KBA-Sheetfed, the world's second-largest manufacturer of sheetfed offset printing presses, and ACTEGA Coatings & Sealants, a division of the global speciality chemicals group ALTANA, have forged a strategic alliance in the field of inline finishing. The new cooperation agreement further intensifies their existing partnership and places activities on an even higher, strategic level. ACTEGA products which have been tested on Rapida sheetfed offset presses are to carry the seal of quality “Approved and licensed varnish by KBA”.

The prime objective of the cooperation is to ensure the availability of high-quality coating systems for KBA's high-performance sheetfed offset presses. Already during commissioning, the use of correspondingly approved products under uniform conditions will serve to establish application standards. This, in turn, will safeguard both outstanding finishing quality and high performance in the inline coating process.

All users who obtain their coating products through the ACTEGA sales network will benefit from the predefined product standards, as new products will already be tested and optimised for use on Rapida sheetfed offset presses. On the bottom line, the cooperation can thus be seen as a further means to maximise the business success of users whose work involves the application of varnish coatings in an inline process.

KBA and ACTEGA will be cooperating at a global level. The plans to date include joint product and sales training, print demonstrations at KBA, at fairs and at customer events, the development of appropriate starter kits to be supplied with new presses, and continuous further development of the products concerned. To this end, regular tests will be conducted on the Rapida presses installed at the KBA customer centre. The cooperation covers water-based, UV, HR-UV and LED-UV coatings.

In addition, KBA-Sheetfed and Actega have more joint projects in the pipeline, such as the annual ACTEGA Terra calendar and user-oriented marketing activities.