The company unveiled a 12-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 with CutStar in front of Leicester mayor Peter Soulsby, shadow minister for care and older people and Labour Parliamentary candidate for Leicester West Liz Kendall, and Northampton Saints rugby player Phil Dowson, who is also the managing director of Nth Degree Imaging.
Taylor Bloxham's directors and shopfloor staff also attended the event.
The 15,000sph press, which was bought from Buckinghamshire-based reseller Printing and Graphic Machinery, will give the company a 40% increase in productivity over its older 12-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 102.
It was delivered in February following months of press hall floor preparation and strengthening work and was commissioned during March and April.
Chief executive Chris Bowen said: “The installation of this press marks another milestone in our group-wide strategy and is focused on ensuring that we stay at the forefront of supplying our customers with high-quality, cost-effective solutions.
“It also gives us a 30% increase in capacity, which we need because we've been operating 24/7 over the past few months,” said Bowen.
“Where we were previously weak was in low-run multi-section brochure work due to the makeready times that we got on our presses. This press has simultaneous plate changing and very fast makeready so that makes us far more competitive in that market.”
Taylor Bloxham Group has 195 employees and a turnover of nearly £25m between its three operations: commercial print arm Taylor Bloxham, digital print, direct mail and fulfilment arm FastAnt and specialist POS arm Instore.
The group has around 8,450sqm of space between its three operations and serves customers in the automotive, retail, home interior and fashion industries as well as design agencies.
Ten new staff have been taken on across the group over the past few months to help operate the new press as well as work in other areas of the business. Staff that will operate the XL 105 have been trained in stages over the course of the last month.
Bowen would not reveal the cost of the XL 105 but said the group as a whole has invested more than £4m in new machinery over the past few years.
Prior to the arrival of the XL 105, the group bought a new highly specified Muller Martini Bravo stitching device, which replaced two older and less productive models that the business sold on.
New waste disposal systems and ink tanks were also installed to reduce costs and minimise overall wastage.
The group's next planned investment will be in new mailing equipment and a camera recognition system for its FastAnt arm.
The group also operates five other Heidelberg litho presses plus an HP Indigo 5000 digital five-colour printer and an HP Scitex FB7600 digital wide-format press, which it recently upgraded to add a multi-functional varnish system.
Its in-house finishing services include perfect binding, PUR binding, stitching, die-cutting and laminating.
Taylor Bloxham recently printed the orders of service for the historic reburial of Richard III’s remains.
