The £150,000 machine will finish all book production work at the £1m-turnover company's Sherborne, Dorset facility.

A free-standing upright Horizon PJ-100 aerating jogger was also supplied along with the StitchLiner.

Remous, which handles litho and digital work on two Heidelberg Speedmaster 74s and a Xerox DocuColor, had already handled a large amount of short-run book and packaging work, but realised that its existing stitcher was "not up to the job".

Director Alan Bunter said: "We consistently reinvest to make sure we are at the forefront of technological improvements and assure our customers of the highest quality of work possible.

"We didn't think the StitchLiner would be industrial enough, but the makeready took just a few minutes when we were used to 35 to 40 minute set-ups.

"Our typical runs are between 5,000 and 10,000 and, when you are running a lot of short jobs, that set-up time can have a huge impact on the amount of work you produce on a daily basis."

Bunter recently took over the family-owned company from his father Graham, who founded it in 1980.

Remous works with a variety of national and local businesses and has produced work for high-profile events such as Wimbledon.