“None Bigger, None Better” was the slogan which KBA placed on invitations sent out to representatives of major commercial printers from both Europe and overseas. Around 60 of their number took up the opportunity to attend a pre-Christmas open house at the KBA facility in Radebeul on 9th December, where the latest options for high-volume 4-over-4 production were placed in their practical context through a series of presentations and press demonstrations. The medium-format Rapida 106 already proved its ultimate productivity in short-run full-colour perfecting at drupa 2008, and so it was the turn of the Rapida 162a, which can now also play out its extended sheet format of 120 x 162 cm in perfecting mode, to capture the attention of the trade experts.

“KBA-Grafitec on the Polish market 2005–2008”; this was the motto of the meetings with the sales representatives of the well known producer of the printing presses which took place on 7–9 October in Bialymstok, Lublin and Řešov. The choice of the location for the aforesaid conference was not accidental: Eastern Poland is the least developed part of the country in terms of the graphic art industry.

“Berlin 2009” is the title of the new calendar that Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) is currently distributing to customers and business contacts worldwide. In this calendar Thomas Berberich, who has worked for Koenig & Bauer since 1980 and started indulging his passion for photography in a freelance capacity in 2007, conveys the peculiar charm and contrasts of his favourite city in the form of architectural details and serendipitous encounters. His skill in capturing everyday objects from an unusual perspective imparts clarity to form and line. Discreet colouring enhances his individualistic view. Thomas Berberich reveals the essence, the inner being hidden from the fleeting observer. The emotive appeal of his images lies in his fresh interpretation of the seemingly commonplace.

On 30 October Chinese commercial and book printer Beijing Jiaxindaxin Art Printing placed an order with KBA for three Rapida 105 B1 (4in) presses. The contract for one five-colour and two four-colour versions were signed by company chairman Chen Yaqin and KBA president and CEO Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann Printing in Beijing.

Like the rest of the sector, printing press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) is experiencing dramatic knock-on effects from the current financial turmoil on its export business. Following a slump in demand in key markets such as the USA, and the abrupt tightening of credit lines for customer investments, group order intake to 30 September fell 12.5% from €1,148.2m the previous year to €1,005m. The 15.8% contraction in new orders for sheetfed presses, from €581m to €489.3m, was particularly painful. It was due partly to widespread reluctance among small-scale printers to invest in new kit and partly by the postponement and even cancellation of several contracts signed at Drupa, as attempts to secure financing failed. The volume of new orders booked by the web and special press division declined by 9.1% to €515.7m from €567.2m twelve months earlier, with an increase in new contracts for newspaper presses failing to offset softer demand for security and commercial presses.

KBA-Grafitec held an international meeting in Dobruška and Prague from 5th to 7th November. The traditional annual sales conference was attended by direct foreign sales representatives and for the first time by foreign KBA dealers.

Following a supervisory board meeting to discuss the latest financial figures, Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) management board announced a downward adjustment in the 2008 earnings forecast issued on 31 March and reaffirmed at the AGM on 19 June in the wake of a highly successful Drupa trade fair. KBA anticipates a slide in group sales for the current financial year (ending 31 December) from €1.6bn to around €1.5bn. Pre-tax earnings, which were originally set to equal last year’s figure of €63.2m, will turn negative in view of a considerable slump in sales of sheetfed presses, provisions for consolidating sheetfed production activities, and adjustments in inventory value.

Kengraf Kertzyn is a graphic art and publishing company, producing leaflets, catalogues, posters, calendars and magazines. For many years now, a substantial part of the production has been printed on presses from the Czech Republic. Their good experience with these presses instigated the owner of the printshop to purchase another Dobruška product – the KBA Rapida 75.

Asiatic Printing Press is a full-service print provider based in Ajman, on the outskirts of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Established in 1993, it prints a broad spectrum of products with the main focus on commercials, from sophisticated business reports to brochures and magazines, posters, postcards and greetings cards. Half- and medium-format KBA presses have operated for many years now alongside presses from other manufacturers. The most recent addition from KBA was a Rapida 105 universal five-colour coater press delivered in 2006.

Starting June 1, KBA-Grafitec products in Ukraine are represented by Polygraphimport.

The FGP Studio in Olomouc is one of the most important partners of KBA-Grafitec in the Czech Republic. They have been favouring KBA printing presses from Dobruška on a long term basis. This year, the FGP Studio printshop has completely eliminated the use of isopropyl alcohol from their production process.

Printing plants are not the only deployers of presses: training colleges use them as well. The Lycée Professionnel de la Communication et des Industries Graphiques “Notre Famille” in Osny, north of Paris, urgently needed a four-colour press in addition to its existing two-colour one.

In recent years KBA-Grafitec has built a leading position in the sale of sheet-fed printing presses of the half size format in Poland. After the Drupa world exhibition, the printing presses from Dobruška continue with successful sales on the Polish market. As recent as June, five printing presses left KBA-Grafitec for Polish printshops.

The results achieved by KBA-Grafitec at the Drupa world trade fair exceeded all expectations. The volume of closed contracts represents an outstanding success.

At the 83rd AGM of German press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA), group president and CEO Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann revealed that Drupa, a 14-day print media trade fair recently held in Düsseldorf, had brought in orders worth more than €200m, surpassing the figure for the previous Drupa in 2004. Most of the contracts were for batch-produced sheetfed presses, sales of which had been badly hit in the first five months by a slump in the key US market. Judging by the response to KBA’s product launches, post-Drupa business also promises to be brisk. The total volume of sales generated by the fair cannot be calculated with any degree of precision until the autumn, since financing for certain export markets must still be clarified, and this has become more complex and time-consuming in the wake of the credit crisis.

Printers from Casablanca (Morocco) have simultaneously signed contracts on the KBA stand for two sheetfed presses. A Rapida 105 five-colour coater press with extended delivery and carton capability will ship in August to Litho Typo. Although owner Abdelaziz Iraqui has been in negotiations with KBA for some time now, the award of the contract at Drupa came as something of a surprise for the competent sales team. Litho Typo, which is primarily a commercial operation, also prints lightweight packaging, eg for the pharmaceutical industry. The Rapida 105, with its ability to print a broad range of substrates, will signally enhance the company’s production flexibility.

At KBA’s international press conference on the first day of Drupa, president and CEO Albrecht Bolza-Schünemann, who is also Drupa president for the third time, spelled out the message loud and clear: “Technological advances are crucial for the survival of the print media industry. We must regain our self-confidence and redefine our role, actively address new issues such as print ecology, and boost cost efficiency while enhancing print’s visual and haptic appeal. We must all direct our energies towards communicating print’s strengths, without which no modern industrialised society can survive.”

The capital Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru on the border with Singapore, and Penang in the north of the country are the three most important economic and industrial centres in Malaysia. They are similarly the hubs of activity in the printing industry.

Four over four perfecting in large format has been available from KBA – and only from KBA – for some time. Now other press manufacturers have announced that they will also be unveiling large-format convertible perfectors at Drupa 2008. However, such systems are unlikely to attain market maturity or deliver commercial-standard quality in the immediate future, nor will they be available in the same wide choice of practice-proven configurations as the Rapidas. So KBA is making the most of its time gain to improve the operation, makeready and quality of its big perfectors for high-quality commercial applications.

Pending the approval of the competent authorities, KBA’s Czech subsidiary KBA-Grafitec in Dobruška is entering a strategic alliance with Adast in Adamov, near Brno.

As a team of independent consultants, KBA Complete offers a diversity of solutions geared to sustained strengthening of the future prospects for businesses in the graphic arts industry.

On Thursday 27th March 2008, a KBA Rapida 162a sheet-fed offset machine was officially commissioned in the new factory building of the Branaldi company in Brandýs nad Labem, as the first and so far the only one of this type installed in the Czech Republic.

Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) followed up an international press conference on 8 April with an open house from 9 to 11 April at its sheetfed facility in Radebeul (near Dresden) at which it gave an exclusive preview of the major innovations it will be exhibiting at this year’s Drupa in Düsseldorf. Around 1,500 industry professionals from all over the world took the opportunity to attend live demonstrations of new features and upgrades in formats ranging from half-size to large. These include a raft of innovations for enhancing productivity, quality, finishing, cost efficiency and press ecology. While KBA did not reveal everything that will be exhibited on its 3,400m² (36,600ft²) stand in hall 16, what it did show was well worth the journey.

In 2007 Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) posted group sales worth €1,703.7m, not far off the previous year’s record figure of €1,741.9m. But at €1,546.9m the volume of new orders was 6.2% lower (2006: €1,649.7m) following the economic downturn in the US, weaker demand for big press lines and a slump in demand for gravure presses. The order backlog shrank accordingly to €791.9m, from €948.7m a year earlier.

Following a fact-finding tour through the USA, Alkemade Printing’s owner and managing director Rémon Alkemade faced a dilemma: should he invest in a high-performance digital colour printer or go for a new litho printing press? His management team helped him reach a decision by urging the need to walk the talk in terms of quality, which meant opting for the press. And not just any press but a four-colour coater version of the Performa 74.

Rondo, one of Europe’s leading producers of folding cartons, clinical inspection samples and specialist packaging for the pharmaceutical industry, has ordered a KBA Rapida 105 six-colour B1 (41in) UV coater press with extended delivery for its subsidiary Rondo-Pak USA, near Philadelphia.

Arts Print recently pushed the button on a five-colour Performa 74 coater press as part of a co-operative agreement with a bigger printer specialising in the B1 (41in) format.The value added the new press delivers, and the ability to exploit synergies between medium and half-size format, have given the company a dynamic boost.

At the Stuttgart Print Forum on 28 January the member companies of a UV study group gave a joint presentation for the first time on the new business opportunities afforded by UV print production. The BGDP, Germany’s industrial safety council for the printing and paper processing industry, provided a comprehensive review of the safety issues relating to print chemistry and technology, Fogra discussed process standardisation in UV offset while KBA, HDM and MAN focused on the potential for optimisation, process stability and standardisation in UV offset. The second part of the event examined application-specific productivity gains with optimised UV radiation technology (IST Metz), inline finishing trends in sheetfed offset (KBA), new opportunities afforded by waterless UV offset (Druck und Beratung Braun/EWPA), and waterless UV offset in B3 (21in) format (Herrmann Druck+Media, Sonnenbühl).

One of the priorities of KBA-Grafitec is to cooperate with Graphic Art schools. The company has adopted a programme for the support of vocational education and within the framework of this, another project is currently being launched together with the Integrated Graphic Art School from Brno. During the first stage, KBA-Grafitec has already provided the school with presentation materials regarding printing presses. The materials are on DVD and on information boards. The DVD sets are used during theoretical tuition in the classrooms while the panels are positioned in those areas which serve for practical tuition. The DVDs and panels from KBA-Grafitec contain information not only regarding KBA Performa 74 and 66 printing presses which are made in Dobruška but also regarding the Rapida and rotary presses from the production in KBA Germany. KBA-Grafitec is currently preparing an educational programme for teachers and students in cooperation with the Brno Graphic Art School. The teachers will be trained by KBA-Grafitec specialists directly in the school premises. The final year students will be able to attend the KBA-Grafitec presentations which will also take place in the Brno school. The selected group of students under the supervision of their teacher will attend a short term attachment in KBA-Grafitec in Dobruška which will be held in March.

On 29 November, the representatives of KBA-Grafitec and KBA-Poland held a press conference at the Hotel Westin in Warsaw where they presented a brief overview of KBA activity on the Polish market. In addition to other information, they presented the sales results and information regarding this years marketing strategy as well as plans for next year which include KBA exhibiting at the Drupa 2008 trade fair.

KBA-Grafitec organized a sales conference at the end of the last year. The sales conference took place on the 6th and 7th December in the Courtyard Marriott hotel in Prague. The December event was attended by sales representatives from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary while the sales representatives from the markets that are serviced directly from Dobruška, which are Poland and Spain, were also present. The sales conference was also attended by those sales representatives who ensure the sales of KBA Performa printing presses in the Czech Republic.

KBA has received an early Christmas present in the form of PSO (Process Standards for Offset) accreditation for its customer showroom in Radebeul. Issued jointly by Fogra and the competent state authority, the Print and Media Association for Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, the certificate confirms compliance with ISO 12647-2 process control standards for the production of half-tone colour separations, proof and production prints in offset lithographic processes. KBA is one of the first press manufacturers to achieve PSO accreditation for a demonstration centre.