KBA North America, a global press manufacturer based in Dallas, Texas, announces that its customer MOSAIC, a carbon neutral, high quality printing company specializing in UV, waterless and digital printing, has produced unsurpassed quality results for four months on its KBA Rapida 105 41-inch sheetfed press through an entire press run for one of MOSAIC's very demanding, extremely quality-oriented customers. The press run was conducted at MOSAIC's Cheverly, Maryland facility.

"When our customer first presented us with the objectives of a new print project and the Delta-E parameter, there was a question if it could be achieved at all or without major spoilage," says Kurt Kroening, senior vice president of operations at MOSIAC. "It was as tough of a challenge as you could possibly have without crossing over into the impossible. The key to achieving this difficult print job would be the ability of the KBA Densitronic S. When we were able to achieve the print result on the very first attempt the customer was completely amazed. This gives us the confidence to go after additional very tight parameter business that some printers may say is crazy or impossible."

KBA's popular closed-loop Densitronic S scanning spectrodensitometer system has proven to significantly reduce waste by measuring both the density and spectral values on the x and y axis. It is a combined density and color measuring system for quality control during printing. Unlike any other system available on the market, Densitronic S also permits direct measurements within the image. Deviations from defined target densities, color values and other quality parameters (dot gain, trapping, etc.) are recognized and displayed not only reliably, but also immediately in comparison to hand-held measuring devices. With integration for online control, the density and spectral deviations are converted into corrective adjustments for the individual ink keys. The Densitronic S controls the density and spectral parameters of each sheet by measuring along control strips or directly on the image.

Delta-E (dE) is a single number that represents the 'distance' between two colors. The smaller the number, the closer the two colors are to each other. Typical delta E values for print runs are 3.0. When MOSAIC was able to achieve a delta E value of 1.2, the MOSAIC press operators were ecstatic.

"In our combined 59 years in the graphic arts business, we have never seen this level of quality where the delta E value 1.2 has been held throughout the entire press run," says Kroening, along with Michael Eichler, KBA manager of technical services. "Other press manufacturers have failed when they tried to hold this level of accuracy throughout a press run."

"The jobs that we produce on the KBA Rapida 105 are medium-size run length, multiple format," says Kroening. "The color consistency must be very precise. Only the KBA Densitronic S is able to produce this level of accuracy."