Titans of the printing industry turn to KBA for automated press solutions

KBA North America is pleased to announce an explosion of printing press sales in the Midwest among some of the best-known titans of the commercial, trade, and packaging industry. Many of these high-visibility, award-winning customers are long-time loyal devotees that are adding KBA presses for capacity reasons; others are new KBA customers that switched press manufacturers.

“We are pleased to partner with many outstanding printing firms located in the Midwest and provide them with KBA’s high quality printing presses,” says Soren Larsen, senior vice president of sheetfed sales for KBA North America. “We pride ourselves on cementing strong partnerships with existing and new customers. These distinct firms all have the common theme of growth during challenging times.  Each firm is successful due to its strong customer-orientated approach and overall commitment to excellence in the market segments they serve. KBA has developed long-lasting relationships with each of them over many years, providing them with unique solutions of new highly automated equipment that has expanded their operational capabilities.  I applaud our Midwest KBA sales team in this area for this outstanding achievement: Steve Korn, Doug Whitacre and Greg Schiefelbein, each truly partners with their customers to ensure they will have differentiating factors to make their companies stand out.”

These Midwestern KBA customers are an array of commercial and packaging firms displaying a competitive edge to produce jobs better, quicker, and more profitably. A few of them include The Garvey Group, Imagine! Print Solutions, Tempt In-Store Productions (a Quad/Graphics company), CPI Card Group, BOPI (Bloomington Offset Process Inc.), Phillips Litho, Printco, and Multi-Packaging Solutions.

This summer, Tempt In-Store Productions, a Quad/Graphics company (NYSE:QUAD), will be installing a new KBA Rapida 205, the world’s largest sheetfed press, at its New Berlin, Wis., facility. “At Tempt we are committed to using the highest level of technology in order to minimize cost and turnaround time for our customers,” said Mike Draver, president of Tempt. “We are serious about providing the broadest range of in-store marketing solutions that help retailers and marketers achieve their business goals.”

Recently, Imagine! Print Solutions, North America's prominent independent commercial and packaging printing company, installed a new KBA Rapida 105 41-inch six-color press with UV making it the firm’s seventh KBA press.  

"We are continually taking the pulse of our customers and asking them how we are doing. Our customers look to us to provide solutions and creative thinking to help sell their products. Ultimately that is what we do as a company. When we began to receive many new UV projects in packaging, we decided to invest in a new press," states Bob Lothenbach, founder and president of Imagine! Print Solutions, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “We wanted to add capacity for several customer requirements. Our print buyer customers, like everyone else, are looking for higher quality and faster throughput. We can offer these things in combination, not one or the other, with the new KBA press. We have long been a KBA partner with the purchase of the first six-color Rapida 205 81” press in North America. Since then we have added several additional KBA presses to maintain the quality level and provide us with the best possible performance from our litho department. KBA has been our press partner for several years. Their commitment to our market and sheet size requirements is what sets KBA apart from its competition.”

In March 2014, CPI Card Group, a global leader in financial, commercial and identification card production and related services, invested in a new KBA Rapida 105 41-inch eight-color press---its second from KBA in a one year span. The new eight-color press, delivered in the spring of 2014, joins a one-year-old KBA Rapida 105 41-inch seven-color UV-equipped sheetfed press with tower coater and plastics package, which was installed in May 2012 at CPI’s Roseville, Minnesota facility.

“Earlier this year, management at CPI Card Group began to reassess our press capacity,” says Paul Boge, general manager of U.S. prepaid debit market for CPI Card Group. “After consulting with KBA, the decision was made to purchase a second press from KBA to match the extraordinary capabilities and production of our first seven-color press. Equipped with the same features, we believe this second press will provide us with 30% additional capacity, quicker makeready, and higher throughput. We’ve added an eighth unit on this press for two reasons: to produce our secure cards in one pass and provide flexibility to our customers who require more colors.”

In August 2014, BOPI, one of the Midwest’s most respected providers of print, mail, and E-commerce solutions located in Bloomington, IL, will see the arrival of its new KBA Rapida 106 41-inch eight-color perfector press. “We did our due diligence and inspected all three press manufacturers,” says Tom Mercier, president of BOPI, “but KBA had it all.  We first saw the Rapida 106 in action at a printer in Des Moines then we went to Germany. What we saw in Germany at the KBA factory was quite impressive.  With KBA, we were able to get the exact press that will not only fit our needs today but well into the future.  KBA has the press speed and quick make-ready all tied together with UV capabilities to make it the best choice. This is the best investment for our company.”

The Garvey Group, a network of advertising, marketing, print production, and fulfillment services based in the Chicago suburb of Niles, Illinois, added its eighth KBA press in 2013---a new Rapida 162a 64-inch six-color press with UV curing---at its Niles, IL facility.

“In response to continuing growth and demand for labels and top sheets, The Garvey Group invested in a new 64-inch KBA 162a six-color press with UV curing.  We are seeing positive signs from our customer base,” says Ed Garvey, owner and president of The Garvey Group, “and this acquisition reinforces our commitment to serving our clients with the best people and the best equipment. This acquisition also answered capacity needs due to a growing customer base and increasing sales volume.  The demand for our product continues to grow and the technology advancements that KBA has made to its latest-generation 64-inch UV press made this an easy decision.  With two KBA Rapida 205 81-inch presses and a KBA Rapida 142 56-inch press already in our Niles facility, the addition of a KBA Rapida 162a 64-inch UV press gives us the flexibility to have even greater speed to market and unprecedented redundancy and allows us to expand the capacity of large format production at The Garvey Group.”

Philipp Lithographing Company, a leading ultra-high-quality large format printer based in Grafton, WI, added its third large format KBA press to its arsenal—a new Rapida 145 57-inch six-color press---beside its existing KBA Rapida 205 81-inch and Rapida 162A 64-inch on the 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 a new large-format KBA press to produce our existing work faster and more efficiently and to open up our capacity to allow for even more throughput.”

Printco Graphics Inc., one of the Midwest’s premier sheetfed printers, strengthened its growth trajectory by adding a new KBA Rapida 105 41-inch five-color press with coater and UV to its 78,000 sq ft facility in Omaha, Nebraska. “We strive to offer services and products to improve our client’s experience,” says Larry Reding, president of Printco. “Our goal is to be more unique and efficient to better serve our customers. Our new KBA Rapida 105 is two times faster than our current presses. Plus, we’ve added UV ink as a capability on the press. We have a great track record with our KBA presses. We used to use a competitor’s presses but ever since we switched to KBA, we’ve forged a strong partnership between our two companies that has been critical for our success. The communication and customer service that KBA provides are both huge positives in our relationship.”

Multi Packaging Solutions, Inc. (MPS), a leader in the packaging industry serving the multi-media, cosmetics, healthcare, horticulture, and value added consumer markets, has installed a new specially-configured KBA Rapida press with full automation for its board packaging and plastic printing at its facility in Indianapolis. The new press, dubbed the makeready world champion for its fast speed, raises the bar in productivity, production flexibility and automation. The high production speed and ultra-short makeready times are expanding the company’s capabilities while helping to dramatically lower its overall costs.