- Chief Executive Officer of Koenig & Bauer AG honoured for his outstanding merits for printing technology manufacturing
Frankfurt/Main, April 25, 2018 – Together with Andreas Bauer, Friedrich Koenig, the inventor of the steam driven cylinder printing machine and pioneer of modern newspaper printing, established Schnellpressenfabrik Koenig & Bauer in 1817. Two hundred years later, his great-great- great grandson Claus Bolza-Schünemann is at the helm of the company in the sixth generation. The General Assembly of the VDMA Printing and Paper Technology Association in Fürth on April 19 was the occasion for an exceptional meeting of ancestor and grandson: Claus Bolza-Schünemann was honoured with the Friedrich- Koenig Medal. Before him, only twelve laureates had received this medal offered for outstanding merits for printing technology manufacturing.
“This award is a great honour for me“, said Bolza-Schünemann immediately after the medal with the portrait of his great-great- great grandfather had been presented to him by Kai Büntemeyer, President of the VDMA Association. “This honour perfectly complements the 200-year anniversary of our company,” he added. Following his grandfather Hans Bolza in 1953 and his father Hans-Bernhard Bolza-Schünemann, he is already the third family member to be bestowed with the Friedrich-Koenig- Medal.
Outstanding merits for printing technology manufacturing
In his laudation for Claus Bolza-Schünemann, Büntemeyer enumerated his merits for printing technology manufacturing which include, inter alia, his function as President of the Research Association Printing Machines (FGD – Forschungsgesellschaft Druckmaschinen e.V.) since 2004, his position as a member of the Board of the VDMA Printing and Paper Technology Association since 2012 – and his “prominent role as President of the leading trade fair drupa“. And he went on to say that by taking over thesepositions, Bolza-Schünemann has assumed responsibility for the total printing technology manufacturing sector in addition to his task as CEO of Koenig & Bauer. Besides that, he as an engineer accompanied an impressive variety of innovations in printing technology that emerged in the Koenig & Bauer group: Since 2010 alone, the K15M screen printing machine for printing on glass, the MetalCoat 480 metal coating machine with reduced changeover times, the “Super Orlof Intaglio III“ intaglio banknote printing machine as well as the flexible digital printing platform “KBA RotaJET VL“ for industrial inkjet rotary printing with up to 2250 mm web width. At present, Bolza-Schünemann accompanies the development of the new “VariJET 106” sheet-fed digital printing machine for high-quality and economic personalization and individualization in packaging printing as well as the CorruJET for the flexible printing on corrugated cardboard. This machine impresses both with its printing performance of up to 6000 sheets per hour in the format 1700 x 1300 mm and the resolution of 1200 dpi.
A mediator between analog and digital printing worlds
Claus Bolza-Schünemann, who was born in Würzburg in 1956 and is now a father of four, first qualified as a radio and television technician and afterwards took a degree in electrical and digital technology. Already his first job as a project engineer of the Swiss company Brown Boveri & Cie. (later Asea Brown Boveri) led him to printing technology manufacturing. And he immediately took over the development of the hardware and software concepts for printing machines. Since 1989, he has contributed his know-how to the company in Würzburg, starting as head of the electrical planning and engineering division for web, sheetfed and security presses. Very soon he became a member of the Board of Koenig & Bauer, initially in charge of engineering, development and project management.
To this very day, Bolza-Schünemann has the distinction of being very open for digital technologies in printing technology manufacturing. For him, interlinked digital Print 4.0 workflows take centre stage – in digital and in analog printing processes. Under his leadership, Koenig & Bauer has excelled with the consistent convergence of the analog printing world and the digital printing world. Inkjet und web offset printing merge in the machines of the company – and make the heart of the technophile CEO beat faster: “Inkjet is a fantastic process. Our RotaJET fires off 5.4 billion ink droplets per second, with the size of every single droplet being exactly modulated,” he says.
“With this enthusiasm for modern printing technology Claus Bolza-Schünemann has guided Koenig & Bauer back to the road to success, fulfilling his position as drupa President and has supported the cooperation in our Association and the market success of the German printing technology sector,” says Dr. Markus Heering, Managing Director of the Printing and Paper Technology Association within the VDMA, emphasising that he more than deserves the Friedrich-Koenig Medal for these merits.
