Cedar Graphics has built a stellar reputation for delivering high quality work and complicated projects, always pushing the envelope in terms of quality and creativity, and finding solutions for its nationwide customers that demand a variety of eye-grabbing coatings and special effects. To continue this mandate, the Iowa-based commercial and packaging printer is adding another dimension to its pressroom: a new fully-automated eight-color KBA Rapida 106 straight and perfecting LED-UV press—it’s first with this configuration delivering a speedy 18,000 sph and strengthening its environmentally friendly status. 

“The driving force in our decision to purchase the KBA Rapida 106 press was its productivity and its LED-UV capabilities,” says Hassan Igram, CEO of Cedar Graphics. “We’re anticipating a plethora of benefits for our company and our customers after installation including two times more productivity, improving and streamlining our workflow, delivering the highest quality day after day, servicing our existing diverse group of customers from colleges and universities to DVD packagers to defense contractors with new specialty work, and supporting our own business growth.” 

With its glittering Gold Ink awards lining its hallways indicative of its well-deserved name recognition, Cedar Graphics has earned the nickname “first impression printer” for imprinting a superior mental image of the innovative and creative work that it produces. It’s a world class, full-service printing and communications giant boasting a global clientele that includes Fortune 500 companies, publishers, ad agencies, storefronts, and entrepreneurs. The job mix at Cedar skews 65% offset and 30% digital with its newest offering, the wide format production of posters and signage, at 5%. The coherent thread that runs through all of Cedar’s customers is its demand for color consistency. The new KBA Rapida press will anchor the pressroom at Cedar Graphics. 

“We felt that KBA offered us unique print features that no one else can offer, such as KBA SIS (Sensoric Infeed System) making super-fast press speeds possible, KBA Plate Ident recognizes and registers plates and automatically presets job information preventing errors while saving time and money,” says Humza Igram, president of Cedar Graphics, “as well as the strong investment and support that KBA has put forth in its LED-UV technology. We are on the forefront of UV curing technology and we anticipate that LED-UV will become the next big trend, so we want to stay ahead of our competition.”

KBA believes that Cedar Graphics will realize faster lead times with LED-UV technology, increased use of plastic substrates, more finishing options, and less wear-and-tear on equipment, as well as ecological aspects such as high energy savings, lower ozone and CO2 emissions when drying, and elimination of spray powders---all extremely important to this large printing company. 

Pushing the envelope

“We are known for printing amazing products for innovative brands and creatives, as a result our customers are always looking for new substrates and pushing the envelope with eye-catching or tactile coatings and varnish combinations like soft touch, UV grit, or strike-throughs” says Justin McDonald, marketing solutions manager at Cedar Graphics. “We love partnering with these customers to experiment with these specialty substrates and unique coatings. Our new KBA press will give us the flexibility to easily move LED-UV lamps on press depending on these printing demands.  This will help us to utilize all stock types including not only all common paper and board stocks, but also non porous synthetic papers, foil laminated sheets and plastics. Having the ability to achieve faster makeready and less waste will reduce customer costs for these premium substrates and print effects.”

When the management team at Cedar Graphics headed by Scott Burnett, Cedar’s production manager, evaluated the KBA Rapida versus other manufacturers, what impressed them the most were a number of highly-automated features such as simultaneous makeready, inline color measuring, fully-automatic format setting and change-over between straight printing and perfecting, a video system for monitoring the sheet travel underneath the perfecting drum and in the swanneck of the delivery, and the strong backing of its Service Select technicians to monitor the performance of the press and its maintenance. What made headlines for them, however, was the KBA SIS, a popular ground breaking side lay free system developed by KBA to reduce make ready times, increase productivity and provide consistent register at high printing speeds.

As spring turns to summer in the Hawkeye State, Cedar Graphics, one of the largest printing companies in the U.S. and among the largest sheetfed printers in the Midwest, awaits the delivery of its KBA Rapida press later this year. This family-owned business, which prides itself on being voted numerous times as best commercial printer and providing a robust printing platform with enhanced access to a multitude of marketing solutions, will switch out its older KBA 10-color perfector press for its new KBA Rapida 106 at its 98,000 sq ft facility in Hiawatha.