The Varioprint replaces a previous digital printer, which Capricorn managing director Moneeb Tahir said had “let the company down” on service.

Tahir said: “We bought one Canon last year and we are pretty happy with the machine quality and reliability. The important thing for us is the back-up. Obviously with these machines if there isn’t a good back-up you are in trouble, hence the reason we have moved away from our previous machine, because they just couldn’t get their act together on the production side.”

The new machines were purchased at Drupa and will be installed next week. The Varioprint prints in black and white and takes paper weight from 80 to 300gsm, printing both coated and uncoated stock. It can print at up to 138 A4 impressions per minute duplex. 

Tahir added: "The quality level is high compared to other machines and consistency of print is very good throughout the run.” 

Tahir said: “With past experience, having just one machine didn’t really work if something went wrong. If urgent work is built up then you are in trouble, so we decided we needed to have at least two machines." 

Tahir said the new back-up provided by the purchase of the machines should mean a boost in production, and that Capricorn is considering taking on two more staff in the very near future. 

“The purchase means that it will simply give us the confidence to take on work which we currently don’t take on, ultra-fast work. We weren’t able to serve our clients on this type of work before but now this will give us a platform to do so.”

Established around 20 years ago, Capricorn is an all-digital printer that mainly produces short-run B2B work for small and medium-sized businesses. It stopped doing litho about five years ago but still outsources some litho work to a local south London printer.

Capricorn turns over £500,000, but is projected to reach £650,000 by the end of the financial year. It does all finishing in-house, and has recently started doing foiling work.