Flint Group Sheetfed Signs Agreement with KBA-Sheetfed to Use Inks in Presses

From the left, Holger Winkler, head of purchasing at KBA Sheetfed; Richard Wilson OEM technical coordination director SF; Anne Just purchasing; Doug Aldred, president Packaging and Narrow Web Division at Flint Group; and Ralf Sammeck, CEO of KBA-Sheetfed.

STUTTGART, Germany — November 9, 2016 — In an extension of their long standing product development relationship, Flint Group Sheetfed and KBA-Sheetfed today signed a Technical Cooperation Agreement that will see Flint Group products used in the commissioning of new KBA presses, printing conventional sheetfed offset, across the globe.

"Our strategy is to work alongside industry leading equipment manufacturers to help us develop consistent, high quality and innovative products and services," explains Romain Boulot, VP sheetfed sales and global strategy, Flint Group. "KBA has seen first hand how our product performance, especially in conventional and low migration sheetfed inks, our consistent approach to cost to print optimization and our global network of highly skilled service personnel can bring added value to their customers. This Agreement is an important extension of our global quality and service proposition and we are extremely pleased to have concluded it today with KBA."

The Agreement means that each new press that KBA installs will be commissioned using Flint Group sheetfed inks. From initial planning meetings with customers right through to installation sign-off, local Flint Group technical staff will give support to the KBA engineers, to ensure the press is up and running, producing high quality prints in a controlled and expertly managed process.

"The benefits to the printer are huge," explains Richard Wilson, Flint Group’s OEM technical coordination director. "A local back-up with consistent, reliable products will help KBA get the press printing to spec more efficiently, while the customer will start gaining returns from their investment faster. It takes a variable out of the process and will mean sign-off can be achieved quicker than might otherwise be the case."

As part of the agreement, each new press that KBA installs will be commissioned using Flint Group sheetfed inks.

The Agreement includes the use of Flint Group inks by KBA-Sheetfed for print demonstrations in their demonstration center, during employee orientation in the company training center, in the design and development departments, at trade shows and customer events, for the factory testing of new presses, and for inclusion in their press starter kits. Experts from the two companies will be able to exchange know-how and carry out joint product development projects within the framework of mutual training programs.

Dirk Winkler, head of print technology at KBA-Sheetfed comments, "We have achieved excellent and stable results with printing inks from Flint Group, not only in connection with our conventional ink benchmarking, but also during periodic high-performance tests in the areas of packaging, commercial, and Web2Print applications or label printing. And when a product meets our high expectations, we gladly recommend it to our users around the world. This strategy is naturally implemented together with our cooperation partner to the benefit of our customers."

The Agreement will come into force on Dec. 1, 2016.

About Flint Group
Flint Group is dedicated to serving the global printing and packaging industry. The company develops, manufactures and markets an extensive portfolio of printing consumables and printing equipment, including: a vast range of conventional and energy curable inks and coatings for most offset, flexographic and gravure applications; pressroom chemicals, printing blankets and sleeves for offset printing; photopolymer printing plates and sleeves, plate-making equipment and flexographic sleeve systems; pigments and additives for use in inks and other colorant applications. Flint Group also designs, develops and delivers web-fed digital color presses for labels and packaging applications, document printing, as well as commercial printing, platemaking equipment for the newspaper industry and computer-to-plate (CtP) solutions for the commercial printing market. With a strong customer focus, unmatched service and support, and superior products, Flint Group strives to provide exceptional value, consistent quality and continuous innovation to customers around the world. Headquartered in Luxembourg, Flint Group employs some 7,900 people. Revenues for 2015 were € 2.2 billion. On a worldwide basis, the company is the number one or number two supplier in every major market segment it serves.

Source: Flint Group.