Product category:
Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: KBA | Subject: Rapida 105 Press
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 March 2004
KBA Rapida Answers All Needs On One
Machine
Dirk Ackerknecht, managing director of Meinke Druck in Neuss, near Dusseldorf, has seized the initiative to improve his company's competitive advantage by installing a 14-unit KBA Raipda 105 press.
Dirk Ackerknecht, managing director of German printing house Meinke Druck in Neuss, near Dusseldorf, has seized the initiative to improve his company's competitive advantage by installing a 14-unit KBA Rapida 105 Ackerknecht has set his sights primarily on the cosmetics, fashion and automotive industries as they have adopted Dusseldorf as the centre of their European on a Cologne-Neuss-Dusseldorf axis
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 13 May 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Meinke's 'secret weapon' for cornering the market is what Ackerknecht dubs his Effectpress.
With the Effectpress, Ackerknecht's strategy is to enhance the finished product in a variety of ways, most notably by producing sophisticated and unusual special effects.
Ackerknecht wanted a production tool capable of printing and in-line coating on both sides of the sheet in one pass, with the option of additional coating effects, also on both sides, using flexographic gold or silver varnish, or gloss or matt coatings on top of standard aqueous or UV.
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Chinese Printers Sign For Rapidas For 4 Plants
Chinese printers Wing Hung and its affiliated company Shore To Shore (STS) have signed contracts with Koenig and Bauer (KBA) for another four Rapida sheetfed offset presses.
Packaging Competition Prompts Press Purchases
When KBA unveiled a new Rapida 105 at Drupa, a similar press had already been put through its paces for several months at the pharmaceutical centre run by the Rob Leunis and Chapman Group (RLC).
Economical Printing With Hybrid Inks
With a two-day open house at longstanding KBA customer Press R3 in Almenno San Bartolomeo, the medium-format Rapida 105 press was officially unveiled on the Italian market.
The 14-unit Rapida 105 now installed at Meinke represents a milestone in sheetfed engineering, according to KBA.
One of the reasons Ackerknecht opted for a KBA press instead of a Heidelberg was that a similar KBA press line has already been installed in South Africa, though he thought it was not ambitious enough for his purposes.
The Rapida can apply five colours and add two coatings to the eight standard pages on both sides of a 700mm x 1,000mm (271/2" x 391/2") sheet in a single pass.
Ackerknecht has a long-standing policy of using quality as an effective instrument for product differentiation and, in addition to upgrading production technology on a regular basis, even employs two full-time proof-readers.
Almost four years ago, during Drupa 2000, the company moved out of Dusseldorf city centre, where it had been situated for 74 years, to new premises in Neuss, installing the first of a number of Speedmasters in the process.
This is now the oldest item of production equipment in the entire company, pre-press included.
The relocation was part of a strategic realignment aimed at establishing a new customer base in the promotional print market.
The gamble has paid off, and today a string of agencies and prominent names in the automotive, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, fashion, photographic and audiovisual industries, from BMW and RTL promoter IP to Victoria Insurance, are amongst the company's clients.
But despite the technology upgrade Meinke still faces tough competition in its designated markets.
So, the course it has adopted has been to specialise in the exceptional.
Dirk Ackerknecht explained: "If we were to continue as before, with production equipment indistinguishable from that of all the other printers, such as 4c plus a fifth colour and coating, we'd be dead and buried in no time.
We believe that uniformity in the marketplace will kill off a lot of printing firms." This is why he re-oriented the company's entire production strategy by streamlining the workflow to support both volume and specialisation.
He continued: "Printing technology today offers a lot of potential for rationalising the workflow and it would be criminal not to exploit it.
Technology has made enormous advances since Drupa 2000, from new FM screens, high-speed workflow systems and CTP in pre-press to new inking systems, high-pigment inks, hybrid UV and coating options in the press room and inline double coating or embossing in post-press.
Automation and networking now play a major role, and it is here that progress has been most rapid." He believes that many of the new developments are now mature enough to be taken on board, enabling print providers to offer customers value-added products.
"I believe the firm's future - and a new brochure culture - lies in combining advanced perfecting technology with hybrid inks, Staccato screening and double coating.
Being production specialists, we are confident we can do all this with just one machine." He is happy to reveal how he envisages print products should look in the future.
One example is Pancrom News, a glossy magazine devoted to the upper echelons of Brazilian society, and a book that Daimler-Chrysler presents to customers signing-up for a new car.
The magazine boasts not only gold and silver embossing but also luminous and gold ink and a variety of coating effects including structured coating.
Ackerknecht also believes that, if he is to print and coat products cost-effectively, the graphic artist must be involved right from the word go.
Customers can order from a catalogue or, preferably, from a book of samples consisting of printed sheets demonstrating the many different combinations of print plus special coating effects that are possible.
These can then be mixed and matched to suit customer specifications.
The extensive choice means that they can see the result prior to placing an order.
Ackerknecht believes that the greatest potential for growth lies in the reproducible and automated production of perfect printed and coated five-colour brochures, catalogues, leaflets and magazines in mid-length runs and with medium page counts.
The 39-year-old entrepreneur calculates that exploiting such advanced technology and press automation, in tandem with a streamlined workflow to support one-pass production, enables him to offer substantial value added at a surcharge of just 10%-15% on the price of standard four over four.
Targeting the high end of the market in this way is profitable from a print run of around 5,000 sheets.
Meinke has also placed an order for a new-generation Rapida 105 five colour with coater, delivery extension and hybrid package, with delivery scheduled for after Drupa. Request a free brochure from KBA ...
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