12 & 13 Feb 2025
NEC Birmingham

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Introducing our brand new print machine.

Introducing our brand new print machine.

A highly specified Koenig & Bauer Rapida 106.

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Amongst the challenges during the pandemic, charity head shaves, clapping for the NHS…our production team pulled off an amazing feat.

They completely rearranged the factory layout, oversaw some major building works (thankfully just before lockdown) and installed a brand spanking new printing press.

This is another major investment that we have made to ensure that our customers have the latest printing technologies at their disposal.

The Rapida 106 features 7 printing units and a coater, 2 drying units followed by another additional printing unit and a final coater unit allowing the widest range of effects and finishes to be produced on a press.

The press has a top speed of 18,000 sheets per hour and can print with both UV and conventional inks and coatings.

Colour control is via Koenig and Bauer’s QualiTronic ColorControl inline colour measurement system which automatically updates the colour values after every tenth sheet ensuring the highest of colour performance levels.

To provide an extra level of quality to the work produced on the new press it is equipped with QualiTronic PDF which enables comparison of the printed material to an original PDF. Every single sheet produced for each run is compared against the original during running and the operator receives early warning of any defects found by the system.

Andy Crack, Factory Manager at Alexir says, “We have become incredibly busy since the press was installed and production has increased by 25% since 2019. The pandemic and the trend for plastic reduction has created a big increase in demand on our carton production volumes. Managing the installation, reorganising the factory to improve the workflow and the restrictions on staffing during this time has been a challenge but we have coped really well. The print quality from the press is very good and due to the quality assurance tools supplied with the press we have experienced a big reduction in quality issues”.

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