Managing director Timothy Sell said: "I watched my staff struggling after a day’s work to lift great chunks of paper on to guillotine beds and folding machines and I thought there was an easier way to do this."

Sell spent around £14,000 on the Baumann BSH 2-450 pile hoist and BSB 2e jogger for his B2 and B3 print company in Newport on the Isle of Wight. Friedheim International supplied the machines.

"I like the solid build of the machines, didn’t look at anything else, and it proved worthwhile: it’s remarkable how the kit has speeded up the process of cutting and guillotining. I would say speeds are up 30%."

The new kit sits alongside a Perfecta TV guillotine in the finishing department of the business, which produces stationery, short-run brochures and catalogues. Other finishing kit includes an Autobond laminator, an eight-station collator with booklet-making unit and a small perfect binder.

Crossprint runs two Ryobi machines, a B2 five-colour 755, and a B3 five-colour 525, as well as a Ricoh 751 digital press. It makes £1.5m turnover from over 1,000 clients including local businesses and blue-chip companies in London. Sell said his company was the third in the UK to install the Ryobi 755, nine years ago.

"It has done over 100m impressions and still has the same rollers. It was a risky investment for us at the time, but it has paid off. Sadly while the recession drags on we won’t upgrade, but investment will happen," he added.