KBA and Siemens ‘pioneering partnership’ on track for drupa reveal

Left to right: Christian Steinmaßl, Member of the Group Management of Koenig & Bauer, Dr. Stephen Kimmich, CEO of Koenig & Bauer, Michael Thomas, Senior Vice President Factory Automation at Siemens, and Christian Ziegenbalg, Chief Design Engineer at Koenig & Bauer.

A year into a multi-year roadmap – towards and beyond drupa 2028 – of the strategic collaboration between Koenig & Bauer and Siemens, the partner companies have reported strong progress in their quest ‘to translate complex machine functions into modular software components in order to shape next-generation, software-defined, machine architecture’.

Stephen Kimmich, CEO of Koenig & Bauer, says: “With our current product portfolio, our customers acquire installations that set the global benchmark for peak productivity and secure their competitiveness in the here and now. However, we also bear the entrepreneurial responsibility to think further ahead and this strategic partnership with Siemens is a logical continuation of KBA’s over-arching technology strategy. We are breaking through existing system boundaries and making platform-independent software structures usable for the printing industry. In doing so, we are translating our current hardware excellence into the operational agility of the next decade.”

Michael Thomas, Senior Vice President of Factory Automation at Siemens, adds: “Our collaboration with KBA is designed for a strategic, multi-year innovation path. In the demanding, high-end segment of mechanical engineering, modern IT tools and peak mechanical performance must mesh perfectly. This co-engineering allows us to thoroughly unlock the potential of our new control environment and, together with Koenig & Bauer, define tomorrow’s standard.”

The project is currently in the midst of an intensive, agile development phase. Rather than designing IT concepts in isolation at a desk, the teams from both companies are programming and evaluating the new architectures via close co-development directly on a Rapida 106 prototype. In this iterative process, they are developing step-by-step how essential core functions – such as absolute synchronicity in machine and sheet travel, washing programmes, or precise timing in the positioning programme – can be controlled in real time.

This approach to the further development of highly complex industrial installations for the global printing and packaging industry follows a clear logic: there is a demand for future-proof IT structures that fit seamlessly into modern factory ecosystems and offer maximum flexibility.

The central objective of the project is the phased implementation of an Advanced Machine Engineering concept, for which a high-level language-based platform SIMATIC AX is being used as the central development environment. With the help of object-oriented programming and SIMATIC AX, complex machine functions are transferred into modular, hardware-independent software objects. These standardised components form the basis for both series production and custom-built systems, enabling the development of a scalable software library.

Christian Ziegenbalg, Chief Design Engineer at Koenig & Bauer, explains: “The direct interplay of development and immediate verification on the machine serves the continuous, stable expansion of the software libraries. The technological added value of this new control level will be directly reflected in day-to-day production operations in the future. Deeper data integration will lay the foundation for seamless real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance. Parallel to this, the future use of digital twins will enable virtual commissioning long before the physical manufacturing of the machinery begins. Furthermore, the open architecture forms the backbone for future-proof lifecycle management, including pre-certified safety libraries, as well as the option to flexibly activate digital machine functions as ‘Features on Demand’ via remote access in the future.”

Koenig & Bauer and Siemens are on track to make the first concrete automation functions of this long-term development project tangible at drupa 2028.

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