The last of three Océ presses, which together with service contracts were installed in a deal worth £9m over the first three years alone, went into live print production this month.

Fujitsu, a material sub-contractor to Capgemini in the Aspire Partnership, provides IT services to HMRC and prints 500m A4 images a year on its behalf.

The new presses enable the company to avoid the need to source pre-printed documents, which take up to six weeks to arrive, and allow each document to be personalised.

Fujitsu is also using Océ Prisma, which enables it to take its existing artwork into its new data-stream without making any changes.

The company has installed extra OCR cameras on the Océ JetStream production printing systems that read special, pre-composed code lines that ensure the integrity of each printed page.

Fujitsu production manager Darryl Hyde said the investment had been driven by the need to simplify the supply chain and cut the amount of pre-printed stationery.

"HMRC was looking to move to full colour documents and to reduce waste. Removing the pre-printed stationery process, which was inflexible with long lead times, means that HMRC does not have to work so far in advance," he said.

"Previously, HMRC was having to forecast how many documents it planned to send out and if this number changed it could lead to documents being printed unnecessarily or panic buying.

"The key impact these machines are having is ensuring that printed communications are reaching the person they are sent to in a more efficient way."