July 3, 2003:Koenig & Bauer AG has acquired Bauer+Kunzi,the global leader in metal decorating presses. Bauer + Kunzi’s press line includes the MetalStar 2 models, which are used to produce metal boxes as a premium form of packaging. Max Bauer and Otto Kunzi, the firm’s founders, first conceived the idea of manufacturing their own metal decorating presses back in the early seventies. But it was not until they signed a co-operative agreement with Koenig & Bauer in 1994 that their company became a reality.  According to Max Bauer, the typical Rapida configuration of printing units atop a solid cast-iron substructure, and preceded by KBA’s own special sheet infeed, is just about perfect for the job because metal decoration places highly specific demands on both press construction and process technology. This unit-type design, which was introduced by KBA in the sixties, allowed the number of units to be increased from two colors to four and even six. Since then coater presses with as many as ten units have rolled off the production line. Modern-day MetalStar 2 presses boast the same advanced level of automation and range of extras as sheetfed offset commercial and packaging presses. These presses now include automatic plate changing, automatic washing, and automatic format presetting. Metal-decorating press lines are often even more automated than carton-printing presses. They need to be because runs tend to be even shorter than in other sectors. Bauer+Kunzi has also developed its own inline quality control system,Print Check 3000,incorporating an array of high-resolution cameras, which monitor registration and color reproduction over the entire surface of each and every sheet during print production. Print Check 3000 detects the slightest deviation, even at the maximum production speed of 10,000 sheets per hour. Deviations within the set tolerance range are displayed continually on the console screen. An acoustic signal alerts the operator when a value approaches its tolerance limit, enabling him to intervene before sheets are ejected and wasted. All MetalStar presses also feature KBA’s Densitronic S closed-loop color control.