The group, which specialises in the production of point-of-sale print, has been running the new machine in full 24-hour production at its Heathrow facility for the last four weeks.

According to Mark Simpson, chairman of Simpson Group, the company analysed the digital wide-format market for two years before opting to invest in the FB7500.

He said: "When we first saw the model at Fespa several years ago, there were a few quality factors that were still not quite there but that has changed now.

"We looked at the costing against litho and digital and realised that a good 40%-50% of what we do would be more cost-effective to carry out on a machine such as the FB7500."

Simpson's new machine has arrived at an opportune time in the busy run-up to the Christmas period with the group already producing a range of retail campaigns on the flatbed.

Simpson said that the following 12 months will involve more litho and screen work transitioning to digital but was keen to point out that all three processes had their place within the group.

"Litho, screen and digital all carry out their individual functions and although we expect digital to grow, it wont' be a replacement technology," he added.