While automation such as Prinect is yet to gain traction in Tanzania’s fledging print industry, Heidelberg spies an opportunity and has hosted seminars to update the market about its prepress technology.
At a one-day seminar in Dar es Salaam in October, Heidelberg’s East Africa agent Achelis gave a presentation jointly with Dr Ali Makari of Heidelberg on using software tools to enhance productivity.
Theobald Stephen, Heidelberg manager at Achelis, said the event was part of an initiative to update print shop customers on “new technologies and innovations in Heidelberg products and services”.
Most print shops outsource prepress, but “quite a few” print shops have machines that are compatible with Prinect, said Stephen.
Tanzania’s printing industry includes both large and small printers within the private sector, government, NGOs and religious bodies.
Heidelberg estimates that its presses make up more than 95% of the country’s offset machines, although the country’s relative poverty and the difficulty of obtaining loans means many printers in Tanzania opt for preowned kit, he added.
Yet Heidelberg has sold many new presses into the market, for larger more specialised facilities, which have complete print shops with more than one prepress machine, said Stephen.
Tanzania is still ranked as one of the world’s poorest nations, although the last two decades have seen fast growth in mining, construction, oil and gas, agriculture, tourism and manufacturing.
In recent years, digital machines have started to appear in some of Tanzania’s print shops, said Stephen.
While most printers take a variety of jobs, specialised packaging printers are also now starting to emerge, he added.