2023: A Year Of Anniversaries

A Look Back At 175 Years Of Printing Presses Made In Mödling

Today's Koenig & Bauer (AT) was founded in 1848 by Heinrich Löser, although the exact date is not recorded in any archives. After some initial difficulties Löser's order books were full by 1855. By 1860 the company had become the market leader for printing presses in the Austrian Empire, a position it consolidated in the years that followed. Numerous customers at home and abroad, including the k. u. k. Court and State Printing Office and the Central Bank, became regular customers and provided the company with long-term planning security.

In 1913 Koenig & Bauer acquired a majority shareholding in the company, which was then renamed Schnellpressfabrik Mödling Vorm. L. Kaiser's Söhne AG and took over the technical and commercial management of the company. Over the years, the range of machines produced at the Austrian site was expanded and adapted to include offset printing presses and automatic sanding machines. Since 2014, the Mödling site has increasingly focused on its core competencies - and thus on security printing presses. The expertise in this special field has been continuously developed since the company was founded, and the entire production of simultaneous security printing machines was moved from Würzburg to Mödling in 1963.

A lot has happened since then. In order to meet the increasing demands of customer support, this area has been massively expanded and logistics and assembly technology have been continuously optimised. A 24-hour hotline is available to answer technical questions about these complex machines. Just as currencies change, and in the case of the euro, are sometimes completely replaced, the production of banknote printing machines has also changed to produce ever higher quality, counterfeit-proof banknotes and securities at ever faster speeds.

If you look back over the company's proud 175-year history, what you will see above all is constant change: neither the name, nor the location, nor the ownership, and certainly not the technology, have remained as they once were. And yet, or perhaps because of this, the company has been able to survive every global, national and internal crisis and, sooner or later, emerge stronger than before. The secret lies in a constant willingness to change. Only those who react flexibly to crises and proactively seek their own solutions can survive and develop over time. After 110 years as part of the Koenig & Bauer group it is important to continue to harness the power of the entire group to exchange ideas, exploit synergies and learn from each other. How well this can work is demonstrated by the implementation of the Exceeding Print strategy, which will guide the Group in all decisions from the end of 2021.

We are becoming more digital, more sustainable and more modular

By enhancing printing processes and machines with digital solutions, the company's own teams and customers will be able to work more flexibly and efficiently in the future. The sustainability of production processes is a top priority for Koenig & Bauer - in Mödling the cycle assembly line is an excellent example of how modularity and sustainability go hand in hand. The high level of automation will make work processes even more effective and efficient. In addition, business processes and workflows will be continuously optimised to ensure the long-term future of the site. The company is therefore focusing intensively on operational excellence in order to identify potential synergies across the Group and to exploit the resulting optimisation potential as effectively as possible.

The sustainability pillar in particular demonstrates how the Group's strategy acts as a driver for the site. In order to achieve the major goal of rapidly reducing its own environmental footprint, the site aims to achieve carbon-neutral production by 2028 at the latest. As well as being a challenge, this goal offers many opportunities and benefits for the site and the region. The most important step towards CO2 neutrality is an independent energy supply. The solar panels that have been installed for a long time are saving a lot of money on electricity. Heating energy no longer comes in the form of gas from distant countries, but as district heating in the form of biomass from local farmers. The company's optimisation process is also reflected in energy savings. Every energy saving potential is identified, analysed and exploited to the full. In this way Koenig & Bauer (AT) presents itself as a responsible, efficient and globally aware company.

A Major Player For 125 Years: The History Of The Radebeul Site

With its 1,800 employees, the factory is today considered the largest engineering company in Saxony. It is the modern-day successor to Dresdner Schnellpressenfabrik, the company founded on Blasewitzer Straße in Dresden in 1898 by Joseph Hauss and Alfred Sparbert. It relocated to Brockwitz just two years later before moving premises again in 1911, namely to Radebeul-Naundorf, where the company still has its offices today.

The company caught the attention of the world market from the very beginning. The first in a stream of innovative solutions was a ‘fixture for moving the printing foundation of high-speed printing presses’, the planetary drive, which lent its name to decades of press models and was adopted as the name for the whole company from 1938. In 1932, Planeta produced the world’s first four-colour sheetfed offset press. Another world first designed in Radebeul was a unit-based sheetfed offset press unveiled in 1965. This design principle has since become the accepted norm and has remained the industry standard to this day.

More recent developments with which Koenig & Bauer continues to set international benchmarks in sheetfed offset include automation solutions such as the sidelay-free infeed DriveTronic SIS, fully automatic plate logistics and a variety of digitalisation options. Rapida sheetfed offset presses today deliver an unrivalled performance in many format classes and are also makeready world champions.

There were, unavoidably, also a few lows and darker periods to be endured over the course of 125 years of manufacturing at the location. These included two world wars, hyperinflation and currency reforms, the planned economy of the GDR years, subsequent restructuring for a market economy and the catastrophic Elbe floods of 2002. Time and again, however, the employees stood by their company – with passionate commitment, consummate skill and countless good ideas for ways to advance the fortunes of the press engineering.

Today, the Koenig & Bauer factory in Radebeul represents much more than just the group’s value centre for classic sheetfed offset. It also bundles all group activities relating to an integrated packaging production workflow. The current product portfolio in Radebeul includes rotary die-cutters based on the offset press platform. Flat-bed die-cutters are supplied by subsidiary Koenig & Bauer Iberica in Barcelona. Added to this are the folder-gluers contributed by Koenig & Bauer Duran in Istanbul. In this way, products from Koenig & Bauer cover the entire process chain of folding carton production.

Alongside sheetfed offset presses, Radebeul design engineers working within the framework of a joint venture with the company Durst have developed the VariJET 106, a digital printing press that combines the strengths of inkjet with the benefits of an offset process. By bringing together important elements of the two processes, the new press raises packaging printing to the next level and enables the production of innovative, future-oriented packaging solutions. The first presses in this series were put into operation by users over the past few months.

The Radebeul factory is today the largest Koenig & Bauer location and home to three business units: Koenig & Bauer Sheetfed, responsible for the market segments sheetfed offset and post-press equipment (including development, production, sales and service), Koenig & Bauer Industrial as an internal and external production services provider, and Koenig & Bauer Deutschland as the sales and service company.

All three business units are fundamental elements of the overall Koenig & Bauer Group. At the same time, together with our many suppliers and business partners, they form a sound basis for the local and regional labour market in the Upper Elbe valley. With an export ratio of almost 90 per cent, Koenig & Bauer can also point to an international trade performance well ahead of the Saxon and German national averages.

The history of the two sites is also a central element of Koenig & Bauer's DNA: The ability of its people to embrace and shape change, and to seize the opportunities it presents, has always been a hallmark of the company and its staff. This is the basis on which Koenig & Bauer has been successful for centuries, pioneering new technologies and business fields. And that is exactly what we should be celebrating...

175 Years Mödling – A Celebration In Three Acts

Act One: The official ceremony

The official ceremony on 14 September welcomed 100 national and international guests to Mödling. In addition to interesting speeches emphasising the economic significance of the company for the district and for Koenig & Bauer - both in the past and in the future - the guests were given a tour of the press production facilities at the site.

In his speech, Dr Andreas Pleßke praised the innovative strength that has always emanated from the Austrian facility.

Act Three: Open Day

The culmination of the anniversary celebrations was the Open Day on 16 September. More than 1,200 visitors were welcomed. A diverse audience of business partners, local residents and printing enthusiasts were given an insight into the assembly of a security press and the processes involved at various stations. There was also a varied supporting programme – from face painting for children to a photo box, there was something for everyone.

125 Years Radebeul – A Double Anniversary

Radebeul celebrated two anniversaries: Founded in 1898 as a factory for high-speed presses in Dresden, it was fully integrated into Koenig & Bauer AG 25 years ago. So there was a big and a small celebration. Michael Kretschmer, Prime Minister of Saxony, visited the plant on 23 August. He found out about the latest developments and current challenges in press engineering.

Ralf Sammeck and Günter Drossel, Managing Director of Koenig & Bauer Industrial, looked back at key moments in the company's history. They recalled the early years, but focused on the company's development since 1989: the purchase of an American company as the first East German enterprise to do so, the transfer of Rapida presses from Würzburg to Radebeul, the first joint drupa, the Elbe flood of 2002, the first digitalisation customer event, developments in postpress with the integration of Iberica and Duran, the new Customer Experience Centre and, of course, new sheetfed offset technology.

After this official part, all the event, food and drink stations were opened on the factory premises. As befits a global company, there were stands offering culinary delights from all over the world – from Saxon to Korean, from American to Czech. A colourful stage show and a variety of activities ensured that there was something for everyone to enjoy and spend an enjoyable evening together.