Offset Printing
CPI group in France opts for innovative KBA technology
Tuesday 20. April 2010 - KBA Commander CT for market leader in mono book printing
French print group CPI, the European market leader in monochrome book printing, is boosting productivity with a specially modified KBA Commander CT press incorporating an infra-red dryer, an imprinter and a KBA book folder.
“As the European market leader in book printing we owe it to our customers to innovate on an ongoing basis. Our investment in this extensively customised and highly productive web press represents a major technological advance and sharpens our competitiveness,” declared CPI group president Pierre-François Catté.
The CPI group has production plants (printing and binding) in France, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic. The new Commander CT will go live in spring 2011 at group subsidiary Brodard & Taupin in La Flêche (Département La Sarthe) some 250km (156 miles) southwest of Paris.
Raft of unique features
Custom-configured for printing paperback books, the Commander CT for CPI will be fed by a Pastomat CL reelstand embedded in a KBA Patras A automated reel logistics system. It will have a maximum web width of 1,480mm and a maximum rated output of 35,000 sections per hour in both straight and collect mode. The maximum page count in a wide range of common formats represents a radical innovation over the present options.
The Commander CTs printing towers, which are only half as high as those of conventional newspaper presses, will comprise four couples with an imprinting capability for flying job changes in 1:1 production. Compared to conventional book-printing presses makeready time will be virtually zero and there will be much less waste. A KBA PlateTronic automatic plate-changing system will allow the plates for the next job to be mounted while the first job is still being printed. KBA CleanTronic blanket washing, automatic colour and cut-off register controls and other automation modules will enhance not only productivity but quality as well.
In response to an emerging demand from CPIs publishing customers for books – particularly thick books – that lie flat more easily when open, the new Commander CT press will even support long-grain production, where the paper fibres run parallel to the spine.
Another unusual feature of the press is its infra-red dryer, whose capacity can be adjusted to production specifics such as a narrower web so as to improve energy efficiency. In the superstructure, which was adapted from publication gravure, the ribbons are turned 90° over individual bars before entering the KBA book folder where they are stitched via the quarterfold (chopper fold) to create two-up copies. The press will be controlled from a KBA ErgoTronic console with LogoTronic presetting system.
Alliance between two market leaders
The CPI group was founded in 1996. In 2009 the European market leader generated sales of 480m ($647.5m) on an output of some 500 million monochrome books. The group employs around 4,000 staff at production plants in five countries (France, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Czech Republic). CPI co-operates with over 2,000 publishers, among them the top European names. It runs 17 printing plants, including Firmin-Didot and Aubin Imprimeur in France, Clausen & Bosse in Germany, Koninklijke Wohrmann in the Netherlands and Mackays in England.
The order for the KBA Commander CT is the first in what both CPI and KBA hope will be a long-term alliance. After signing the contract in Würzburg KBA sales director Kai Trapp said: “The CPI groups decision to opt for this new combination of innovative newspaper and commercial press technology is confirmation of our superior competence in addressing customers individual requirements. We are confident that our close co-operation in this project can create a classic win-win situation for both our companies. It offers CPI the chance to enhance its productivity still further and raise its profile in the marketplace, and KBA the chance to establish a firmer foothold in a key market sector, book printing.”