The 110ppm sheetfed device is the first digital press bought by the Wednesbury, West Midlands company, which intends to use it for short-run carton work.

The press, launched in September 2014, runs at a maximum monthly volume of 1m A4 pages, with a resolution of 1,200x4,800dpi and can take substrates of 52-400gsm thick

Joint managing director Giles Foden, who along with Peter Thomas took reigns of the company in an MBO in May 2014 said: “We bought the Ricoh C9100 for several reasons, it’s sheetfed and allows us to offer short-run fast-turnaround carton, sleeve, personalised and promotional work and hence gives us massive flexibility and cost advantages.

“We’re seeing more and more people doing fast-turnaround work. It’s the way it’s going to go. There’s always going to be a place for sheetfed litho but digital presses have come a long way.

“We’re not looking to migrate lots of work from our B1 press. Depending on the job, there is a point of quantity versus price where B1 litho becomes the better option dependent on factors such as carton size, substrate, run length and numbers of designs needed.

He said the company was getting a lot of interest from blue-chip clients looking to test the water.

He added: “The digital offering has to be clear: it isn't about offering a better price per 1,000 but more about bigger picture cost advantages.

For example, customers can order more smartly, reducing their inventory which frees up space and cash and reduces the risk of getting caught with redundant stock.

“Shorter lead times mean they can also react to spikes in usage and promotions and therefore order to demand rather than to stock.

“SMEs can test the market without huge volume commitments just to chase a low unit price whilst blue chips can test new trends and run promotions quickly in fast-moving markets.”

Foden said the business, which has 29 staff, will also use the Ricoh for commercial printing, as part of being a one-stop shop for clients.

“We’re not going out of our way to do commercial printing but it’s an added bonus for clients,” he said.

Over the course of 2015 the company looked at Xerox, Konica Minolta and Xeikon machines, before settling for the 9100 from Ricoh partner Apogee Corporation. Foden said the Apogee back-up and training was a factor in the decision, and he also liked having a direct channel open to Ricoh as well.

“Out of all of them the Xerox iGen half ticked another box for us but if you look at the cost – double - it wasn’t giving us twice as much as the Ricoh for our particular short- to medium-term applications and therefore it didn't justify the extra,” he said. 

The £3m-turnover company moved to a new factory in February 2014.