The Southampton-based company was prompted to make the move to digital due to increasingly short runs and more customers switching to web2print ordering on its Pageflex system.
The Linoprint C751 is billed by the manufacturer as an entry-level digital colour production model, and cost-effective for very short runs. It outputs up to 75 A4 pages per minute on media up to 300 gsm.
Hamble Valley Press, which runs a Speedmaster SM74-5, a SM52-4 and Quickmaster 46-2, looked at equipment from a number of other manufacturers before settling on Heidelberg, said managing director Martin Strong.
"Once calibrated, this machine will sit well with our existing sheetfed presses giving us confidence and flexibility," he said. "Whichever production route a job takes the end product will be comparable in quality."
The ability to be future-proof was another argument in favour of the Linoprint, Strong said.
The company currently uses Heidelberg's Signastation imposition software, part of the modular Printect Workflow system, as well as its Prinance MIS.
The business is also considering installing Prinect's Digital Print Manager to give the flexibility of a single workflow for both offset or digital output.
