The 25-staff company, established more than 100 years ago, produces personalised and branded Christmas and wedding cards and social stationery.

Collisons sought a digital printing device that could match the quality of litho print but improve consistency over a print run, to add to its existing Xerox Colour 1000 press.

Manager Mike Lammas also looked at rival kit from Kodak and Ricoh.

“We went for the iGen because its running costs were more competitive and the quality of work stood out,” he said. “It's a new addition to our existing line-up.”

Collisons' greetings cards required the printing of a mix of images and heavy text, and the iGen 150 was able to support this through its object-oriented halftoning technology, he said.

This process rendered images at a 180-line screen for optimal smoothness to improve quality. The imaging system took set-up time, waste and guesswork out of the equation to speed up work.

“Our customers expect us to deliver products of a consistently high quality at a competitive price,” said Lammas.

“Installing the iGen 150 will enable us to meet these requirements, and as we continue to migrate more of our print runs from litho to digital we will also be able to increase efficiencies.”

This latest investment from Collisons follows that of other digital kit within the last year including an HP FB500 flatbed machine and a Latex 360 printer. Two weeks ago a DYSS X7 cutting table went into the base in Shipley, West Yorkshire.

Xerox UK general manager for graphic communications operations Mike Holyoake said: “The investment will enable Collisons to produce more jobs and reduce costs, without compromising on print quality.”