Product category:
Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: KBA | Subject: Rapida 142
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 21 March 2005
Giant Carton Plant Boosts Capacity With
New Rapida
Leopold Verpackungen in Ludwigsburg produces 53,000 tonnes of solid-board and carton packaging every year - at a rate of 250 tonnes of board each day.
Leopold Verpackungen in Ludwigsburg produces 53,000 tonnes of solid-board and carton packaging every year - at a rate of 250 tonnes of board each day The company has had 17 years' experience with large format operations and has used sheetfed offset machinery from KBA Radebeul over the whole period
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 28 Apr 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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"As far as the sheet travel was concerned, there was practically no alternative for us as packaging printers to the double-circumference principle which Planeta had already implemented back then," recalled Leopold's proprietor and managing director Jurgen Leopold.
That initial Varimat 142 is still in use today.
Further Rapida presses followed, at one and two year intervals over the past six years.
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Cenpak Packaging Industry Group, part of SCA Packaging Asia has pressed the button on a 15,000 sheets per hour (sph) KBA Rapida 142 press at its Suzhou plant in China.
The company has made its latest investment, a six-colour KBA Rapida 142 with coating tower and extended delivery.
The press prints at speeds up to 15,000 sheets per hour and is as a modern medium-format press but with twice the sheet format said KBA.
That has given a considerable boost to effective output and daily capacity at Leopold.
Two separate supply circuits in the coating tower permit quick switching between UV and dispersion coatings.
Each of the coating variants holds a 50 per cent share of the company's production.
With so many presses available, it is the intention to use certain presses only for the UV process and others only for water-based finishing.
But that is not always possible.
Especially important for Leopold is the operator-friendly concept of the Rapida presses and their substrate flexibility with low-cost grey board, GC1 and kraft carton in use.
From light card at 250gsm right up to 1.5mm thick 'panels', the presses handle everything with no trouble whatsoever, as Leopold's print department manager Hans-Joachim Gonnermann confirmed.
The print format for a particular job is chosen in accordance with the run length and the layout of the blanks on the sheet.
Whereas the Ludwigsburg factory concentrates with only a few exceptions on large-format production, the branch facility in Bad Lauterberg operates exclusively in medium format.
There, too, investments are in the pipeline.
In mid-2005, the first new Rapida 105 for print outputs of up to 18,000 sheets per hour will be installed in Bad Lauterberg.
The six-colour press with coater and extended delivery will also feature the new Sensoric Infeed System (SIS), KBA's sidelay-free infeed.
It is claimed that it will be able to handle 800mm x 1045 mm plates in addition to the standard Rapida format.
That flexibility is necessary as all plate sets for repeat work are archived at Leopold.
There are still 1,000 plates from the existing presses in the stores and they also need to fit the new press.
Leopold Verpackungen has been certified in accordance with DIN/ISO 9001 2000 since 2003.
At the latest in 2006, it is to be supplemented by BRC/IPO certification for hygiene management in packaging production.
The managers in Ludwigsburg view both certificates as future essentials for a packaging printer, as more and more customers are awarding their orders only to companies able to furnish such proof of quality.
Leopold has 11 sheetfed offset presses, in 3B format and above, all the large format 102cm x 142cm (a total of 50 printing units), 12 large-format and medium-format and six small-format die-cutters and 14 gluing machines with fully and semi-automatic packing systems for the processing of all types of cartons.
It also has window gluing machines and guillotines, with all equipment housed in its 32,000 square metre factory.
The output spectrum stretches far beyond just the designing and production of folding, crash-lock bottom and display cartons.
Mailing covers, stiffening inserts for shirts, trays for dairy products and many other die-cut blanks are equally part of the product range, with the company mainly supplying customers in the food sector, as well as mail order companies and manufacturers of electrical goods, shoes and toys.
Founded in 1954 and still today in family ownership, the company counts a workforce of 180 employees, 150 of whom are in Ludwigsburg and 30 more at a branch facility in Bad Lauterberg. Request a free brochure from KBA ...
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