The business, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, paid around £10,000 for the Duplo DBM 150 bookletmaker, installed last month to replace a much older machine.

Director Barry Kilshaw said: “It is fast and has a trimmer, which the older model didn't, so this machine saves time. It can also easily swap different sizes, such as from A4 and A6.

“We like the speed and ease of setup with the Duplo machine, and the inline trimmer reduces bottlenecks at the guillotine.

“This makes it so much easier on the shopfloor: now booklets come straight off the machine and into a box ready for despatch.”

The eight-staff company in Newton-le-Willows is targeting sales of more than £400,000 in 2018.

Last November, the Merseyside firm installed an GMP QTopic-380 laminator and foiler and in June last year it added a new Polar 78N Eco guillotine. In August 2016 Willow Printing & Design upgraded its digital line-up with a Xerox Versant 80.

Kilshaw's team in Newton-le-Willows produces conventional printed goods such as leaflets, pop-up banners and A1 posters, as well as t-shirts, mugs and aprons for clients in home-care sectors.

Willow Printing & Design also runs two Heidelberg GTO 52s, a Xerox 5500 and finishing kit from multi-towered collating machines to digital stitching and hole punching.