The press, which is based upon the C900 that was launched last year, comes specified with scanning functionality and will allow the university to digitally archive documents.

At present, the university's print room handles jobs including personalised prospectuses, invitations, flyers and, more recently, the institution's undergraduate degree certificates.

Staff at the university now hope that it will be able to take advantage of its new firepower to take on external work, such as local governments and councils.

Gary Ive, design and print operations manager at the University of Surrey, said: "Previously, this was carried out on our Kodak Nexpress 2100 and through outsourcing, but now this can be brought back in-house."

According to Ive, the university has enjoyed increasing success rates from its personalised prospectuses, which has involved printing more than 17,000 so far this year.

The machine, supplied through Ricoh company Infotec, runs XMPie software.

"There are few suppliers with the range of products or depth of knowledge to match Infotec, which made them the natural choice when we were looking for a new production-class colour device for our print room," said Ive.