Italian package printer celebrates 60th jubilee with KBA investment

- First Rapida already installed; second arriving this summer

- Presses to speed up delivery of quality packaging to customers

Lavorazione Imballi Cartone (LIC) is celebrating its 60^th year with the addition of two new KBA Rapida 162a large-format sheet-fed offset presses to enhance production efficiency.
 
The two six-color Rapidas have a coater, automated pile logistics, automatic plate changers, CleanTronic Synchro washing systems and DensiTronic Professional color-density control, enabling them to handling a wide range of substrates including F- and E-flute corrugated.

Company history

LIC was founded by Giovanni Bertoldo as a commercial printshop in 1952. An offset printing company, Fraber, was set up in 1961 to produce folding cartons for the shoemaking industry. In 1982 the production of corrugated packaging began under the name L.I.C. Lavorazione Imballi Cartone Srl.

In 1991 a corrugator was installed and LIC started manufacturing the substrates in-house. In 1998 Fraber and LIC merged to form LIC Packaging SpA.

LIC’s customer base encompasses prominent players in the food processing, chemicals, soap and detergent, electrical goods and glass industries. Barilla, Ferrero, Nestlé, Henkel, Procter & Gamble and other brands are among its customers.
 
It prints a broad spectrum of products spanning simple food trays, master boxes, quick-easy tops (QET), displays and many other optically appealing packaging forms.
 
In total, LIC’s production lines process some 55,000t of different substrates per year. Its 204 employees generate annual sales of around €55 million.
 
Print production is in offset and flexo, and most of the substrates it prints are manufactured in-house. The conversion department, with its folding, die-stamping, cutting, laminating and palletizing lines, allows a high degree of product customization.
 

LIC Expansion

Over the past eleven years LIC has expanded its activities in European markets, entering an alliance with the SAICA group, a family-owned Spanish company based in Zaragoza.

The purpose of an extensive investment schedule drawn up in 2005 was to become one of the leading packaging enterprises in Europe. A lot of progress has already been made towards this goal.

Following the establishment of LIC and its relocation to its present premises two second-hand Planeta presses were installed. The size 7 (64in) and 8a (73in) five-color coater presses were in service for many years.
 
KBA technology arrived at LIC Packaging SpA in 2008 in the form of a six-color Rapida 162 coater press. Satisfaction with its performance led in spring 2011 to an order for two new-generation Rapida 162a presses, also six-color coater versions.

The first was delivered at the end of the year, the second will come on stream early this summer (pictured, above: The foundations for the second, identical large-format Rapida has already been poured).
 
LIC managing director Piero Bertoldo said: ‘Run lengths have shortened in packaging printing as well, while at the same time deadline pressure has increased and quality expectations become more demanding.
 
‘Soon, when the two new Rapidas go into action, we can split our production according to substrate and job specs, enabling us to deliver the quality and quantity demanded much faster than before. Mixed production will also be possible at any time.
 
‘KBA’s new-generation large-format presses are much more advanced in terms of automation, speed and flexibility in production, make-ready and quality monitoring.
 
‘For many years now our proximity to KBA-Italia has ensured that we can depend on quick, efficient service and trouble-free production.’
 
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