The seven-colour machine is due to arrive on site on Monday (11 February) and should be running live jobs by the end of the month.

It features a 1/6 double coat configuration with a reverse printing unit and, along with a 102CER box blanker and Kodak Magnus CTP, represents a €4m investment in the plant, part of Chesapeake’s pharmaceutical and healthcare division.

Prior to opting for the Komori machine, Chesapeake Limerick’s operations director, Morgan Fogarty, went to Japan to see the rare press in action.

He said: "On the day I was there they didn’t have any printers available. They had a couple of engineers set up the machine. They were able to do so and run it on 16,500 an hour. To see engineers do that, that’s really what won it for me."

The GLX 740RP uses an inverted print unit with cylinders at head height to allow it to print both sides without flipping the substrate like a traditional perfector.

"In the past you’d have to let it sit and dry on the floor now you never, ever have to do that, you can run the job all in one go," Fogarty said.

He said the machine has cameras inspecting the front and the back of the sheet which instantly flags up defects, leading to higher quality and a reduction in wastage.

The machine’s double coater will also enable the company to combine matt and gloss varnishes and metallic finishes and add its 3D Glint product, holographics and micro-embossing.

The investment follows the addition of a six-colour Komori GLX40 in the company’s Leicester plant in the middle of last year. Chesapeake has upgraded equipment at its Nottingham and Belfast operations over the past three years, as part of a £70m investment.

Steve Turner, director of sheetfed sales at Komori, said that the larger sheet size of the 1,050x750mm on the X version of the Lithrone 40 presses, adds the capacity to print a further row of cartons on each sheet, shortening the print run and using fewer materials.

"Packaging is one of the few markets, which does not seem to have been affected by the economic downturn over the past few years and we’ve been fortunate enough to secure a significant share of the continuing investment within this sector," he said.