French subsidiary joins KBA in milestone celebrations

Late last year, KBA celebrated its 200-year-old roots, with a steam-powered double-cylinder printing press from Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer used for the first time to print The Times in London on November 29, 1814.

KBA France was founded in September 1994 with eight employees in Tremblay-en-France, a suburb of the French capital Paris, where its headquarters are still situated today. This followed the takeover of Planeta by KBA in 1991. When KBA-France was founded, only six Rapidas – two Rapida 104 models and four Rapida 72Ks – had been installed in France. Now, around 200 Rapidas are installed in France, with a 50/50 split between packaging and commercial printers.

Further, half of the presses KBA-France has sold since 1994 have been to new customers.

The growth in the number of installed presses has been supported by a second office in Lyon, opened in 2004, with the employee number growing from eight to 35 today.

KBA-France managing director Michel Faust, who has led the French subsidiary for over 10 years, said: ‘The takeover of Planeta scared away numerous longstanding Planeta users. Many turned their backs on what then became KBA Planeta.

‘After success in medium and large formats over the previous two decades, we will now focus more on the half-format segment. We are confident that we can secure a reasonable market share with the completely revised Rapida 75 even in the 50 x 70cm format sector.

‘In 2014 two new Rapida 75 were fired up at printing houses in France, with a Rapida 75-4+L at Bruno Calonne Imprimeur in Noeux-les-Mines, northern France and a Rapida 75-4 going to the Parisian hospitals in Charenton-le-Pont.

‘We are seeing increasing demand for individual solutions with long and complex configurations in the high-end segment of the packaging market.

‘Tailored solutions are a specialty of KBA. Packaging operations with high print runs predominantly bank on high-speed Rapidas with non-stop systems and logistics. Some customers print at speeds of 20,000sph around the clock, such as the highly automated Rapidas 106-6+L at FP Pack and C.E.C. Carmaux.

‘There is a clear trends towards HR-UV and LED-UV technology in the commercial market. This is particularly true of longer presses with and without perfecting.’

‘We are feeling optimistic despite the difficult economic situation in France at the moment,’ Faust added. ‘Thanks to KBA’s innovative role as technology leader in packaging it is our goal to hold onto and increase our market share in the crisis-ridden commercial printing sector.’