"We had mixed feelings about business cards because there is always a risk something will go wrong," said director Neil Bridgland (pictured).

Time-consuming guillotine work, the number of cuts required and the fiddly nature of handling kit led to an "unacceptable level of returns", he added.

The firm's 6,000 140 cards per minute business card trimmer is used on runs of 250 cards and, according to Bridgland, it's at least twice as fast as manual production.

The CardXtra is fed by two Xerox DocuColor 6060s at the Wokingham firm.

"We have programmed four different card sizes and shapes and just press a button to move from one to another," said Bridgland.