The Macclesfield-based manufacturer has added the £80,000 machine to an already vast range of embossers, which currently includes a Datacard 9000 and Datacard 7000.

PCS's MX2000 will add 1,200 cards per hour of capacity and provide smart card personalisation, magnetic stripe encoding and inline topcoat application, as well as embossing.

Managing director Rob Nicholls said: "We have spent over £2 million in the past three years on new technology, as part of our commitment to investing in our card manufacturing process.

"The new Datacard system will enable us to continue to provide a fast and efficient service to our customers and increase our growth capacity."

Meanwhile, it has also celebrated five years working with the union USDAW.

PCS provides USDAW with plastic membership cards. The union, one of the UK's fastest growing, has 413,000 members and is currently recruiting around 1,500 additional members a week.

USDAW head of communications Mike Glover said: "We have been mailing cards to members for around 20 years, and used to supply pre-printed cards to a mailing house for embossing and distribution.

"However, there were intermittent issues over supplies and deadlines and we generally weren’t getting the high quality of service we expect. As a result we looked for a card manufacturer that could complete the whole process for us in-house, from designing and printing the cards, to producing the mail-outs in-house.

"PCS continues to impress us with its high-level of proactive customer service, and what’s more, it delivers excellent quality cards that are competitively priced."