For a company with 200 years of experience in printing press manufacturing, Koenig & Bauer’s massive move into packaging presses in recent years has been remarkable. While serving parts of the packaging press market for many years, the range of devices increased noticeably. By now, Koenig & Bauer should have the most comprehensive packaging press and finishing portfolio of any press manufacturer, partly through own developments or strategic investments done in recent years.

A product line with a long history is the Rapida line of offset sheetfed presses. While known for its use in commercial print applications, about two-thirds of press sales are in packaging. Formats range from the B1-sized Rapida 106X to the large-format presses up to 1,205 x 1,640 mm.

The large format Rapida 145 and 164 launched in October of this year extend the options for packaging print again. The new presses feature a higher speed, support heavy substrates, and offer options for an in-line inspection system that can compare the printed image against a PDF image. An option for printing on corrugated up to 1.9mm thick exists as well, allowing for printing on E and F flute. Both press lines are currently in beta testing and will become fully available in 2022. As with the Rapida 106X launched last year, a lot of focus of the new 145/164 was on decreasing the change-over time and improving equipment availability, which is welcome for any print company.