KBA Rapida 185 with twelve printing, coating and drying units for Saudi Arabia

At the beginning of 2010, Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) will be sending the largest sheetfed offset press in the world to date on its way to the Middle East. The press in question is a Rapida 185 for the XXXLplus format 130 x 185 cm with a total of twelve units, i.e. seven colours followed by a coater, two intermediate drying towers and a final coater and drying tower – and that all engineered for a production output of 9,000 sheets per hour. The proud customer is the trade and media group Al Bayan in Riyahd. With this order, KBA is once again able to present hard facts to show who heads the market for large sheet formats, and who defines the direction of technological progress. 

Al Bayan was founded in 1980 and has developed to become one of the leading media service providers in Saudi Arabia. The group printing company in Riyahd was the first to use a four-colour press with UV coating facilities, and has invested in the latest high-tech equipment to cover the whole production chain from pre-press to finishing. The Rapida 185 will be the company's first sheetfed offset press from KBA.
 
With its length of "only" 33 metres, the extremely compact press earmarked for Saudi Arabia may not be the longest large-format press which KBA has delivered so far, but with its impressive overall dimensions and a total weight of 320 tonnes, it is definitely the largest and heaviest press in the superlarge format class. Slightly longer Rapida 142 presses (max. sheet format 102 x 142 cm, max. speed 15,000 sph), which reach a length of more than 40 metres with their 13 units and triple-length extended delivery, are already producing in Australia and the USA. 
 
Flexible use for posters, packaging and more
The press is to be used to print posters and large-format packaging, including direct printing on corrugated board, and has been configured with dedicated board handling facilities, automatic non-stop pile changing and pile logistics. The first printing unit and the second coater have been prepared for UV production, and hybrid inline finishing will also be possible. An ICS slitter in the delivery permits the freshly printed sheets to be split for maximum convenience at the downstream finishing stage. Further automation components include ErgoTronic ACR (video-based register adjustment), the colour measuring and control system DensiTronic professional, and LogoTronic networking between the press and the pre-press department. 
   
Another technology milestone from KBA
The superlarge-format series Rapida 185 and Rapida 205 (format 151 x 205 cm) were initially used above all by poster and screen printers in Europe, the USA and Asia, though more and more presses have been installed for book and packaging production over the past few years. Most of their number were four and five-colour coater configurations, in individual cases with an additional perforating tower. On the American market, presses with six colours, coater and drying tower have also been a quite popular choice. The 12-unit Rapida 185 with double-coating facilities for Riyahd, however, is without doubt the latest in a long series of technology milestones with which KBA has shaped the history of engineering achievement in printing press manufacture.