The A4/C5/C4 machine was installed late last year as part of the print management department's business development programme, which aims to enhance the in-house provision of digital document production.

Operations manager Martin Race said: "We planned to introduce a 'one-stop shop' for all our customers’ requirements, which made mailing and fulfillment a priority.

"We wanted to offer this added-value service at the production stage, so that we could take a whole job from repro to print, finishing and despatch, saving our customers turnaround time and the need to send work to more than one place."

The council has a city centre mailroom, which handles day-to-day post; however, it required a more "robust" folding and inserting machine for larger-volume mailings with a wide range of inserts, including booklets.

The Mailmaster C4 Compact is a production folding and inserting machine that can handle envelopes from DL to C4 size. The machine envelopes at speeds up to 5,000 an hour, inserting documentation up to 12mm thick into C4 envelopes.