The north London company recently moved to new premises in Colney Hatch Lane, Barnet, doubling its space.

Following the move, it invested in a Kasfold Sprint 3000 bookletmaker with fore-edge trimmer, replacing a Kasfold bookletmaker, and a KAS Creasematic semi-automated creaser.

According to Colin Rosen, managing director at PIP, the investment was made after the company won a contract to print and finish multiple booklets, all of which are different and range in run lengths from 25 to 50 copies on stock up to 300gsm

He said: "We have two Xerox digital printers, which produce booklets on line, but they are unable to trim. Our old Kasfold booklemaker can handle this type of work, but it didn’t have an on-line trimmer and was nearing the end of its working life. That meant that the booklets had to be guillotined, as a separate process, which on very short runs is time consuming."

PIP's KAS Sprint is aimed at short-run, quick turnaround jobs. The company sends out jobs of more than 10,000 copies to a trade finisher.

It has been designed to meet the requirements of the digital print market, while remaining "100% litho friendly", the manufacturer said. It can produce A4, A5 and A6 finished booklets at up to 1500 per hour.