The machine, which is the Warboys, Cambridgeshire-based company's second KAS machine, features inline addressing and barcode-matching capabilities.

Financial director Rachel Cox said that the company won a job that required a barcode to be printed on a client survey, with 200,000 sheets to be printed between January and September.

She explained: "This survey had to be inserted into an envelope with a personalised address label. Initially we started doing this job manually, visually matching the survey with the address label, which we stuck onto the envelope. We tended to do it in small batches to ensure quality control but it was a major task.

"As well as being laborious, we were finding it difficult to keep up with our other work. It was also a logistical problem because the extra casual staff we needed to do the job took up space on the bench."

Because of the Mailmaster investment it could automate all processes within the job, while also adding the capacity of a second machine.

Ciconi began trading in 1989 as Stork Postal Services, offering delivery and fulfillment. Today it employs 22 staff, and offers marketing and mailing-related services covering mass and targeted personalised mail, design, as well as digital print with two mono and two colour digital printers from Océ and Ricoh.