Demand For Superlarge Machines Presses Capacity

The demand for the superlarge format KBA Rapida 185 and Rapida 205 press series is outstripping the company's boldest expectations, and assembly and print testing continue to run at full capacity.

The demand for the superlarge format KBA Rapida 185 and Rapida 205 press series is outstripping the company's boldest expectations, and assembly and print testing at the KBA facility in Radebeul continue to run at full capacity.

Four-colour to six-colour versions with coating and dryer towers are the popular configurations for the Rapida 205 (151cm x 205cm).

They are being ordered not only for classic poster and display printing but increasingly for packaging applications, maps and most recently even book printing, said KBA.

One typical example of that development is the Prestige Vision Group (PVG) in St Petersburg (Russia).

The poster printer has, to date, counted two older Varimat 162 presses among its plant base.

Following installation of a five-colour Rapida 205, PVG will now be expanding its product range to also include school maps.

General director Wenjamin Schuler and three of his printers were in Radebeul in April for the technical acceptance of their new press and they were immediately taken by the advances in terms of automation, make-ready times and ease of operation compared to the company's current equipment.

British printer Augustus Martin was founded as a screen-printing business in 1966.

In 1990, one of the largest screen printing centres was opened as the new company headquarters in the London Docklands area, and the operations profile was soon broadened further to also embrace offset and digital print.

Work focuses on point-of-sale materials such as two-dimensional and three-dimensional displays, billboards and posters, amongst other products.

The company won the SPA Awards for plastic and large-format printing in the non-3D POS category in 2004.

Rapida medium- and large-format presses have already been in use at the company for the last 10 years.

The latest line-up of two Rapida 162 models and a Rapida 105 was recently supplemented by a five-colour Rapida 205 with additional dryer tower.

Consequently, many of the displays, which in the past could only be produced from a single sheet by screen or digital printing, can now be handled in offset, adding up to significantly greater efficiency and quality.

In France, Loire Offset Plus in St.

Etienne, will be deploying the slightly smaller Rapida 185 model for book-printing work from the beginning of next year.

The company is presently printing its books and posters on three Rapida 162a presses.

Following print tests with materials down to 90 gsm, the decision fell in favour of a four-colour Rapida 185 with dryer tower and inline cut system (ICS).

The ICS slitting device permits the giant sheets to be cut and delivered to two parallel piles in 92.5cm x 130cm foramt, said KBA.

That means that all the existing finishing and binding equipment can still be used.

KBA said it is now expecting other book printers to make similar moves into superlarge format in the wake of that pilot installation, as they discover the economic benefits of the larger sheet size.

Superlarge Rapidas are already in production, or else awaiting delivery, to users in a number of other countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, the USA, Spain, Italy and Sweden.

More than 160 superlarge format Rapida printing units sold within less than two years show that VLF is more than a small niche market for poster printers and that there is still a lot of potential to be discovered, believes KBA.

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