The machine was installed on 15 December at the company's Cheltenham premises, which mainly prints leaflets and business cards for clients across the country. It was supplied by Xerox reseller Zerographic Systems.

Managing director David Green said he considered a number of machines from other manufacturers but, having previously owned both a Xerox 700 and Xerox DocuColor 12, he had a good relationship with Xerox. 

“I looked at some samples and the image quality was brilliant, the colour consistency was great from one to 1,000 impressions," he said.

"We’ve had the DocuColor and the 700 but this was the next step up really, the reliability of the machine and the technology has moved on a lot so we needed something to keep up with image technology and quality.

“At the moment there are no faults with it at all. The quality is better and the speed. They’ve taken everything from the iGen and miniaturised it into the Versant presses.”

Green added that he likes how the machine deals with the issue of edge-to-edge fading, as it has an inline spectrophotometer for increased colour automation. It can also take a larger sheet size than previous machines and can duplex substrates up to 350gsm.

Launched in 2015 as a “strategic replacement” for the C75 and J75 models, the 80ppm Versant maintains speeds on all stocks up to 350gsm and delivers image quality of 2,400dpi. It can handle a variety of media types with a compact Belt Fuser system and Xerox’s low-melt (EA) dry ink.

Green said that with the investment it is likely that AJ Green will be able to take on a lot more work in 2017. The company also runs two Heidelberg GTOs and a Ryobi 3302, along with an Epson large-format machine.

Five-staff AJ Green was founded in 1975.