KBA North America is pleased to announce that its lead in the large format market is solidified with the continued success of its award-winning Rapida 205 81-inch sheetfed press—the largest press in the world. In the U.S., this high-quality behemoth is producing a variety of work at nearly 20 sites with unprecedented achievement. Two of these KBA customers have distinguished themselves by investing in the Rapida 205 twice with two of these 81-inch presses sitting side-by-side in their U.S. facilities.

“We continue to appreciate the fanfare by customers and print buyers about the high quality delivered on the Rapida 205,” says Mark Hischar, president and CEO of KBA North America. “This award-winning press, which received the PIA InterTech Award in 2005, is 50 times faster than standard wide-format ink jet printers and offers the highest offset quality whether it is producing indoor or outdoor jobs, UV or conventional, paper or plastic. Due to these amazing benefits, we have seen a steady interest from wide format printers with ink jet units gravitating toward our large-format offset presses. The Rapida 205 handles it all with ease and allows printers to expand their capabilities and rise to the next level of productivity.”

For example, Foster Printing Company, a large-format trade printer based in Santa Ana, California, installed its KBA Rapida 205 81-inch large format six-color UV press in October 2012. The new press, the largest in the world, joined two current KBA large format 64-inch presses—a five-color conventional and a six-color UV—at the firm’s 46,000 sq ft facility.

“Over the last four years we have seen tremendous growth in our business,” says Kris Blackburn, vice president of sales at Foster Printing Company. “Sales over the past year and a half have been especially good to us. Due to this growth, we have been considering the purchase of a third KBA press---the Rapida 205 81-inch press---for over three years but really started to focus on it one year prior. We constantly had customers asking if we could print anything larger than our 64-inch capabilities. Those customers, along with solid research into new potential customers, pushed us to finally decide on making this important purchase.” 

Rand Graphics, a Wichita, Kansas print specialist in point-of-purchase applications, installed its KBA Rapida 205 five-color 81-inch sheetfed press with coater at its facility in June 2011.

“Not only were we excited to install this amazing press but our customers were excited too,” says Randy Vautravers, president of Rand Graphics. “It provides them with an opportunity to create new work and it provides us with an opportunity to gain in efficiency, faster throughput, and flexibility while being one of the few printers in the country with this award-winning press.”

Philipp Lithographing Company, a leading ultra-high-quality large format printer based in Grafton, WI, has been utilizing its KBA Rapida 205 81-inch press since 2005 for packaging and point-of-purchase along with a KBA Rapida 162A 64-inch and a newly-installed KBA Rapida 145 57-inch six-color press on its pressroom floor.

“Having been in business for nearly 100 years, we have built an excellent reputation as a dependable, ultra-high-quality, fast-turnaround firm with superior value-added service,” says Peter Buening, President and CEO of Philipp Litho. “Our customers like to give us challenging jobs because they know we can handle them. To continue to maintain this level of service, we decided to invest in new large-format KBA presses to produce our existing work faster and more efficiently and to open up our capacity to allow for even more throughput.”

KBA North America is located in Dallas, Texas and a member of the KBA Group. Established almost 200 years ago in Wuerzburg, Germany, Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) is the oldest and second largest press manufacturer worldwide. KBA's banner, 'People & Print', reflects its dual focus as a leading innovator for print entrepreneurs. The group's product range is the broadest in the industry; its portfolio includes commercial and newspaper web presses, sheetfed offset presses in all format classes, inkjet systems and presses, special presses for banknotes, securities, metal-decorating, smart cards and discs. For more information visit the company's web site at www.kba.com