Massive, more like a train than an auto, and solid looking too. Sias were good, but Thieme is the leader and if you couldn't afford a
Thieme I would buy ATMA Champ from Taiwan, own one, great machine. Italian machines tend to be over engineered, over built and over complicated with a multitude of components. If you ever see OMSO machines the mechanics in them are mind blowing. The other side of Italian machines are just cheap and nasty. Broken welds, cheap motors, and bad metals.
I like MnR belt printer, but you need to be in a big market for more specialist machines. I think that's the future. I really like the YouTube clip of the SRoque printing umbrellas. What some don't realize is that textile is only a small part of screenprinting. There are lots of industrial machines, roll printers, bottle printers, reel, fabric, overglossers, graphics. Same principles and some crossover principals and technologies. There are screen machines you can alter the rego looking at a tv screen and on the keyboard adjust by .2mm micros electronically from behind interlocked safety doors. Cameras that read colour and print quality, so you save it in, and if your screen were to run low on ink and miss a bit or have something stick to the underneath of the screen it will work like a prox sensor and stop your press. Function like that the technology is there and affordable so it's only a matter of time before your top end machines get more features coming across.

Ha.
I run three machines, 2 Omso and one offset Polytype printing screw caps for the wine industry, they run average 30,000 an hour with three printers and one fitter turner engineer on every shift. €4,000,000 worth of machines. The thing you learn very fast is you are only as good as your machine, and that is only as good as the engineer. There is a huge range of ability of engineers, just like printers!!! They are scary machines, with inline degreaser, coating unit, drier, print unit and after drier, about 8 meters high, five meters wide, and about 36 metres long.

Own an ATMA over a Sias any day.

Hi Lux Inks. I'd do your job, but I am in Auckland, New Zealand.
Winston, we don't get much in terms of freebies. I'm at the supermarket like everyone else.
NZ does produce some damn fine Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Noir though.

I am in talks with a company setting up a joint venture. Funnily enough their Schenk got killed in one of the ten thousand plus Canterbury / Christchurch earthquakes when their building collapsed and insurance just bought them a nice new sportsman!

I believe representation and distribution channels including support, parts supply, maintenance and education all play roles, and thinking about why some of these companies never make it has a lot to do with how they set up those channels.