The five-colour plus coater machine will arrive at the company's pupose-built Gateshead plant this September. It will join two existing Roland presses, an R305 and R202, as well as three small-format Heidelberg machines.

Bamborough, who also considered machines from Komori and Heidelberg, said he went for the Roland because of its "quality and the continual investment in technology". Its ColorPilot colour monitoring system was a particular attraction, he said. "They also offered us the best service package; we're used to dealing with Roland on the [two-year-old] 305," Bamborough added.

NW Printers, which was founded by Bamborough's grandfather in 1925, specialises in general commercial work but Bamborough said the new machine, which can take stock up to 1mm thick, might also present opportunities for the firm in the short-run packaging market.

With a top-speed of 18,000sph the Roland 500 is one of the fastest sheetfed machines in the world. That running speed coupled with its fully automatic plate-loading function and NW's recent investment in CTP, an Agfa Acento B2 thermal platesetter being installed at the moment, will considerably speed up makeready and throughput, said Bamborough.

The company, which has a turnover of 2m, has invested more than 1m in the new machine.

Story by Lauretta Roberts at Drupa