The four-colour plus coater B3 Anicolor arrived in September along with a Wohlenberg 92 high-speed cutter from Friedheim International and a Morgana Digifold.
Production began two weeks’ ago following installation and staff training on the new machines. The company brought on five new employees to staff the new department, including two bindery operators.
Chief executive Geoff Neal said that orders into the new department were building up steadily.
He said: "Nobody is going to give us a load of orders because the point is for customers to give us an order and we print it tomorrow and get it out the next day. People will send us a few jobs first and see what they get back."
He said the Anicolor was running "most of the day" but it was also running work that could be produced on the bigger B1 presses to keep up its capacity.
Neal is in talks with a sales and marketing specialist to join the company by the end of the year. He will promote the new department to businesses within a 10-mile radius of the Feltham, Middlesex factory and encourage existing customers to use the service.
He aims to exploit the short run market for 500+ runs where click counts render digital printing uncompetitive.
Geoff Neal Litho, which was awarded PrintWeek’s Direct Mail Printer of the Year for the sixth time in seven years, also has the desirable ISO and FSC certifications that other short run printers may not be able to offer, Neal claimed.
He hopes to bring in an extra £1m revenue stream from the new department to add to the current £10.5m turnover by the end of 2013.
