An eight-colour KBA Rapida 106 for four-colour perfecting has been in operation at Litografia e Imprenta LiL in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, since April. The 120-year-old company prints millions of school textbooks every year and thus plays an active role in the development of the education system in Central America, the Caribbean and Costa Rica. The new high-performance press is expected to expand these activities.

The staff at LiL specialise in the production of school text books. The company’s high level of productivity is a result of continual improvement to all processes and consistent fine-tuning in management and production. The printing firm operates several sheetfed offset presses, predominantly in medium format, and web presses on an area spanning over 14,000m2. Its customer base includes the region’s leading publishing houses which are offered an extensive portfolio of pre-press, printing and finishing services.   

The highly automated KBA Rapida 106 runs at speeds of up to 18,000sph and is equipped for extremely short makeready times. Its features include DriveTronic SPC for simultaneous plate changing, Plate Ident including DataMatrix-Select for automatic plate identification and loading of job data, CleanTronic combined blanket, impression cylinder and roller washing system, ink-temperature control and central ink supply. Quality is controlled inline on both sides of the sheet with QualiTronic Color Control including PSO-Match. The LogoTronic Professional production management system permits data transfer with the company’s MIS.  

A large digital speedometer informs staff and visitors about the current speed of the fast Rapida. Just three months after inauguration the press set a new in-house print record with an output of more than 5m sheets and 357,000 sheets in 24 hours. In the months that followed LiL printed some 4m sheets per month. The number of print jobs fluctuated between 250 and 780.   

Fritz Lehmann, owner of the printing house: “We looked at various options when visiting Germany with regard to restructuring ourselves from a technical point of view and chose an eight-colour Rapida 106. Its extensive equipment and high level of automation has delivered an enormous boost to capacity. We are now in a position to offer our customers an even better service.”