Tompkin Press bought a Kasfold Sprint 3000 booklet maker with on-line trimmer and a Rolapress sheet and book flattener after it saw its short run booklet orders grow following the installation of a Kodak NexPress 2100 digital press.

This enabled the company to offer booklets with variable print.

The Kasfold Sprint 3000 was bought through Ashgate Automation in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire for just over £10,000, along with the Rolapress at an added £349.

Tompkin previously finished much of this work in-house but was increasingly outsourcing booklet finishing after the rise in short-run orders.

Managing director, Richard Tompkin, said: "We wanted more control of the jobs that we outsourced. Turnaround times were between 24 and 48 hours but by investing in our own booklet maker we could finish very urgent booklets in a day."

Tompkin said he had clear requirements. "We wanted a very simple machine that could staple, fold and trim sheets printed on the Kodak Nexpress," he said. "We didn’t need and we didn’t want to pay for all the bells and whistles that were available on some other bookletmakers.

"Our belief was that the less electronics it had the less likely it was to go wrong."

The Kasfold Sprint finishes up to 1,500 digital and litho-produced booklets per hour, at A4, A6 and A5 sizes.

Tompkin added that since the install last month, the machine had "hit the ground running" and he expected for it to pay for itself within a year.

He said he was also impressed with the "professional sharp fold" produced by the Rolapress on up to 10 booklets at a time and also on heavy products individually.

John Price, managing director at Ashgate Automaton said: "In the digital market people do like automation and push-button technology but there is also a market for budget machines."