The custom-made device, which was installed at the Aintree-based firm’s 6,689sqm premises in the past few months and signed off at the end of October, was bought from Sitma’s sole UK agent Engelmann & Buckham (E&B).

The SM10 has been designed with 25 stations and 23 feeders and can run at speeds of up to 12,000 envelopes per hour. It offers selective feeding through a combination of friction and rotary feeders.

The device will run alongside five Buhrs enclosing machines as well as Xerox mono and overprinting kit. The company also operates Buhrs polywrapping machines and a Sitma C80-750 polywrapper, which was installed earlier this year.

Mark Manville, managing director of Character Mailing, which has 45 staff and a turnover of just over £3m, said the machine has increased the company’s productivity by between 30% and 40%.

The device is already in constant use but the business plans to spend the next few months building up the speed of the machine to achieve full capacity at the start of 2017.

“We’re very busy at the moment so we didn’t have time for much testing after getting the machine installed; it went straight into production,” said Manville.

“But it’s gone really well for us and we intend to get to know the machine a bit better over the next few months.”

The business first heard about the SM10 at Ipex in 2014 and has been researching the various options available since, also looking at alternatives from Buhrs, CMC and Pitney Bowes.

“Our last investment of this type was over 15 years ago and the market has moved on quite a lot since then. We specialise in multi-item fill so we had to make sure we found and sourced the right bit of equipment. It took us two years on and off trying to come to the right decision,” said Manville.

“E&B knew exactly what we needed and kept coming back to us with solutions and options, they were very professional from day one. Our team received excellent training from Sitma and the continued support from the UK-based E&B engineers has been second to none.”