The Woking-based business, which specialises in high quality litho and variable personalised digital print and mailing, took delivery of the machine at the end of November.

It also runs a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 and a five-colour XL 75 on the litho side, as well as two Heidelberg Versafire digital colour presses.

Managing director John Heywood said: “We had a similar machine, but we needed something more reliable, user friendly, versatile, and faster.

“The Horizon SPF-200L was recommended by a trusted individual who works for another equipment company. We did look at other systems but we liked this one because it proved to be the best on test with the easiest setup. We particularly liked the fact it was simple to use and produced good quality results.”

He added: “We expect to see improvements in speeds, quality, and reliability. We will be capable of handling more job types, too, while also improving throughput and turnaround times.

“Hopefully it will help with some new jobs that we couldn’t handle before but, on the whole, we expect it to just deliver an all-round improvement. We expect return on investment in three years.”

Heywood said the business found dealing with IFS to be “positive and encouraging”.

“The team was also very responsive, helpful, understanding as well as very straightforward to deal with.”

The 4,500bph Horizon SPF-200L landscape feed bookletmaker combines stitching and folding with the ability to handle sheets up to 640mm in length.

JDF-ready, it offers instant setups via a large icon-based colour touchscreen for user-friendly operation. The screen can be used for on-the-run fine tune adjustments as well as the storage and recall of up to 200 jobs.

The list price for Optichrome’s configuration (SPF-200L+FC-200L+HOF-400+AC-400+CF-400) is £80,950.

Established in 1963, Optichrome employs 48 staff and has a turnover of £5.5m.