The multi-million pound installation, which will take place this summer, follows Anton’s investment in six Prosper S5s and two NexPress 3900s in October 2011.

The S5 printheads will be integrated with Anton’s new Heidelberg XL 106 10-colour perfector, allowing the group to print high-quality litho and variable data in one run.

Anton manufacturing director Gary Knight said: "We’re mounting two rows of four printheads on a custom bar on top of the reel of the Cutstar sheeter.

"This will enable us to print full-page variable letters at up to 18,000 B1 sheets an hour and with the S5 you’re hard pushed to see the difference between the variable black text and the pre-printed black text."

Anton chief executive John Knight added that his company was excited to be expanding hybrid printing.

"It is game-changing – waste savings are 20% on any one job. Speeds to market are mammoth – it cuts out all other processes," he said.

In addition to time and labour savings, Gary Knight said that printing the litho and variable inline also eliminated waste, as clients often don’t know how big a final mailing list will be when they order the pre-printed letter stock.

"They might order 150,000 letters when they send the file for the pre-printed element, then, when the list comes through with the variable data, it’s only got 120,000 names on it," he said.

"Because we can now print the whole job inline in the same timeframe we can save material waste by having the client give us the data at the same time as the rest of the job."

Meanwhile, Anton’s new NexPresses will include a fifth imaging unit and the latest neon, metallic and pearlescent inks, and will replace an older 2100 Plus and a 2500 Total.

After they are installed Anton will have eight NexPresses in total, including four 3900s. Gary Knight said that the next stage would be to add the same S5 configuration to the firm’s second XL 106 – a 12-colour due to be installed in December.