Wyndeham Heron

Source: Manufacturing Digital

Date :28/09/2007 15:55:08

One of the top three in its industry

Alison Withers spoke to MD David Emeny to hear how Wyndeham Heron has fine tuned its operations following a buyout 18 months ago

Written by Alison Withers & Produced by Rahim Ali

David Emeny, 48, was appointed as the new MD of Wyndeham Heron, in Maldon, Essex, in June this year. His career spans more than 30 years in the printing and publishing industry. He was previously Sales Admin Director, then MD of the St Ives Group web division and was with that company for 17 years before moving to his present post.

Originally from Colchester, he plans to move “back to his roots” in the near future to be closer to the plant. Although new to the post he’s already decided: “This is a nicer job, more challenging and it’s an interesting position.”

18 months ago, the Wyndeham Press Group, of which Wyndeham Heron is one unit, was the subject of a buy-out by a group of Icelandic investors including Baugur, itself a major investor in the UK retail industry with interests in House of Fraser, Iceland, Hamleys and many others. (www.baugurgroup.com) The Wyndeham group offers a range of services across its 12 companies, from web offset, sheet fed, continuous and digital large format print manufacturing, through to design and pre-press, packaging and corporate solutions. Products range from consumer and business-to-business magazines, to catalogues, directories, marketing communications, direct mail and point of sale retail graphics.

The situation now

The Wyndeham Heron plant is a huge manufacturing site in printing terms . The facility produces over 400 magazines per month including high volume consumer “glossies” such as: Esquire, Reveal, What Car?, Harpers Bazaar, Time, Newsweek and The Spectator, as well as multiple, market leading business to business journals.

Upon his arrival at Wyndeham Heron Emeny says: “The management of the factory was very good but it needed a bit of fine tuning on the commercial side, so I’ve been bringing in a lot of different ideas for the business, which I think will help.” Its most significant recent investment was to install a £1 million perfect binding machine bringing its capacity up to 5 perfect binders, providing extra contingency and the reassurance that the factory can easily cope with larger magazine issues when required.

Effective supply chain management is crucial to the business and managed at Wyndeham Heron by a bespoke IT system covering the whole chain from orders, estimating and processing through to the finished product. The company is also using the Kaizen ‘lean and fit’ methodology to improve the manufacturing process, reduce waste and make-ready time so that there is less machine downtime. Increased productivity has meant upping machine use from 80 percent to 85 percent.

The Workforce is loyal and stable, aided by flat management, meaning there are no significant recruitment problems. The company runs an apprentice scheme to ensure it stays that way.

The future – calculating the carbon footprint

n July this year the group’s pre-press division was awarded a sole pre-press supplier deal by IPC Media for eight of IPC’s flagship titles, including Marie Claire, Homes and Gardens and Woman and Home. It also became packaging partners with Unilever Food solutions for producing the new PG Tips Polybags.

Wyndeham Heron itself printed a one-off, 176 page Silverstone F1 official programme in July. In a stunning 3-day turnaround, the company employed an online project management system which allowed the client to upload, proof and approve advertising and editorial pages online, then drop them back into the workflow system as they were done.

Says Emeny: “It went very well and the customers were also pleased. We have a good relationship with that particular customer (publisher TRMG) which specializes in one-off promotions.”

With the organization at Wyndeham Heron already satisfactorily structured to meet its business commitments and the intended push for new business in magazines, brochures and catalogues in place, there are no plans for further reorganization.

However, Wyndeham Heron will be looking at two key issues for the future, says Emeny. The first will be to comprehensively overhaul the IT system.

The second is looking to reduce waste, landfill and carbon footprint. It’s no easy task,as he explains. In an industry like this paper is a particular issue: “It’s very difficult to assess our carbon footprint. A lot of our paper is supplied by customers but we do have some who insist on using recycled paper. There are companies making mechanical recycled paper and we are planning to use it.”

Indeed, Emeny has been out to Finland and Sweden and seen how they operate: “Paper in itself is a crop and I’ve seen how they cut trees and plant replacements. It’s an ongoing process and we see a benefit in understanding what it is and in trying to reduce waste in energy. There’s also the issue of corporate responsibility. All our paper is from Scandinavia and they do like to be efficient in every aspect of manufacturing.”

He adds: “What you have to remember with paper is it’s only made from the top 20 percent of the tip of the tree. The majority of the tree is used in the timber industry for building. Paper needs a finer cellular structure and you want the longest fibres.” This is the reason for using only the top of the trees. But for quality magazine print there is also the issue of chemical treatment needed to produce the right material.

However, says Emeny, their paper is re-used a great deal, first to be turned into newsprint and then it can be re-used again as cardboard, with “a huge mill in Kent which recycles thousands of tons every year”.

The other issue for Wyndeham Heron is energy use – web presses use a lot of electricity and gas, particularly at start-up, and that can only be changed by investment in more energy-efficient plant: “As we re-invest we will bring in more energy-efficient equipment.”

Over time, he believes, paying attention to the whole issue of reducing waste and improving energy efficiency is a win-win situation since the company will benefit from reduced costs and the environment from the reduced demand.

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Wyndeham Heron