This premiere and investment will make waves in the Swiss printing industry. Saint-Paul in Freiburg recently signed up for a KBA Rapida 106 medium-format press with a configuration that is far from common: four colours + coating + drying + drying + perfecting + four colours + coating + drying/extended delivery. More specifically this enables four-colour jobs to be perfect printed and coated in a single pass. The only other press configuration of this kind in Switzerland is in the B2 (29in) sector. None of the eight- or ten-colour perfector presses already installed in the country have a configuration that allows them to deliver the same coating quality with such efficiency. With all of them the sheets must either be passed through the press a second time or furnished with an overprint varnish on both sides, which cannot compare on quality.

This strategic investment is Saint-Paul's response to mounting competition, and will give it a vital edge in efficiency and quality when printing high-end jobs and new products. In addition to the array of printing, coating, perfecting and drying units the KBA Rapida will feature the following modules: LogoTronic Professional, DriveTronic SIS no-sidelay infeed, automatic plate changers, DriveTronic SPC dedicated plate-cylinder drives, DriveTronic Plate Ident automated pre-registration, DensiTronic Professional densitometry and spectrophotometry and QualiTronic colour control. The press will be delivered to Boulevard de Pérolles in Freiburg in mid-2012 and will replace three presses from another vendor. KBA's Swiss subsidiary Print Assist thus welcomes yet another new user to its KBA base.

The Saint-Paul group was founded in 1871 and has around 300 employees, 145 of whom work at the printing plant. Products include a daily, La Liberté. The group is one of the most unusual printing and publishing operations in the country, being the proud owner of a Catholic order of nuns and committed to high moral and ethical principles. Profit maximisation at any price is not a top priority. This means that the group can invest as it deems fit to operate as a media business with cutting-edge production technology, providing a complete range of services spanning pre-press, cross media, publishing, printing and finishing. So Saint-Paul's printing plant is well equipped to meet the mounting challenges of the next few years and can respond fast and flexibly to changes in market conditions.