The Washington, Tyne and Wear-based business invested in the press in August 2009 in a bid to expand its short-run capacity.

The certification completes a hat-trick of accreditations at the firm, which has also achieved IS0 9001 quality management and IS0 14001 environmental management standards.

According to Chris Murley, managing director at PBL, the ISO 12647-2 is a way of demonstrating quality checks to the company's customer base.

"This is a modern-day proof. It shows you have the right quality checks and your customer has peace of mind," he added.

The company also anticipates the certification will play a part in the tender process in the future, with print management businesses focusing more on colour consistency.

"With the Anicolor there isn’t any roller, dampening or ink setting to fiddle with so results tend to be very consistent. Certification is belt-and-braces security," added Murley.

Elsewhere, magazine printer Stephens & George, which is also ISO 12647-2 certified, has installed Prinect net profiler across its four Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 long perfectors.

The company, the first in the UK to trial the software, can now go online and remotely re-calibrate its presses, a process the company completes quarterly.

Andrew Jones, managing director at Stephens & George, said:  "All four presses are highly specified, including Inpress Control spectrophotometry on each, which automates colour and register control and allows us to attain top quality with minimal waste and minimal deviation throughout a print run and from run to run.

"Now all our customers and their clients, and especially the advertisers in the magazines we print, can have complete confidence in the reproduction of their work. We can even provide read-outs to show how accurate we are on colour quality."