Brains to go with the brawn

Jo Francis has something of a brainwave at Fespa 2015.

Wanted to share an interesting snippet that came my way yesterday. I was chatting to Peter Schulz, the boss of Wissinger, a German wide-format printer that has just increased capacity significantly by investing in an additional EFI Vutek GS500 device.

Turns out he bought into this business a few years ago and came not from the printing industry, but from a banking background.

I was intrigued by this somewhat unusual move. In the course of our conversation Peter came up with a great phrase that should resonate with lots of print bosses.

He was explaining how the business had been successful, up to point, before he acquired it, but needed to progress to the next stage of its development. He described it as “the move from handwork to brainwork”.

It made me think, among all the everyday busyness of production, of actually DOING stuff, how important it is to make sure someone is busy doing a suitable amount of brainwork, as well.