Offset Printing
Four KBA Compacta commercial presses for Latin America
Tuesday 10. June 2008 - First Venezuela, then Brazil and Colombia
Lack of space obliged KBA, along with most major competitors, to dispense with live demonstrations of commercial presses at Drupa 2008, giving rise to some groundless rumours. Even so, a number of contracts have been signed for Compacta presses, which seem to be especially popular among printers in Latin America.
A contract awarded on the fourth day of the show by Venezuelan printer Editorial Primavera – previously a Harris, Goss and Solna operation – for the first 16-page KBA Compacta 215 parallel press lines south of the Rio Grande has been followed by orders from two longstanding customers from Brazil and Colombia. The sizeable KBA press fleet (four Compacta 215s, one Compacta 213) at Panamericana in Bogotá will be expanded with the addition of a 32-page KBA Compacta 418. And Oceano near Sao Paulo, part of Brazilian print major Grupo Escale, is adding a further 16-page Compacta 215 to its existing five, and also has two 48-page Compacta 618s.
Over the past two years KBA has substantially expanded its share of the commercial press market. Following the sale of its entire rotogravure business to Cerutti KBA is aiming to raise its profile among the top three manufacturers of publications presses with cutting-edge technology. One KBA innovation of particular interest to commercial printers at Drupa 2008 is RollerTronic, an automatic roller lock which is now available for double-circumference Compacta presses. More than 30,000 such locks have already been fitted in Commander and Cortina newspaper presses. KBA RollerTronic allows the optimum throw-on pressure for the ink forme rollers to be set by push-button, thus creating ideal printing conditions while reducing roller abrasion, energy consumption and time-consuming maintenance work.