During its 200th anniversary last year, Koenig & Bauer returned to its founding name "Koenig & Bauer" as part of a global brand re-launch.

In a continuation of this rebranding, the Germany-based company is changing the names of the global business units, subsidiaries, and agencies to be aligned with this new brand.

Effective immediately, KBA North America Inc. is now named Koenig & Bauer (US) Inc., and KBA Canada Inc. is now named Koenig & Bauer (CA) Inc.

As it bolsters the staff of its fast-growing flexographic printing division, KBA North America is naming Preston Neetzel as its new technical sales manager for KBA-Flexotecnica.

August 9 marks the 200th anniversary of Koenig & Bauer AG’s founding. In the past 200 years, the company has expanded beyond manufacturing presses and evolved into a global operation with a portfolio of products.

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The Supervisory Board of Koenig & Bauer AG has appointed Ralf Sammeck and Christoph Müller to the Executive Board, effective June 1. As of today, Sammeck leads the Sheetfed division, and Müller the Digital & Web division. Both group management members will represent their segments on the Executive Board.

KBA North America announces the appointment of Jeffrey R. Dietz as the new vice president of its Web and Specialty Press division.

With the recent news earlier this year that KBA North America has been named the North American exclusive distributor for the newly-acquired Spanish medium- and large-format flatbed die cutter manufacturer Iberica AG S.A. by its parent company, Koenig & Bauer, KBA North America has begun to fill positions to oversee this new division. Its first announcement is to name Tom Fitzgerald to the newly created position.

Imagine! Print Solutions, an independent commercial and packaging printing company, has installed its tenth KBA press – a Rapida 164 64-inch seven-color full UV press at its Shakopee, Minn., facility. The press became fully operational early this year.

In the upcoming three years PrintHouseService GmbH (PHS) is to check, maintain and if necessary, replace the bearers and cylinder bearings on all 18 Colorman rotary presses at Axel Springer SE's Ahrensburg, Berlin and Essen sites.

Predictive maintenance based on smart data analysis is gaining ground in many sectors of industry. Predictive maintenance (PM) is a development of traditional maintenance strategies and a vital element of Industry 4.0 and KBA 4.0. environments. The condition of cylinder bearings on the presses can be accurately established thanks to the unique bearing analysis performed by KBA subsidiary PHS. The method is based on measuring movement. Possible damage to cylinder bearings can thus be precisely located, while signs of wear are detected before printing problems occur. Consequential damage such as defective cylinder journals or gears is avoided. Downtimes and repair costs can be duly and accurately defined. PHS also performs checking and setting of the highly loaded bearers on the impression cylinders. The condition and setting of these bearers is crucial to good printing quality.

As a subsidiary of Koenig & Bauer AG, PHS focuses on service and commissioned work on non-KBA Group rotary presses.

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KBA North America has promoted Sam Pernice to the newly-created position of director of sales and service for KBA-MetalPrint products. For the past four years, Pernice has held dual roles as a sales and service representative in the web offset division and working to build customers within the KBA-MetalPrint division.

KBA North America has been awarded the contract for its expert web offset service department to upgrade the control system on a KBA Comet web offset press at the Times News in Lehighton, Penn., this summer. This unique web service retrofit/rebuild upgrade program offers preventative change-over installation on existing web offset presses and replaces it with new enhanced technology for more efficient throughput.