The winner of the KBA UK Ltd 1814 Production Excellence Award for 2016 was Simply Cartons of Nottingham. Having installed a KBA Rapida 106-8 in February of 2016, the company used its bespoke configuration (7LTT1L) to produce two jobs of different format size on different boards. The first job was a silver/white snakeskin effect handbag on 523 x 1023mm 550 micron silver metpol laminated Korsnas carrier board. It was printed with two whites, BCMY and finished with textured litho matte and gloss varnish. Total sheets produced was 108,458 and Simply Cartons used the ErgoTronic ColorControl with LAB and QualiTronic Professional inline colour control and inspection with Quality Pass to achieve a 74 per cent saving in make-ready, including a customer press pass, to match the texture of the digital proof with coating effects.
Then, using simultaneous plate changing and roller washing, the second job was run at 20,000 sheets/hour. This job was two kinds of stackers for a leading supermarket, with a format size of 704 x 600mm on 420-micron folding boxboard. Printed UV CMYK, PMS 717 and a UV gloss varnish, 29,400 good sheets were on the floor in 92 minutes — and waste was 66 per cent lower than before. Congratulating the company, which was founded in 2005 by Craig Mather and Guy Gisbourne, Andrew Pang, Managing Director of KBA UK said that the award was well deserved for producing two technically challenging jobs with significant savings in time and waste and at record-breaking speeds.
