The Nottingham firm made the buy, which replaces a Heidelberg MO press, to complement its brace of HP Indigo 5000 machines and provide a more cost-effective long-run offering.

Century Studios sales manager Jonathan Waring said the DI’s automated makeready, where all four plates are simultaneously imaged on press, gave the speed of turnaround that customers expected.

The 12-staff company has been carrying out a variety of long-run jobs, such as greetings cards on the DI press, which are then personalised on one of its Indigo presses.

"The DI press has an IR drier, so we can move the jobs across for overprinting very quickly,” added Waring.

He told printweek.com: "We've been able to maximise the work for existing clients by taking on jobs that we couldn't previously.

"We're no longer constrained by doing only two jobs a day on our existing Heidelberg MO, which was a bit antiquated. Instead we're now putting through up to eight, while makeready has been cut from three hours down to just 15 minutes."