The first press of this type has already been installed and tested at Kettering-based Sterling Press, an established user of Heidelberg long-perfectors. Director John Pizzey said: "It’s a bit of a coup to have the first press like this worldwide. To have it in the UK is fantastic."

The company already has two ten-colour XL 105 perfectors among its press battery. These presses have a top speed of 15,000sph so the new, faster model represents a 20% increase in throughput.

The XL105-P has a new delivery, perfecting device and sheet guide to cope with the speed hike, and Sterling tested the machine extensively before purchase. It has opted for another 10-colour with CutStar reel sheeter, but with the addition of a fully-automatic non-stop delivery so the delivery pile can be changed without stopping the press or reducing printing speed.

"We tested short-grain versus long-grain because most of our work is short-grain through the CutStar, so performance on that was very important," Pizzey explained.

"We are running flat out and nearly every job is running at 18,000sph. Even with jobs on trickier stocks that would have run at 12,000sph on the older presses, we are able to run at 16,000-17,000sph on the new perfector."

The £18.6m turnover, 200 staff company has doubled in size in five years, and the new XL105 is likely to represent substantial additional capacity as the firm does not currently plan to retire any of its older presses as a result of the investment.

The new XL 105-P will be among the presses on show as part of Heidelberg’s Drupa exhibit next year.