Offset Printing

KBA Rapida 75: Barely 90 minutes for 11 jobs

Tuesday 06. April 2010 - Spurred on by makeready world champion Rapida 106

With its production of a record-breaking 15 jobs of 520 sheets each in 59 minutes, the KBA Rapida 106 is the proclaimed makeready world champion in sheetfed offset. There is still no other press in sight to challenge that performance, but the half-format Rapida 75 is nevertheless determined not to be outdone by its larger sister: Within the framework of a print test for a German Internet printer, a five-colour version of the press with coater and extended delivery (format 52 x 74 cm) took just 55 minutes to print seven 300-sheet jobs at the KBA Customer Centre in Radebeul on 19th March. Another 30 minutes then sufficed to handle four more postcard and business card formes. After barely 90 minutes, the press had completed 11 different production jobs.

It may indeed be possible to find a highly tuned half-format press with fully automatic plate changers which is marginally faster still. But it should not be overlooked that the Rapida 75 achieved the above output with semi-automatic plate changing. A pile change at the feeder and delivery was necessary for the seven jobs printed on 350 gsm matt art paper. A first pull was taken after 30 sheets in each case to measure and adjust the ink densities with KBA DensiTronic. After 100 sheets, the densities were measured again (without adjustment). The first saleable sheets were in the delivery without stopping the press after around 100 sheets. The measured values remained stable within the tolerances defined by ISO 12647-2 (Process Standard Offset) over the whole run, and the Rapida 75 was printing at 15,000 sph both for makeready and for the actual production.

This production on the Rapida 75 goes to show that a fancy high-tech press is not really a prerequisite for above-average print performance and profitable short-run production in B2 format. The Rapida 75 scores above all with practice-oriented features geared to fast job changeovers and ease of operation, alongside the smallest footprint in its format class and an energy consumption up to 50% below that of comparable presses. The latter points are almost certainly of particular interest to companies with limited space and a commitment to climate-friendly production.