A handbag format gift carton with a triple hit of white, special colours and reticulated varnish has earned Simply Cartons the KBA 1814 productivity award for 2016. This was produced on its first KBA Rapida 106, a press with seven printing units, twin coaters plus dryers with a further print unit and coater plus dryer mounted on a 900mm plinth at the Nottingham company.
The configuration is typical of the sort of machines that customers are looking for says KBA UK sheetfed sales director Chris Scully. “During 2016 we have achieved 35% of the medium format sheetfed market,” he says. “We have brought in a lot of new customers which is very important to KBA.” As well as Simply Cartons this includes Qualvis and most recently luxury packaging specialist Beamglow. All have switched from previous suppliers.
“Like that at Beamglow, these are presses with multiple coating units, quality controls, suitable for plastics and able to run at 18,000sph,” he adds. “It is a very, very sophisticated machine.”
The Simply Cartons press will be joined by a second KBA Rapida 106 in January, part of a twin press order though confirmed at Drupa. Print manager Andy Toms collected the award explaining that the winning job was a match for a proof produced on an Epson inkjet printer where the customer wanted the same tactile snakeskin finish. It was a correct call.
After producing 108,000 sheets on 550 micron silver laminated Korsnas carrier board in the first run, there have been four reprints. All are die cut on an Iberia platen (Simply Cartons has four) which since the summer has been part of the KBA group. Each unit then had to be hand assembled.
The company had previously run Heidelberg and Mitsubishi machines until deciding that luxury packaging represented a strong opportunity for the business. This lead to an 18-month search for the right machine and crucially the right partner to supply it.
“It didn’t matter what we asked for, KBA was happy to talk about it. That was the difference between KBA and the other suppliers,” says Toms. “It is not just about us, it is for our customers who are demanding excellence from us. They want more and more, demanding absolute consistency, adherence to Lab specifications and matching brand colours. At the end it was an easy choice – so much so that our managing director Craig Mather ordered two before we had installed the first.
“We think this is the way forwards. It is a new approach to another market that we are aiming at: luxury packaging is where we see growth for us and we needed a machine that could do this reliably.”
The winning submission included a more straightforward job, a sheet with two varietyes of hummus sleeves for Asda on 420gsm FBB printed in four colour with a special in UV and then a UV spot varnish, running at 20,000sph. It printed 29,400 sheets in 1 hour 32 minutes, achieving a net speed of 19,174 sheets on the floor.
Simply cartons only installed its first KBA in February and will take delivery of its second in January having taken 18 months to investigate the presses on the market. It has already justified the investment through both the quality and productivity achieved.
