Six-Colour Packaging Press Brings Best Out Of CTP

McCowat-Mercer Packaging, a packaging printer in Jackson, Tennessee, has increased its throughput by connecting its CTP system to its new automated KBA Rapida 130a 51" six-colour sheetfed press.

McCowat-Mercer Packaging, a packaging printer in Jackson, Tennessee, has increased its throughput by connecting its CTP system to its new automated KBA Rapida 130a 51" six-colour sheetfed press.

Jon Butler, vice president and plant manager of McCowat-Mercer, said: "The driving force behind purchasing the new KBA 51" press was the installation of our new Creo digital pre-press system.

We wanted to take full advantage of the faster throughput from pre-press to press.

Twenty years ago, we used to get six weeks to turn-around a job.

Today, we're lucky if we get two weeks." He added: "The new KBA Rapida 130a is a very sophisticated, automated machine that allows us to take a 5,000 to 50,000 run length job and get it back to the customer quickly.

In our line of work, short-run to medium-run high quality packaging, make-ready is critical.

We re-run lots of jobs with more sophisticated designs and more parameters and with the Rapida press, we can keep all of that data in memory to recall quickly when we need to reprint the job." Since the firm has had a long-term relationship with KBA, having owned four previous sheetfed presses, management was quite familiar with KBA's press design.

Butler added: "We're aware of KBA's unique method of building presses.

We know that they build the press in Germany to our specifications, dismantle the press, ship it to the USA and re-assemble it at our facility.

When the new Rapida 130a arrived at our facility, it was re-assembled by KBA's team of engineers.

What they weren't expecting and what is not supposed to happen was that the test plates used in Germany were still on the press, having made the trip half-way around the world in all sorts of weather conditions." He explained that instead of taking the test plates off, McCowat-Mercer re-inked them and gave them a try.

Five units were in perfect register and one unit had one dot off.

The new Rapida 130a, installed last December and running live jobs by mid-January 2006, runs in tandem with a sister Rapida 105 41" six-colour double coater sheetfed press.

The two presses are operated on two 10-hour shifts four days a week with overtime work completed on Friday.

Most of the firm's work is printed on boxboard, from SPSS to carrier code substrates.

But, said Butler, customers may send jobs to be printed on foil or any other type of substrate.

The Rapida 130a is equipped with KBA's Logotronic management system and KBA's Densitronic S system.

The KBA Logotronic system is claimed to guarantee multi-system digital data communication.

The company-wide data exchange between the printing company management system, Logotronic professional, managment information system, or trade software and pre-press is carried out by means of a JDF interface.

Once the plates have been made the CIP3 data are automatically assigned to the job via the hot folder.

KBA added that the CIP3 files are also converted in to preset data for the press.

When a job is rescheduled to another press the preset data are automatically recalculated for that press, which is said to ensure that the latest job data, including preset data, is always available at the control console.

KBA's Densitronic S is a combined density and colour measuring system for quality control during printing.

Unlike any other system available on the market, Densitronic S also permits direct measurements within the image.

Deviations from defined target densities, colour values and other quality parameters (dot gain, trapping, for instance) are recognised and displayed in comparison to hand-held measuring devices.

With integration for on-line control, the density and spectral deviations are converted in to corrective adjustments for the individual ink keys.

The Densitronic S controls the density and spectral parameters of each sheet by measuring along control strips or directly on the image, added the company.

Established in 1873, McCowat-Mercer Packaging is a privately-held packaging printer that serves a variety of customers nationwide.

In the last 50 years, the firm has produced customised retail packaging for a variety of markets, including automotive, medical, textile and food.

This packaging includes folding cartons, blister cards, skin pack cards and clamshell inserts.

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