New KBA office in TaipeiGrand opening for KBA (Taiwan) Company Limited
Koenig & Bauer (KBA) opened a new sales and service company in the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, in mid-July. Over 100 print experts, including representatives from the Taiwan Printing & Machinery and Material Industry Associations as well as the Printing Technology Research Institute were also invited to celebrate the grand opening of KBA (Taiwan) Company Limited. Additionally, longstanding KBA customer Joy Printing opened its press room doors enabling the visitors to see a medium-format Rapida live.
Dietmar Heyduck, sales director at KBA-Sheetfed Solutions, welcomed the guests in fluent Mandarin and presented the latest developments within the KBA group. 2015 is an important year for KBA as the positive effects of the restructuring programme Fit@All which is almost complete are increasingly becoming apparent. Last year the KBA group as the world’s second-largest press manufacturer generated a pre-tax profit (EBT) with sales of €1.1bn, this is expected to substantially increase in 2015. KBA’s positive image in the Chinese market was reinforced with the considerable success achieved at Print China in April in Dongguan, China. Dietmar Heyduck: “Our customer base in Asia has changed and grown significantly. At the same time competition is tougher. The Taiwan market is extremely important for KBA and has grown considerably.”
Akio Pong is the managing director of KBA’s new subsidiary. He has 30 years of experience in the printing industry and offers customers extremely qualified advice on how they can differentiate themselves in the market and operate profitably.
Akio Pong, Andreas Friedrich, general manager Web Sales & Service in China, and Sam Sun, business development director at KBA-Metronic Shanghai, gave an in-depth overview of the KBA group’s broad product portfolio which ranges from sheetfed offset, digital, web offset and flexo printing to metal decorating and digital coding technology.
Longstanding partnership with Joy Printing
Dietmar Heyduck thanked Chen Yong Long, managing director of Joy Printing, for the business partnership spanning decades. For over 20 years the company has produced printed packaging for brand-name articles on KBA presses worldwide. Its customers are active in the cosmetics, electronic, biotechnology and entertainment industries. Chen Yong Long explained that the history of his company has been tied strongly with KBA since it was founded. He has purchased over ten KBA Rapidas during this time.
The visiting printing experts were shown two printing jobs on a Rapida 105 with seven printing units, coater and UV kit at Joy Printing. Huang Hung-Ju, sales manager at KBA Taiwan, presented the press, explained the technical processes behind job changing and print production, and gave an overview of the outstanding solutions for washing (CleanTronic), plate changing and drying (VariDry drying systems).
