The machine is currently being installed at the Preston, Lancashire-based firm’s 1,115sqm premises and will be up and running in the next couple of weeks. It has replaced an older NexPress 2500, which has been part exchanged, and joins two Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 litho presses.

B&D Print Services marketing director John Fry said: “About this time last year, we needed a new XL 75 because we had a tired 74. The question was, should we go out and get a new 75 to match the 75 we’d had from new about seven years ago?

“We weren’t really sure that spending £800,000 on a new 75 was a sensible thing to do when we looked at the split of our work. So we bought a secondhand 75 and then entered into negotiations with Kodak to get a new NexPress.”

He added: “With quite a lot of our work being digital, and going digital, the previous machine that we had just couldn’t cope. We’re on double shifts and we’re looking at going to treble shifts on it, so we’re training a new operator as well.

“The new NexPress processes and runs a lot quicker, and it’s got high-definition inks so images are a lot sharper. It gives us more flexibility and higher quality and the extended feeder means we can print six-page A4 folders on it.”

50-staff B&D Print Services, which serves customers in a wide variety of sectors, also considered alternatives from Fujifilm, Xerox and HP but found the Kodak machine to be the best fit for its requirements.