Koenig & Bauer Says Its Taking Lead in Flexible Packaging Market

In response to the ever-increasing demand for flexible packaging, Koenig & Bauer said it is taking a leadership position as it positively responds to its growing customer base with a broad product portfolio, outstanding value, and strong service and support. 

“With Koenig & Bauer’s rich 200-plus-year history of technical innovation, we have demonstrated the experience and ability to grow a customers’ business, offer more proactive innovative solutions and support ensuring that our customers receive the maximum uptime and throughput in their facility, and allow them to remain ahead of their competitors,” said Preston Neetzel, director of sales at Koenig & Bauer. “We offer precisely what more and more customers are demanding – high quality, a broad product portfolio, and environment-friendly technologies. We’ve been recognized with awards honoring our innovative and impactful technology for the ever-evolving package printing and converting industry.”

In today’s competitive market, many flexible packaging printers are finding that orders are smaller with shorter lead times, according to Koenig & Bauer.

Being able to remain fully operational to produce these orders is a necessity, the company said.

Koenig & Bauer said it developed its own remote maintenance and modern communication channels known as Augmented Reality-DataGlass Remote Support. 

At a 2019 Flexographic Technical Association’s (FTA) InfoFlex meeting, Koenig & Bauer received the FTA’s Technical Innovation Award for its Augmented Reality-DataGlass Remote Support. 

This system provides Koenig & Bauer remote maintenance specialists with the ability to experience, in real-time, what a customer’s technical team can see and hear, the company said. 

By providing this one-to-one conversation between Koenig & Bauer’s technical team and the customer, Koenig & Bauer said it is better able to help them immediately diagnose the problem and get their flexo production system up and running. 

“A remote support specialist can see and follow the actions of a press technician on-site live and in real-time while he or she works on the press, and see exactly what the technician is seeing,” said Neetzel. “It’s been extremely popular with our flexo customers.”

“Koenig & Bauer and its AR-DataGlass technology has enabled us to increase our uptime and supports our goal of providing consistent, high-quality printing that our customers have come to rely on,” said Beth Smith, director of marketing at Great American Packaging, a Los Angeles-based supplier of flexible packaging. “We continue to grow our applications and further enhance our press’ total capabilities.”

Flexo printers who are seeking the highest quality and productivity are turning to Koenig & Bauer Evo XG highly automated flexo press for processing film sheets, paper and cardboard at production speeds of up to 600 m/min, according to Koenig & Bauer.

In all versions of the Evo XG, solvent as well as water-based inks can be used, as well as curing inks (UV / EB). 

The configuration of the Evo XG with additional individual printing units using flexo or gravure printing technology is a further option for extending the performance range of the press. 

True-to-register printing, varnishing, coating or laminating in recto and/or verso printing are thus possible, Koenig & Bauer said. 

“The Evo XG is precisely the kind of machine we were looking for. We are convinced that we have made the right decision and that we will now be able to further strengthen our position as European market leaders,” said Jürgen Popp, owner and managing director of Zöllner-Wiethoff.