The Midlands company, which invested the £500,000 on new kit and a purpose-built premises back in 2008, recently completed the second phase of its development programme.

Managing director Amanda Strong said the three machines went in during October and would make her business in Little Eaton, Derbyshire, more efficient, more profitable and more competitive.

An automated B2 Foliant laminator would increase the company’s capacity for in-house laminating, working at a speed of nearly 24,000 A4 sheets per hour, she said.

The Foliant was followed by a Pitney Bowes inkjet addressing system and Mailcrafter envelope inserter.

While the company had always offered personalisation, previously mailing had been outsourced and as a result the mailing kit spend has enabled Mercia to offer a full in-house printing and mailing service.

Earlier this year the also overhauled its platemaking operation, replacing its old Fuji line with an Agfa Avalon N4 thermal platesetter running Azura TS plates.

“This speeds the process while the thermal imaging gives an enhanced higher-definition finish. In terms of colour and preciseness it's comparing a conventional TV with the latest HD version," said Strong.

Mercia Image Print also recently swapped its Xerox web-to-print system for a cloud-based alternative from ROI360.

Sales at the 22-staff company, which runs a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52, five-colour B2 Mitsubishi Diamond and Xerox J75 digital press, have already risen by 10% to £1.4m this year.

Strong added: “We are already on target to hit budget increases of nearly 20%, so we expect this [combined] investment to really put the icing on the cake.”

Over the past year staff levels had increased by 20%, with one of Mercia's recently appointed apprentices being named runner up in a recent Chamber of Commerce Young Business Person of the Year award.