In 2017, Koenig & Bauer changed its name from KBA to Koenig & Bauer. The company celebrated its 200th anniversary, and it was not just a name change and design change, but also looked like a change in mindset - or at least that’s how it looked from the outside. The design of the printing presses was updated, won the Red Dot Award, and bore a resemblance to an iPhone in many ways.

Being a 200+ year old company obligates. The company's legacy compels it but is also obligated towards the future. When you look at Koenig & Bauer today, many initiatives have driven the company into the future, and maybe even more than most of us from the outside realize. Collaborations with other companies are not just a change in color and software, but a commitment to develop and sell products together. NEOS, HP, and DURST are just three examples, and you can ask why collaborate, rather than creating everything yourself?

There is more than one answer to that question. Although Koenig & Bauer employs almost 6,000 people globally, nobody can be the best in everything. A significant part of a printing press involves precision steelwork, which requires exceptional skills, yet is distinct from a printhead. So, in the example of DURST | Koenig & Bauer, printheads, electronics, software, and inks, DURST handles this. Koenig & Bauer handles the paper transport, dryers, and the flexo units. In a joint venture, they sell and market the technology, and both companies gain significant advantages from the collaboration. Like the partnership with NEOS, Koenig & Bauer's long-standing expertise in metal printing combines NEOS' knowledge of inks and digital printing directly on metal.

You also see technology like the Rapida feeder in the Varijet, the CutPRO X 106, CutPRO Q 106, Ipress 106, and many more machines - a huge advantage for the customer experienced with one machine, but also an advantage when scaling production. At the Open House in Radebeul, Koenig & Bauer had planned better than I have seen before. Three halls are set up with technology, and it’s fantastic to walk from the large Customer Experience Center where you see the Rapida 106 x and a Rapida 76 next to a CutPRO X, some of the other die cutters, and finally a Koenig & Bauer Duran Omega Pro 110 folding gluer. When you enter the second hall, you see a Rapida 106 with a Vinfoil cold foil machine, a one-tower CutPRO X 106, and a setup for labels, IML, and finally, the last room is for the Varijet. Demos are aligned, so offset and digital print the same boxes in 7 colors to showcase new color measurement technology on the Rapida, as well as ECG, and ultimately, how the Varijet matches the offset. 

After a welcome by Thomas Göcke and Dietmar Heyduck, Dirk Winkler gives a short presentation. 

Now, to the promise. In under 15 minutes, we will have a printed, die-cut, and glued box. The first box is ready at 14:39.

Of course, this situation is unlike that in a printing company, but it was impressive and surprisingly unstressed. Operators knew their machines, and of course, such a presentation is convincing. 22,000 sheets an hour on the Rapida 106 X, 15,000 sheets an hour on the CutPRO X, and with the Duran folding/gluers, speed up to 700 meters per minute. It's impossible to imagine how it’s done, but here we are.

For the most part, the guests are converters from Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and France. To be honest, they are not so easy to read, but they are impressed—and, of course, an Open House like the one I am attending is oiled and greased to run butter smoothly, and it does.

Besides the demos and presentations, Koenig & Bauer also takes the opportunity to bring some of their colleagues along - So I got a chance to talk to Falk Rößler. His business card lists him as a Senior Manager of Service Sales, but his role is IT. He shows me a new application layer Koenig & Bauer is adding to the software portfolio. The software adds an optimization layer to the Logotronic platform, which cross-vendor optimizes the job sequence based on several parameters, including those dynamically fetched from various inputs, such as manual, sensor, and CIP data. I liked this because there was time. Falk Rößler took the time to explain the software to me, how it works, and its intended purpose. He also had time to listen to suggestions and share anecdotes.

Julian Schubert is the CEO of Koenig & Bauer Vision & Protection, a relative new spin-off from the banknotes division. Despite the secrecy surrounding security, Schubert explains that Koenig & Bauer's strategy is to deliver solutions that PSPs and Converters can monetize. Instead of providing, for example, a traceable ink, Koenig & Bauer either delivers the solution that creates the security features or makes the files for the Koenig & Bauer customer, so it still becomes part of the PSPs or Converters' value proposition. Of course, he shows how they can take counterfeit measures. There is a small magenta triangle on the box, and upon looking at it, it doesn’t seem to have changed much at first. After a few seconds, I can see something that reminds me of how pixels look on a stereogram. Julian Schubert acknowledges that one way to create a security layer is to manipulate a few pixels, and by doing so, the reader software developed to identify the counterfeits immediately recognizes the print as being fake or not. Because of this, the box can be scanned but not reproduced. If the brand owner wishes, an app can be made available for its customers to scan and verify the product before purchase.

This was truly interesting to learn about, and with the independent entity, Koenig & Bauer can now further diversify their offerings.

I would like to mention two additional points in this article: myKyana and some general speculations.

I heard of myKyana, an AI assistant for print developed by Koenig & Bauer and Google, at an Open House a year ago. Sandra Wagner leads the myKyana team, and though I didn’t have time to get a presentation at the Open House, I had the chance to talk to Wagner the evening before. We have been promised a preview version of myKyana (with data) to test it, so stay tuned for that!

AI has been around for a long time, but the AI revolution, as the general public perceives it, began with the advent of generative AI and ChatGPT. Words and terms like ‘training of models’ and many more have become part of our vocabulary. myKyana is a so-called digital assistant that, based on AI, can help PSPs and Converters access information as easily as using ChatGPT. According to Wagner, customers appreciate using myKyana, and emphasize that Americans often adopt new technology faster than the rest of the world, but also say that German printers use myKyana. In the conversation we have, we talk about AI, Robots, Sensors, and CIP4 - so you can imagine how nerdy that conversation was - and I love it :-)

The last topic in this long article concerns some general speculations, so take a deep breath and let’s get to it.

An Open House is obviously about selling. The visitors and I know it, Koenig & Bauer know it, and this event was one of the better ones. Koenig & Bauer emphasized during the event that “Expand your business model” is what this is about - but I think it’s left to the printers to find out how technology can help them expand their business models. Markets are changing more rapidly and frequently than ever, and one of the things I would have liked from an Open House is an understanding of how the market is evolving, which segments and countries/regions are developing, and which industries are progressing, as well as the direction of these developments towards specific applications. We all discuss packaging as a great opportunity, but is it accessible to all, and what does it require to achieve it? Where are the markets moving, and let’s back it up with inspiration, facts, and how Koenig & Bauer can support these movements. I was surprised at the Open House to learn that Koenig & Bauer has a brand team that shares news about technologies, but also learn from the brand owners about current and future needs - SHARE. Our mission at INKISH is to inspire, based on the many printing companies we have visited over the years - we would like to do more industry-wise, but it requires a close collaboration as digital is the easy way, print requires more to deliver - but more sustainable growth and whau, SO pleasant to touch, feel, smell, and so forth!

Dear Koenig & Bauer team. The technology you provide delivers an outcome to families worldwide, and you have developed technology for more than 200 years that continues to astound. Continue with that, but please add the ‘why’ to drive US forward!