New Rapida 106 LED UV Press Ushers in Double Productivity at Cedar Graphics
Cedar Graphics has built a stellar reputation for delivering high-quality work and complicated projects, always pushing the envelope in terms of quality and creativity, and finding solutions for its nationwide customers that demand a variety of eye-grabbing coatings and special effects. To continue this mandate, the Iowa-based printer added another dimension to its pressroom: a new, fully-automated 8-color KBA (Booth 213) Rapida 106 straight and perfecting LED-UV press—it’s first with this configuration, delivering 18,000 sph and strengthening its environmentally friendly status.
Left to right: The team at Cedar Graphics: Justin McDonald, Marketing Solutions Manager; Hassan Igram, Owner and CEO; Scott Burnett, Production Manager; and Humza Igram, President.
“The driving force in our decision to purchase the KBA Rapida 106 press was its productivity and its LED-UV capabilities,” says Hassan Igram, CEO of Cedar Graphics.
The job mix at Cedar skews 65% offset and 30% digital, with its newest offering, the wide-format production of posters and signage, at 5%. The coherent thread that runs through all of Cedar’s customers is its demand for color consistency. The new KBA Rapida press will anchor the pressroom at Cedar Graphics.
“We felt that KBA offered us unique print features that no one else can offer, such as KBA SIS (Sensoric Infeed System), making super-fast press speeds possible, and KBA Plate Ident recognizes and registers plates and automatically presets job information preventing errors while saving time and money,” says Humza Igram, President of Cedar Graphics, “as well as the strong investment and support that KBA has put forth in its LED-UV technology. We anticipate that LED-UV will become the next big trend, so we want to stay ahead of our competition.”
KBA believes that Cedar Graphics will realize faster lead times with LED-UV technology, increased use of plastic substrates, more finishing options, and less wear-and-tear on equipment, as well as ecological aspects such as high energy savings, lower ozone and CO2 emissions when drying, and elimination of spray powders.
“We are known for printing amazing products for innovative brands and creatives; as a result our customers are always looking for new substrates and pushing the envelope with eye-catching or tactile coatings and varnish combinations like soft touch, UV grit, or strike-throughs,” says Justin McDonald, Marketing Solutions Manager at Cedar Graphics. “Our new KBA press will give us the flexibility to easily move LED-UV lamps on press depending on these printing demands. This will help us to utilize all stock types. Having the ability to achieve faster makeready and less waste will reduce customer costs for these premium substrates and print effects.”
When the management team at Cedar Graphics, headed by Scott Burnett, Cedar’s Production Manager, evaluated the KBA Rapida, what impressed them the most were a number of highly-automated features, such as simultaneous makeready, in-line color measuring, fully-automatic format setting and change-over between straight printing and perfecting, a video system for monitoring the sheet travel underneath the perfecting drum and in the swanneck of the delivery, and the strong backing of its Service Select technicians to monitor the performance of the press and its maintenance. What made headlines for them, however, was the KBA SIS, a side lay-free system developed by KBA to reduce make ready times, increase productivity, and provide consistent register at high printing speeds.
