In July 2026, Koenig & Bauer and Siemens, had announced their strategic partnership in April 2025. Recently the companies have announced their forward-looking collaboration for developing sustainable machinery concepts.
Currently the project is said to be under an intensive, agile development phase. Rather than focusing on the IT concepts of the project, the teams from both the companies are programming and evaluating 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.
The approach to further develop the machinery and its installation for global printing and packaging industry has a clear logic: there is a demand for future-proof IT structures that fit seamlessly into modern factory ecosystems and offer maximum flexibility. At the same time, the global shortage of specialised automation experts requires new engineering approaches.
The partnership is also pushing ahead with a long-term strategic development project to create the foundations for future generations of printing presses. This successful step clearly demonstrates how a structured transition to a consistent, object-oriented IT infrastructure in high-performance mechanical engineering can be achieved.
For Koenig & Bauer, this cooperation is an essential component of a forward-looking corporate strategy. Stephen Kimmich, CEO of Koenig & Bauer, said, “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, as industry pioneers, we bear the entrepreneurial responsibility to think further ahead. The strategic partnership with Siemens is the logical continuation of our 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.”
On the Siemens side, the project is also viewed as a pioneering partnership. Michael Thomas, Senior Vice President of Factory Automation at Siemens, explained, “Our collaboration 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 central objective of the project is the phased implementation of the ‘Advanced Machine Engineering’ concept. The high-level language-based platform SIMATIC AX is being used as the central development environment.
Christian Ziegenbalg, chief design engineer at Koenig & Bauer, said, “In the course of this targeted modernisation, Koenig & Bauer is pursuing the clear goal of establishing a future-proof software structure using modern and standard-compliant programming languages. This forms the foundation for remaining competitive and high-performing in the coming decades. In doing so, we consistently orientate ourselves towards the proven flexibility in the sheetfed offset sector to be able to react agilely to market changes at any time.”
Object-oriented programming and SIMATIC AX help to transform complex machine functions into modular, hardware-independent software objects. Such standardized components help to form the basis for both series production and custom-built systems, allowing the development of a scalable software library.
“The joint project with Siemens is an intensive and demanding development journey. It underlines our commitment to driving technological innovation through strategic cooperations,” explained Christian Steinmaßl, member of the group management of Koenig & Bauer. The main aim of the partnership is clear. Their goal is to set benchmarks in their respective industries, strengthen their market position, and also guarantee customers with long-term maximum stability and uncompromising quality.
The direct interplay of development and immediate verification on the machine serves the continuous, stable expansion of the software libraries. The newly added technological advancements in the new control level will be directly reflected in day-to-day production operations in the future. The deeper data integration will help to form the basis for seamless real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance as well. Use of technologies such as digital twins in the future enables virtual commissioning long before the physical manufacturing of the actual machinery.
The open architecture acts a backbone of the future-proof lifecycle management, inclusive of 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.
31 July 2026
30 July 2026
30 July 2026
30 July 2026