Offset Printing
Magazine House Improves Productivity with SPC and Wins Coveted Accolade
Tuesday 23. December 2008 - KBA Rapida Headlines Change at W&G Baird
Antrim’s W&G Baird is the latest leading high quality magazine and commercial print house to choose KBA’s DriveTronic Simultaneous Platechanging (SPC) technology as it gears up for the new challenges of a highly competitive sector.
W&G Baird, a 24-hour operation, specified the makeready record-breaking system for the 10-colour Rapida long perfector B1 press.
Managing Director Henderson Allan describes the modern marketplace as ‘complex and demanding’, a view reflected in his specification for the new KBA Rapida: “There is no doubt that higher productivity is the main overall objective because that reduces unit costs,” he says, “but the challenge is to achieve that while handling shorter runs and maintaining – or even improving – quality.”
KBA’s DriveTronic SPC is a software-based system which allows the cylinders to be aligned and plates changed simultaneously without any additional mechanical intervention. Because wash-up and other functions are synchronised the result is a significant reduction in overall makeready time.
“These savings are vital when magazine run lengths dictate more job changes per shift,” explains Henderson Allan. “To deliver those shorter runs within the required cost parameters we need to be able to reduce the downtime on the presses as much as possible.
Open system CIPLINK-software allows continuous data flow from prepress, via the press to downstream systems in the finishing department while the KBA DensiTronic S colour management system promises peace of mind in the form of quality control and job documentation; a scanner attached to the measuring arm of the DensiTronic Professional system detects even minimal deviations from the original job pdf and automatically records them for the customer’s benefit in a quality log.
KBA UK Managing Director Christian Knapp says: “For the first time in decades there has been a significant advance in makeready performance and this can make the difference between success and failure in tough times. And it’s not only quality and productivity that matters, service and performance are just as important; just as W&G Baird goes the extra mile for its customers, so KBA offers its complete commitment and support to W&G Baird.”
W&G Baird was established in 1862 and services a customer base throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. Installed in September, the new B1 KBA Rapida 10-colour long perfector recorded 8.1 million impressions in its first 10 weeks and produced the titles that won W&G Baird the Magazine Printer of the Year 2008 accolade at the Irish Print Awards in November.