For the seventh time in succession, KBA users ranked high in new admissions to the International Newspaper Colour Quality Club for the 2006 – 2008 session, carrying off 16 of the 50 awards from a total of 181 submissions by 38 newspaper publishing houses worldwide.
KBA’s focus at this year’s event was a new compact wet offset press, the KBA Commander CT, described by the trade fair magazine Ifra Gazette as a “press surprise”.
The same height as the revolutionary waterless, keyless KBA Cortina previewed in Amsterdam back in 1999, the Commander CT is now in operation at seven European printing plants.
It has the same high level of automation, including KBA PlateTronic automatic plate changers – unique in the global newspaper market – and KBA NipTronic automatic bearings for pushbutton adjustment of the nip pressure from the console.
During Ifra, some 180 newspaper professionals took the opportunity to attend an evening production run on the Cortina at Dijkman Offset in nearby Diemen.
KBA says that a growing number of coldset printers whose job structures include multiple split-run editions or challenging quality specs, see the compact waterless press as a viable alternative when investing in new kit.
A total of eight Cortina presses have been sold to printers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.
Shortly before Ifra opened KBA announced an additional order for the first Cortina in Scandinavia, where, for environmental reasons, waterless offset is more common than in the rest of Europe.
The waterless, keyless Cortina will remain a major focus of KBA’s research, development and marketing activities, KBA says.
