Quarterly report

Orders up, turnover down

Defying the financial crisis, a strong euro and a pre-Drupa lag in demand for sheetfed presses, in the first three months of the year German printing press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) posted a 5.5% increase in new orders to €370.3m. Its web and special press division bucked the industry trend with major contracts from US and Turkish newspaper publishers, which helped boost the order intake by an above-average 10.6% from €180.2m to €199.3m.more...

Giant KBA presses on the advance

Glama Pak in Sydney orders Australia's first KBA Rapida 205

Since Drupa 2004 KBA has sold around 50 of its giant Rapida 185 and Rapida 205 sheetfed presses. Initially confined to European and North American printers of posters, POS displays, books and packaging, more recently they have also been discovered by printers in China, with the first Rapida 185 five-colour press arriving in Shanghai at the end of last year. more...

KBA Report 32 out now

Focus on Drupa 2008

The latest issue of Koenig & Bauer's 56-page corporate magazine, KBA Report, focuses on Drupa 2008 and the innovations KBA will be exhibiting, some of which were unveiled at a pre-Drupa open house in Radebeul that drew an awesome 1,600 participants. Topics include closed-loop quality management, DriveTronic dedicated drives for sheetfed and web presses, 4 over 4 in large-format book and commercial printing - which KBA will be the only manufacturer to demonstrate at the show - and KBA Complete, a new consultancy established in association with Hiflex to support digital workflow and process standardisation, e-business, warehouse optimisation and web-to-print.more...

KBA in Radebeul adopts flow production for printing units

The conversion early this year of KBA Radebeul's Rapida 105 printing unit assembly line from a stationary to a timed conveyor system with UGVs has delivered a 20 per cent saving in pure assembly times and a 40 per cent saving in total throughput time. This, together with more efficient logistics, has substantially increased manufacturing capacity for KBA's popular medium-format presses.more...

Südkurier signs up for compact KBA Cortina

The ranks of German newspapers making the transition to waterless offset with KBA's highly automated Cortina have been swelled by the Südkurier, a regional title owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck publishing group. The triple-wide press line, comprising two 48pp sections, will be the fourteenth Cortina and the fourth 6/2 version to leave KBA's production line.more...