The packaging company is in the process of installing the six-colour plus coater KBA Rapida 105 at its Villawood factory, its second Sydney site after the Leichhardt label plant.
General manager Evan Atkins told ProPrint: “Folding carton is a fairly competitive market and we needed to keep abreast and make sure we could deliver our clients the quality and service they were accustomed to.”
The Rapida 105 can print at 16,000 sheets per hour and comes spec’d with Denistronic closed-loop colour control, as well as LogoTronic CIPLINK, which “fingerprints” the press to the proof, added Atkins.
The system allows continuous flow of data from pre-press into the printing department, to pre-set the press and shorten makeready times.
The press has also been optioned to accommodate board up to 1.2mm thick.
The Rapida 105 is currently being installed, and Atkins said the team was “expecting we will get some sheets in a few weeks”.
It replaces two Manroland presses: a Roland 606 and a Roland 204, which KBA traded in as part of the deal.
Dave Lewis, KBA Australasia’s general manager of sheetfed presses, told ProPrint that the Labelcraft sale chimed with the press maker’s worldwide success in the packaging market.
“We are number one in packaging press sales in Australia – that is very clear now – and around the world.
“We are number two to Heidelberg in general press sales but in packaging presses, we are number one by a long way; something like 40% of the packaging presses going in around the world are KBA.”
In Australia, 85-90% of KBA’s project list is for packaging presses, added Lewis.
“Things are tough but we are doing OK and hoping to close a few more deals in a couple of weeks. KBA is in good shape in Germany. You have to measure it against the times we live in, but KBA is doing very well. The sheetfed factory in Dresden is chock-a-block.”
Click here to read more stories about recent installations.
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