KBA is set to build a new digital and flexo press demo centre at its main Wurzburg plant in Germany.  The €16m project will include building and infrastructure costs of around €6m, with the remainder spent on the three demo presses.
The building is due for completion in autumn this year, when KBA will be formally celebrating its 200th anniversary, the centre will house a RotaJet digital printing press, a flexo rotary press and a newly-developed sheetfed flexo press. Its main purpose will be customer demos along with testing new developments and it should be fully operational with presses by January 2018.
The new 2,100sqm centre will be the latest in the series of buildings at the Wurzburg site, following a new foundry in 2012, new production halls in 2008 and 2003 and a logistics centre and design building in 2001.
KBA already has a demo centre for its sheetfed offset presses and processing systems, in Radebeul, Saxony, which is more than double the size of Wurzburg and houses 15 presses.
KBA marketing manager Klaus Schmidt said the company set out plans around a year ago to construct the centre. “We felt that our plant in Milano with presentations in the assembly hall was not an ideal environment. Wurzburg is very close to Frankfurt, one hour by train, so we said we would do it here because we also want to increase cooperation with KBA’s digital and web,” he added.