The printer's old equipment struggled to keep up with peak production periods when around 3,000 books could pass through the site during a small timescale.

Head of print design services Andrew Scott said: "We needed a workflow that was sufficiently fast to remove the bottleneck. After investing in a DI press, we wanted the finishing to be equally seamless."

GCU's 5000 consists of a 20-station vertical collator tower, which feeds a DBM-500 bookletmaker and trimmer. The machine runs at up to 5,000 finished books an hour.

The DuCreaser was bought to alleviate cracking. It has a fully automatic set-up, and runs at speeds up to 3,000sph. Maximum sheet input sizes are 320x650mm, with stock weights up to 350gsm.

The university handles a range of work, including prospectuses and marketing material.