"It was a natural progression from our Roland XC-540, which it will replace," said Group 101 managing director James Sahota.

"Roland do a lot of things really well, like loading the roll from the rear, the VersaWorks RIP and also reliability. For the next few years I won’t need to do anything, I don’t need to start thinking that in a year’s time I will need new heads or schedule some maintenance," said Sahota.

The eight-colour XR-640 has a maximum resolution of 1,440dpi. It can be configured CMYK plus Lc, Lm, Lb and white or metallic silver or CMYK plus Lc, Lm, and white and metallic silver.

"I haven’t finalised the ink configuration yet, I’m going to go away and think about what which way I want to move," said Sahota.

The 1,625mm-wide XR-640 was launched last September and has a list price of £20,999 plus £2,499 for the heaters. It’s capable of 21.6sqm/hr in "production mode".

Group 101’s machine was sold through Roland reseller Signmaster Systems and will be installed next week.

As well as the XR-640, the company bought a refurbished Agfa Anapurna M1600 roll-to-roll printer earlier this year as part of Sahota’s growth strategy for the Thurrock-based business.

The company was founded six-years ago in Sahota’s spare bedroom, when he was a graphic and industrial design teacher/lecturer. Today the business employs five staff and has sales of £500,000.

"We’re confident we can grow and one day I want to come to a show like Fespa and buy a machine like the HP Scitex FB10000, for me there’s no limit and I’m dreaming big."