The KH 82 is the latest investment for the 30-staff firm, which has seen its turnover grow from £1.6m in 2005 to now close to £4m. It installed a B1 Heidelberg Speedmaster press with Prinect Image Control colour measurement and management system last year.

"We’re running 13,000-15,000sph on virtually all of our litho work on our B1 press compared to 8,000-10,000sph previously," said managing director Duarte Goncalves. 

"That created a little bit of a bottleneck in the finishing area and we needed something more efficient than our two existing folders. A job that took two to three hours to set up on the old MBO machine takes 20 minutes on the Stahlfolder."

The folder, which has been installed this week and cost around £200,000, is the firm’s first from Heidelberg. Having previously always used MBO folders, the company looked at the new MBO models while researching the market, but decided the KH 82 was a better fit.

The firm has sold on the older of its two MBO folders and kept the more recent model to run alongside the KH 82. 

It will run the KH 82 on its 1,022sqm premises 24 hours a day, five or six days a week. The firm says it is about 50% more efficient than the 10-year-old MBO folder it replaces.

DXG Media’s main customers include end-user marketing departments for blue-chip companies and clients in the advertising and marketing industries.

"We’re always looking for new work and looking to grow. The only way to compete now is to basically be as efficient as you can possibly be. The folder opens up so many more opportunities in the sort of work that we can go for," said Goncalves

The firm first moved into digital printing around four years ago and is now doing 20% more digital work than it was last year with the service continuing to grow steadily.

"Digital is getting better; I think how inkjet evolves could dictate the future," said Goncalves. "But I firmly believe that litho is still where it’s at quality and efficiency wise."