KennedySmith’s newest printing press has done something more interesting than simply print cartons faster.

According to the Scottish carton manufacturer and Koenig & Bauer, the new six-colour Rapida 106 with coating unit has enabled KennedySmith to produce the same output in three shifts instead of six.

Its energy bill in the first quarter of 2026 was also 26% lower than in the same period of 2025.

And there is another number that deserves just as much attention.

One new press has effectively replaced two older machines.

The first legacy press was removed during installation of the Rapida 106. The second became surplus only three months after the new machine entered production and was subsequently taken out of the operating equation.

For a folding-carton converter, that changes the investment story considerably.

This is not simply:

old press out, faster press in.

It is a case of using automation, faster makeready, logistics and inline inspection to change how much production time—and potentially how much equipment—a plant needs to manufacture the same volume.

That raises a bigger question for carton printers:

Should press productivity still be measured mainly in sheets per hour, or in saleable cartons produced per staffed shift?

KennedySmith’s results make the second measurement increasingly difficult to ignore.

Three Shifts Instead of Six Does Not Mean Half the Workforce

The headline number needs an important qualification.

Koenig & Bauer says KennedySmith now achieves the same production output in three shifts that previously required six.

That does not automatically mean:

• labor headcount has fallen 50%;
• labor cost has fallen 50%;
• total plant working hours have fallen 50%; or
• the Rapida 106 has literally doubled every measure of productivity.

Neither company has published enough information to support those conclusions.

We do not know from the announcement:

the exact length of each shift;

staffing per shift before and after installation;

annual sheet volume;

average job size;

press utilization;

number of makereadies;

or labor cost per thousand cartons.

So the defensible conclusion is narrower and more useful:

KennedySmith needs substantially fewer press shifts to produce its existing volume.

That alone is commercially important.

A shift is not just electricity consumed while the impression cylinders are turning.

It means operators.

Supervision.

Material handling.

Lighting.

Ancillary equipment.

Quality checks.

Potential overtime.

And, depending on the schedule, evening and night work.

Reducing the amount of scheduled production time required to fulfill the same order book changes the economics of the whole pressroom.

The 26% Energy Number Also Needs Careful Reading

The second headline figure is equally interesting—and equally easy to overstate.

KennedySmith reported that its energy bill fell by 26% in Q1 2026 compared with Q1 2025. Koenig & Bauer attributes the reduction to two factors:

fewer operating shifts;

and a more efficient dryer that recirculates heat more effectively.

But this is a reduction in the energy bill.

It is not necessarily a measured 26% reduction in:

electricity consumption;

gas consumption;

kilowatt-hours per printed sheet;

or energy consumed per finished carton.

Energy prices themselves can change between periods.

Production mix can change.

Job lengths can change.

Press utilization can change.

KennedySmith and Koenig & Bauer have not published normalized energy-consumption data that would allow us to isolate those effects.

So I would not write:

“The Rapida 106 uses 26% less energy per carton.”

There is no evidence for that statement.

What has been demonstrated is commercially significant enough:

KennedySmith spent 26% less on energy during the comparable first-quarter period while maintaining production with fewer shifts.

For a converter, that is still a real operating result.

The Bigger Efficiency Gain May Be Time, Not Electricity

Energy gets the percentage.

Time may be the more valuable resource KennedySmith has recovered.

If six production shifts are compressed into three, the other three do not simply disappear.

They become available manufacturing time.

KennedySmith could potentially use that time for:

additional customer orders;

shorter lead times;

maintenance;

unexpected production recovery;

more frequent short runs;

or future volume growth.

Exactly how the company will use that released capacity has not been disclosed.

So it would be wrong to say the installation has doubled KennedySmith’s annual production capacity.

But it has clearly created more schedule headroom than the previous press configuration required for the existing workload.

That can matter enormously in folding cartons.

A converter often does not lose an order because its theoretical annual tonnage capacity is too low.

It loses the order because:

the press schedule is full this week;

a customer needs delivery sooner;

another job is taking too long to make ready;

a short run cannot be fitted economically between longer jobs;

or a quality issue forces rework.

In that environment, spare production hours can be commercially more valuable than another headline increase in maximum press speed.

Short Runs Change What “Fast” Means

KennedySmith says greater flexibility and the ability to respond to fast-changing customer requirements were important reasons for selecting the Rapida 106.

Before investing, the company evaluated digital and flexographic technologies as well as sheetfed offset, carrying out printing trials before choosing the Koenig & Bauer platform.

That detail matters.

KennedySmith already operates in markets where order profiles can vary considerably.

Its customers include food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, drinks and other consumer-product sectors. The company also invested in a Xeikon digital press earlier in its development specifically to improve short-run capability.

So the Rapida investment should not be interpreted simply as a decision to chase maximum long-run offset volume.

The challenge is broader.

Modern carton plants increasingly have to handle:

more SKUs;

more artwork versions;

promotional variants;

shorter order quantities;

faster replenishment;

and tighter delivery windows.

When that happens, maximum rated speed becomes only one part of productivity.

The other part is what happens while the press is not producing saleable sheets.

Plate changing.

Wash-up.

Colour setting.

Register adjustment.

Material movement.

Quality approval.

Job changeover.

That is why KennedySmith specifically highlighted the Rapida 106’s makeready performance during trials in Germany. Managing Director Michiel Molenaar said the speed of job changes was one of the features that impressed the company.

For short and medium carton runs, reducing ten minutes between jobs can sometimes matter more than adding another thousand sheets per hour at peak running speed.

One New Press Made Another Press Surplus in Three Months

This may be the clearest indication of how substantial the productivity change has been.

KennedySmith originally replaced one older press when the Rapida 106 was installed.

The second legacy press was not initially scheduled to disappear at the same time.

According to Koenig & Bauer, however, it became surplus within three months because the new press was absorbing the required production.

That changes the capital-efficiency discussion.

Two presses require two maintenance programs.

Two sets of consumables.

Two machine footprints.

Two electrical systems.

Potentially more spare parts.

And, depending on production scheduling, more operators and material movement.

One highly productive press can potentially simplify that structure.

But there is also a trade-off that equipment suppliers rarely emphasize.

One Press Replacing Two Creates a New Risk

Efficiency and resilience do not always move in the same direction.

If more of KennedySmith’s lithographic production is now concentrated on one Rapida 106, the reliability of that asset becomes more important than before.

Two machines can provide a degree of production redundancy.

If one stops, some work may potentially be transferred to the other, depending on format, specification and scheduling.

When one machine replaces both, a major unplanned failure can have a larger impact on the production plan.

KennedySmith has not reported this as a problem.

There is no evidence that the Rapida has suffered unusual downtime.

And the company describes the platform as reliable.

But from an operations perspective, this is still worth considering.

Automation can remove excess equipment while simultaneously increasing dependency on the equipment that remains.

That puts more importance on:

preventive maintenance;

spare-parts availability;

remote diagnostics;

service response;

operator training;

and planned maintenance windows.

Interestingly, the reduction from six shifts to three can help here too.

More unused production time potentially gives the maintenance team greater flexibility to service the press without immediately disrupting customer deliveries.

That is one of the less visible benefits of higher productivity.

KennedySmith Is Also Trying to Reduce Its Dependence on Scarce Press Skills

Molenaar was unusually clear about another reason behind the investment.

He said KennedySmith wanted to “de-skill the production process” and reduce its reliance on individual operator experience because specialist printing skills are becoming harder to recruit.

The phrase can easily be misunderstood.

It does not mean skilled employees suddenly become unnecessary.

Running pharmaceutical and high-quality food carton production still requires process knowledge.

The change is where part of that knowledge resides.

Older printing systems can depend heavily on individual operators making manual adjustments based on experience.

More automated equipment transfers some repetitive decisions and controls into:

presetting;

closed-loop colour management;

automatic plate changes;

job data;

inspection systems;

and automated material logistics.

The objective is consistency.

If two operators with different experience levels can produce more similar results because the machine controls more variables automatically, the company becomes less vulnerable when one highly experienced person is unavailable.

That is a significant strategic issue for converters facing an aging skilled workforce.

Automation Does Not Eliminate Skill. It Changes the Skill Mix.

There is a wider lesson here.

Packaging plants sometimes describe automation almost entirely in terms of reducing headcount.

That misses part of what is happening.

Automation can reduce manual intervention while increasing the importance of people who understand:

workflow software;

colour management;

inspection systems;

production data;

maintenance;

automation troubleshooting;

and process optimization.

The job changes from repeatedly adjusting the press to managing a more automated production system.

KennedySmith’s pallet logistics illustrates the difference.

The company did not initially specify the logistics system.

After seeing one operating at another UK customer’s facility, it added the option because management saw the opportunity to reduce manual handling and use available labor more effectively.

That is not simply “machine replaces person.”

It is:

stop using skilled production time for tasks that can be automated.

For packaging companies struggling to recruit experienced operators, that distinction matters.

PDFCheck May Be More Valuable Than Extra Speed for Pharmaceutical Work

Another feature has become especially important after installation.

KennedySmith’s Rapida 106 includes inline PDFCheck, which compares every printed sheet with the approved stepped-up PDF.

Molenaar said the system has already detected tiny printing defects that would have been difficult to identify through conventional offline inspection. He highlighted its value particularly for pharmaceutical customers, where small-print patient information is critical.

For pharmaceutical carton production, this changes the economics of inspection.

A printing defect is not simply cosmetic.

Missing or incorrect small text can create a much more serious quality problem than a minor visual imperfection on general consumer packaging.

That makes inspection speed and detection capability part of productivity.

A press that runs quickly but produces a batch that later has to be rejected has not been productive.

The useful metric is good output, not gross output.

This is another reason carton manufacturers should be careful with sheets-per-hour comparisons.

A pressroom ultimately sells conforming cartons.

Everything printed but later rejected is cost.

But PDF Inspection Is Not a Guarantee of Compliance

Here again, the claim needs boundaries.

Inline PDF comparison can detect deviations between the approved digital artwork and the printed sheet.

It cannot automatically guarantee that:

the original artwork was legally correct;

all pharmaceutical information was approved properly;

the correct board was loaded;

every downstream die-cutting or gluing operation is correct;

or every regulatory requirement has been met.

It is one quality-control layer inside a larger system.

That distinction matters because KennedySmith serves pharmaceutical customers and has built its operation around sector-specific quality requirements. The company cites PS9000, BRCGS packaging, ISO and other certifications as part of its pharmaceutical packaging framework.

The value of PDFCheck is therefore not that it replaces quality assurance.

It makes one critical part of quality assurance faster and more systematic.

Waste Reduction May Matter as Much as Energy

KennedySmith also reports significant reductions in waste since installing the press.

No percentage has been published.

So we cannot quantify the improvement.

But the mechanism is understandable.

Faster makeready can reduce the number of sheets consumed before colour and register reach specification.

Inline inspection can identify defects while the job is running rather than after large quantities have already been produced.

Automated plate changing can reduce setup variability.

More stable process control can reduce rework.

For a carton converter, board waste has a double cost.

First, the converter paid for the substrate.

Then it spent press time, ink, coating, energy and labor processing material that may never become a saleable carton.

That is why automation investments should increasingly be evaluated against material yield as well as labor and energy.

A one-percentage-point improvement in usable output can become substantial when multiplied across millions of sheets.

KennedySmith has not provided the data required to calculate that saving.

But it is another KPI I would want to see in the next performance update.

The Energy Saving Is Really Part of a Larger Productivity Equation

This is why focusing solely on the 26% energy-bill reduction understates the investment.

KennedySmith appears to be improving several cost lines simultaneously:

less scheduled press time for the same output;

more efficient drying;

less manual material handling;

faster changeovers;

lower reported waste;

and more automated inspection.

These benefits interact.

Shorter makeready means fewer waste sheets.

Fewer waste sheets mean less board purchased for non-saleable output.

Fewer production shifts mean less operating time.

Less operating time reduces some energy consumption.

Inline inspection can prevent defects from continuing through a long run.

Pallet logistics reduces interruptions around the press.

The economic value therefore does not come from one spectacular technology.

It comes from removing small losses throughout the workflow.

That is often what mature automation looks like.

This Is Also a Capex Lesson for Carton Converters

KennedySmith previously invested £2 million between 2018 and 2024 to expand capacity, including another lithographic press, two Bobst die-cutters and a folder-gluer. It later added digital capability, automation and additional prepress capacity before installing the Rapida 106 in 2025.

That history makes the latest step interesting.

The company did not move directly from an old manual plant into one automated machine.

It has been building automation across the production chain incrementally.

And the Rapida eventually made one existing press redundant earlier than expected.

For other converters, that raises a useful capital-allocation question.

When demand grows, the obvious response is often:

buy another machine.

But if existing presses spend too much time on makeready, inspection, manual logistics and changeovers, the better investment may sometimes be:

buy a more productive process and remove machines rather than add them.

That does not apply to every plant.

It depends on order mix, utilization, formats, redundancy requirements and downstream capacity.

But KennedySmith provides a useful example of why equipment count is a poor proxy for manufacturing capability.

There Is One Number I Would Ask KennedySmith for Next

It would not be maximum press speed.

It would be:

saleable sheets per staffed production hour.

That number would connect much of this story.

If the same annual order volume now requires half as many shifts, while waste is lower and quality inspection is more automated, then saleable output per staffed hour should have improved materially.

But KennedySmith has not published that KPI.

Likewise, useful future data would include:

energy consumed per 1,000 saleable sheets;

makeready sheets per job;

average changeover time;

waste percentage;

unplanned downtime;

number of operators required per shift;

and first-pass quality yield.

Those figures would allow other carton converters to distinguish between impressive supplier claims and genuinely transferable manufacturing economics.

The Next Automation Battle Is Not About Maximum Speed

The folding-carton market increasingly serves customers who want contradictory things.

Smaller batches.

More SKUs.

Faster delivery.

Higher print quality.

Lower prices.

Less waste.

Better environmental performance.

And, in pharmaceutical packaging, very high levels of quality control.

The traditional answer was to install faster equipment.

The KennedySmith case suggests the next answer is different.

The valuable press is not simply the one that reaches its maximum rated speed.

It is the one that spends the greatest share of its scheduled time producing correct, saleable work.

KennedySmith’s Rapida 106 reportedly turned six shifts into three.

It reduced the Q1 energy bill by 26%.

It replaced two legacy presses.

It reduced manual handling.

And it added inline inspection capable of checking every printed sheet against the approved PDF.

We still do not know the investment cost, payback period, normalized energy use or exact waste reduction.

Those numbers would be necessary before declaring the project an economic benchmark for the entire folding-carton sector.

But the direction is clear.

Carton printing productivity is shifting from “How fast does the press run?” to “How little time, labor, material and intervention does it take to produce one acceptable order?”

That is a much tougher metric.

It is also the one that matters to the balance sheet.

For folding-carton converters considering their next press investment, the question should therefore not begin with maximum sheets per hour.

Ask instead: how many press shifts, makeready sheets and operator hours will this machine remove from the same annual order book—and what happens to my production if that one highly automated press stops?

Last Updated on 10/09/2026 by Jota Machinery