US And Canadian Printers German KBA Tour

A select number of US and Canadian printers were taken on a tour of KBA's German headquarters and manufacturing facility by the company's North American subsidiary.

KBA North America treated the group to a behind-the-scenes look at the factory assembly hall, the research and development facility, as well as providing demonstrations on the new Rapida 105 41-inch five-over-five perfector press and the large format Rapida 142 56-inch four-over-four perfector machine.

There were also a number of visits to printers that are utilising KBA presses in sophisticated markets, added the company.

Ralf Sammeck, president and chief executive officer of KBA North America, said: "Our open house in Germany provided top North American printers with an in-depth education on how to decide on one of our popular presses from a long perfector 41-inch press to a large-format press, or even a large format perfector, which only KBA can deliver.

This was accomplished by showing them make-readies for commercial, packaging and label jobs, including hybrid technology and comparing costs and throughput on both types of presses." He continued: "Our guests said that being able to see the wide span of KBA's presses, from the small format Genius to the super-large Rapida 205 81-inch sheetfed press, was amazing.

They were impressed by the high quality of work being produced by the presses.

At one of our many demonstrations, we were able to witness sheets being produced on a 56-inch sheetfed versus a 41-inch sheetfed and there was no difference in quality." The trip included a guided tour through the assembly halls, as well as demonstrations at KBA's research and development facility in Radebeul, near Dresden.

After demonstrations on KBA's high performance 41-inch and 56-inch presses, the group saw KBA's method of individually building presses for each of its customers, then shipping the press and having the same German press crew re-build the press on the customer's premises.

The group also learned how KBA builds its perfector presses and saw a couple of long perfectors, including special configurations with coaters on each end, being test-printed and prepared for delivery.

The party also visited Ellerhold Grossplakate, one of the biggest poster printers in Europe, which laid claim to the world's first Rapida 205 81-inch sheetfed press in January 2004.

The visitors saw a production run on the press to see how Ellerhold produces posters within 24 hours.

The visitors also went to a printer whose philosophy is to only take internet orders and whose sales have been doubling each year.

Within the facility the group saw the variety of 14 KBA presses in use, ranging from a 20-inch model to a large-format model, all linked via KBA's Logotronic management system.

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