The new guillotine joins another Perfecta 115, an SE model, installed last year.

It was signed for at Drupa and purchased from Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS), with installation taking place very soon after the trade show in the first week of June.

Its list price is £45,000, although Cliftons managing director Tim Clifton did not reveal how much the London-based company paid for it.

The purchase of the guillotine represents part of what is now an investment of more than £1m in the past two years on finishing equipment, including case-binding equipment, layflat binding equipment and a Horizon folder, also purchased from IFS. 

Clifton said: “We originally had a Polar 137 and a Polar 92 and we were finding we were having to chop and change across guillotines because on the 92 we were unable to cut a B1 sheet.

“So the first 115 replaced a 137 last August, on the basis that if it went okay, we would replace the 92 with another 115.”

Clifton said the Perfecta's cutting width of 1,150mm would help the company avoid bottlenecks. The Polar 92 has a cutting width of 920mm.

“We’ve increased production massively,” he added.

“Before, we were running two diiferent sized machines so we had to stop production on one machine to change over but now we have two machines of the same size, the flexibility of production and loading is great.”

Clifton also highlighted some improvements on the Premium Line, which was released for the first time at Drupa. 

It has a 450mm touchscreen, which he said is far more responsive than the manual display of the SE. It also has a perforated airbed and improved back gauge action.

Clifton said the next part of the investment will be in box-making equipment, which will probably be installed in early 2017.

The £1.5m-turnover outfit operates from a 650sqm premises and is looking to boost its turnover this year by 15 to 20%. It employs 18 staff.