The two companies have reached an agreement that will enable printers to add coding and serialisation inline at high speed.

Atlantic Zeiser said that the digital line can keep up with offset speeds up to 240 m/min at a resolution of up to 600dpi.

KBA sheetfed offset head of marketing Jürgen Veil said: "We have designed the latest Rapida medium-format generation to offer our customers the maximum range of applications increasingly being demanded by the sheet offset printer market in recent years.

"A key point here is the integrated option to code and serialise sheet, label and packaging printing variably inline. This concept has already found considerable success in Asia and we have seen 20 orders for the new Rapida 105."

According to the two companies, hybrid solutions are "the future of print", but until now KBA has been unable to find a digital machine that can offer the quality and speed required to work with its presses.

Atlantic Zeiser head of business development Carl-Michael Heüveldop added: "We anticipated the market's need for individual coding and serialising of products with variable data early on.

"Market opportunities are underlined by developments within the EU to implement binding national regulations for standardised product and coding and serialising for product traceability of pharmaceutical goods by 2013; this is just one defined market sector."

The Rapida 105 will be featured at Drupa with the Delta 105i in place on KBA's stand.