König & Bauer AG - Print pros from France and Mexico visit KBA

Just one week after Ipex closed in Birmingham, printers from France and Mexico called at KBA’s sheetfed production plant in Radebeul for customised print demonstrations.

Some twenty print pros from all over France gathered at the customer training centre on 1 June for demonstrations of the many applications possible with medium-format presses. These ranged from standard commercial and packaging work on a Rapida 105 through high-quality inline finishing on a Rapida 106 UV coater press to high-speed job changes on a Rapida 106 ten-colour perfector sporting DriveTronic SPC and Flying JobChange. The demonstrations included changes of substrate from lightweight paper to heavy board. Another focus of the event was ISO 12647-compliant online and inline measurement and control via DensiTronic Professional and QualiTronic Color Control with Instrument Flight®. Specifically organised for French printers who had been unable to attend Ipex, the demonstrations gave them an opportunity to witness the capabilities and performance of medium-format presses for a variety of standard and niche applications. They were particularly impressed by the Rapida 106’s advanced automation and flying job change capability.

The printers from Mexico visited KBA at around the same time following a tour of Germany that had led them to Dresden via Frankfurt am Main, Lauterbach, Braunschweig and Altenburg. En route they saw Rapida sheetfed presses in action at commercial and packaging enterprises STI, Westermann Druck, Bernholz Verpackungen and DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg. Their fact-finding mission concluded in Radebeul with demonstrations not just on medium- but also on large-format presses: commercial and packaging jobs on various configurations of the Rapida 105 and Rapida 106 plus high-quality packaging printing on a Rapida 142. Wolfram Zehnle, head of the customer centre, and his staff provided a knowledgeable and detailed briefing on cutting-edge KBA technology. This was followed by a tour of Dresden and an excursion into the surrounding countryside, aka “Saxon Switzerland”. At the conclusion of their five-day trip to Germany the members of the Mexican delegation either flew back home replete with information, or took time off privately to explore the country further.

The Koenig & Bauer Group is one of the largest press manufacturers worldwide and has the broadest press range in the industry. The parent company is Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) with facilities in Würzburg, Radebeul, Frankenthal and Trennfeld (all in Germany).

The other core members of the Group are Maschinenfabrik KBA-Mödling AG in Mödling, near Vienna (Austria), KBA-Grafitec s.r.o. in Dobruška (Czech Republic), KBA-Metronic AG in Veitshöchheim, near Würzburg (Germany), KBA-MetalPrint GmbH in Stuttgart (also Germany) and KBA-GIORI S.A. in Lausanne (Switzerland). KBA North America Inc. in Dallas, Texas (USA), is our sales and service subsidiary for the US and Canada. In addition we have sales and service outlets in the UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Brazil, Russia, Poland, Australia, China, Malaysia and Singapore, plus a global network of dealers. The core companies in the Group employ some 7,500 people.