Clerical and Medical, part of HBOS, is using the kit for 200,000 mailings sent weekly from its South West document management service unit in Bristol.

"Few rivals could cater for our different types of envelopes and inserts and  the speed we needed," said Clerical and Medical team manager Simon Passco.

"We can do 6,000 C4 envelopes an hour with three sheets in each one. We needed to handle DL, C4 and C5 envelopes and gloss art paper.

"We also wanted a machine supplied and up and running in less than a fortnight, which was quite a tall order for any supplier. The Mailmaster 465 HS was running in a week."

The 100,000 machine was configured with three insert stations and a hand-feed option to feed in CDs. The kit also has a barcode reader because in the next year Passco's team will be mailing out cheques."

His document-management unit works beside an in-house digital print unit, also producing material for Halifax and Equitable Life.

Story by Jez Abbott