KBA North America, a leading supplier of sheetfed offset and digital presses based in Williston, VT, is announcing that Crawford Industries, a leading North American provider of polyolefin-based (polyethylene and polypropylene) custom packaging and product integration services, has purchased the KBA Genius 52 UV five color, the world’s first waterless UV press, from the show floor at Print 05 & Converting 05, the largest, most comprehensive event for the commercial, package printing, and converting industry in the world in 2005, which took place September 9-15 at Chicago's McCormick Place. The press was installed at the firm’s Crawfordsville, Indiana plant immediately following the show. “Our business and our customers are looking for a more sophisticated, more intricate, higher quality product with more colors,” explains Dave Sullivan, managing director of Crawford Industries. “We’ve been contracting out our jobs to commercial printers to produce for us. But we wanted to have control over some of this work under our own roof. We spent a lot of time researching the different types of presses available on the market but they weren’t conducive to our market.” Genius 52 UV suited their market Sullivan and his team approached KBA North America to initially look at the KBA 74 Karat to produce the work. “We went to Germany and KBA’s headquarters in Vermont and we switched directions when we saw the Genius 52. It was better suited for our market.” The Genius 52 is a 20-inch format press designed for the short-run color market. It can produce the highest waterless print quality with only two transfer points in less than five minutes. The Genius 52 features one-operator ability, ultra short make ready times of less than 5 minutes from approved-sheet to approved-sheet, a unique ability to print on a wide variety of stock up to 32 pt, its high quality print results and the low startup waste of less than 10 sheets. Crawford Industries produces short-run (average run length of 2,500) fast turnaround high-end consumer packaging and marketing pieces, storage products, assorted binders, and various boxes using polyolefin-based substrates. High quality, fast turnaround “The Genius 52 will allow us to quickly produce our customer’s short-run quick turnaround work in a high-quality manner,” says Sullivan. “Within 15 to 20 sheets, we’ll be able to set up the press and produce digital-quality work within 20 to 60 minutes.” Crawford Industries was founded in 1959 by Ken Crawford who had a vision for innovative uses of plastics in packaging for the binding/loose-leaf industry. The company founded by Crawford has continued to deliver creative packaging solutions that have helped customers differentiate their products from the competition. In 1999 Crawford Industries became a part of Horizon Five Star Companies. Since then, investments in expanded facilities, advanced screen printing equipment, acquisition of companies with complementary packaging and the addition of personnel have created a capacity for innovation, quick turnaround and outstanding customer service. Optimization of the sales process depends on catching the customer’s eye, establishing a heightened expectation of value and differentiating one’s product or service from the competition. To this end, Crawford Industries works with some prominent companies in the retail, industrial, technology, marketing, promotional and education industries. We have designed and produced packaging for our clients who represent Xerox, Verizon Wireless, Cingular, IBM, Chrylser Inc., Nordstrom, L'Oreal and many more. KBA North America is a leading supplier of sheetfed offset and digital presses located in Williston, VT. It is a member of the KBA Group, a leader in the manufacture of sheetfed offset, digital offset, web offset, rotogravure directory, security, and newspaper presses.