Belgian commercial printer Albe De Coker in Hoboken near Antwerp placed an order with Koenig & Bauer at the end of October for three Rapida 106 presses, two with DriveTronic SPC dedicated plate-cylinder drives for simultaneous plate changes. The three Rapidas, which incorporate the most advanced B1 (41in) technology on the global market, replace five presses from another German vendor.

Albe De Coker was created in 2007 from the merger of Albe and De Coker. Managing director Eric De Coker and his team made a joint decision not just to change vendors but to pursue a new approach in configuring and equipping the presses as well, so as to maximise productivity. Dedicated drives will play a key role in the company's aim of radically reducing job changeover times. The two presses with SPC – an eight-colour 4 backing 4 and a ten-colour 5 backing 5 perfector – are slated to go live as early as spring next year. KBA DriveTronic SPC supports automatic plate changing in less than sixty seconds, even on long perfectors such as these. Since washing and makeready sequences run simultaneously during job changes, plate-changing time has no impact whatsoever on total changeover time.The third Rapida 106 will be a five-colour version with a coater.

Contracts for two long Rapida 106 perfectors with dedicated plate-cylinder drives were signed at the beginning of October by another Belgian printer, playing-card specialist Carta Mundi. So with the three Rapidas for Albe De Coker there will soon be 69 Rapida printing units sporting the makeready champion's innovative drive technology in Belgium.