"Until now, no-one really has had anything in that market place," said KAS managing director Stephen Hampstead.

The 5,000iph Mailmaster Compact C4 is based on the firm's Mailmaster 465HS, and has similar functionality to its larger sibling.

The standard configuration comes with two automatic feeders, which can handle single sheets up to 7mm books, and a hand feeder. The line can also be specified with an additional automatic feeder.

An integral folder is built in to the first automatic feeder, which can produce a wide range of folds including Z-fold, wrap-fold and gate-fold, "whatever it takes to get the address in the window basically," said Hampstead.

The standalone line handles envelopes from DL though to C4, and  can insert up to 12mm into a C4 envelope. "One of the key benefits of the Compact is that it's so quick to changeover from DL to C4 and back again, which is a flaw on many machines," he said.

Other features include OMR and barcode reading and simple to use touch-screen controls. "The training time on it is very small, it is more about paper handling than on the machine itself," said Hampstead.

Pricing for the Compact will be unveiled at DPW at Earls Court, 18-20 October.

Story by Darryl Danielli