The company said that despite ongoing investment in acquisitions and restructuring, the group's balance sheet remained strong and underlying free cash flow continued to be robust.

It added: "Whilst there is no sign of improvement from the difficult trading conditions across our print markets, our marketing services businesses are performing well, growing and combining to offer a unique and compelling customer proposition."

Share price dropped 8.5p during morning trading to 140.5p, at the time of writing.

According to Carr the division was primarily focussed on testing new products for internal quality control purposes, rather than a customer support function. He added that it made sense for the company, which last month rebranded its merchanting divisions as Paperlinx, to focus on investing in services that add customer value, such as the recently launched 'printers' webstores', rather those that just add costs.

"Originally it was a service that Robert Horne had for a long time for when different grades and qualities of papers could be dramatically different, with different characteristics from each mill. Quality and consistency has moved on dramatically in recent years and the mills have their own technical capability themselves now," said Carr.

He added that customer's technical questions would continue to be fielded by technical sales staff and, when needed, the mills themselves.

A consultation with the technical services department was launched in early May, with the decision to close the department finalised on 10 June. Six positions were made redundant as a result of the closure.

"I appreciate it's disappointing for the staff affected, especially those that have been with us for a long time, but the world is changing and the quality and consistency of the paper we sell has improved beyond all recognition in the past 20 years," said Carr.

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GT models have a standard table size of 1.25x2.5 metres, the XT printers 2.5x3.05 metres. Both formats can be can be configured with a role-to-roll option.

The 660 models also offer six independent ink channels which can be used to add additional cyan and magenta inks for enhanced quality at high production speeds, or to introduce varnish and white ink for decorative applications. White ink configurations include ‘Varnish + White' for printing white on non-white substrates, or ‘Double-Opacity White' to achieve strong opacity in a single printing pass. Océ Arizona 640 models will be field upgradable to six-channel 660 models.

Dominic Fahy, business group director of display graphics and imaging supplies at Canon UK, said that European and North American beta test users have so far been using the series for a wide range of applications.

"Retail is the biggest one. But we are also seeing it used for poster printing and, because of the quality, photographic applications," he said.

He added that potential users would range from those wanting to upgrade an existing Arizona or other lower productivity flatbed printer, to screen and litho printers new to the flatbed market.

Fahy reported that one Océ Arizona 600 Series model had so far been ordered by an unnamed digital retail printer in London. He said that, with the series becoming commercially available at the end of July, Canon was expecting several more on-stand orders at Fespa.

"What sets this series apart is that the cost of ownership is very competitive and the quality is high," said Fahy. "The reliability of the system is also high. Arizonas are produced in high numbers compared to competitor systems, so they are at a later stage of evolution."

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"The market is definitely not flat for us; we're bucking the trend," he said. "Turnover is four times what we achieved last year and well over half of that is from overseas work.

"We hear lots of talk of British manufacturing not doing do well, but we are a British manufacturer and we are selling products around the world. We are still a small company but turnover is going up rapidly."

Ryan said the company had made three installations in the last six months and export markets included Canada, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. It recently appointed an agent in New Zealand.

"Over here it's a bit static, and if a particular market is not that vibrant we can go further afield. We can retrofit most systems including Heidelberg, Manroland, KBA and Komori; we are not tied to any one manufacturer."

Managing director Marc Boden, who oversaw the installation in Pakistan, said: "I was able to meet with the Foiltone agent Al-Abbas and was impressed by their knowledge and with their customer-base in Pakistan.

Al-Abbas managing director Jawwad Husayn Jafri said: "We were able to see Benford's quality and service first hand and had no hesitation in accepting the offer to take their excellent products to our market place."

This morning (18 June) it emerged that plan had proved unsuccessful.

In a statement, chief executive Chard said: "The shareholders of MPG Printgroup have today announced that they have abandoned the possibility of a rescue plan for parts of the Group. Despite overwhelming support from the company's employees, lenders, customers and suppliers the challenge to overcome a number of inherent issues has proved too great.

"As a result all remaining employees at MPG's plants at King's Lynn and Bodmin are to be made redundant while steps are taken to put the company into administration which is anticipated to occur within the next week or so. It is hoped that the technologically advanced operating sites will be preserved, with opportunity given to interested parties to purchase the assets in situ.

"It is a matter of deep regret that a rescue plan was not possible and the shareholders extend their thanks to all Employees for their long service and dedication over many years."

Chard told PrintWeek: "It has been a very emotional roller coaster but this pales into insignificance against the backdrop of 200 employees losing their jobs."

The group experienced a cashflow crisis last month, apparently due to over-running costs at its new Cambridge site. It had been in limbo since.

Creditors including paper companies and asset finance businesses contacted by PrintWeek are yet to react to the latest turn of events.

Check back for updates.

Production manager Alec Bennett said: "The punch is so mechanical and there are no circuit boards or software to go wrong, while the wire-binder is as well built and robust as the punch."

He said the AP 360 punching machine had removed all punching bottlenecks for wire binding, saving labour time and money. Before buying the kit, the 50-staff company used smaller bits of equipment for punching around 20 pieces of paper at a time.

"The additional purchase of a four-hole punching die for the machine has led to considerable savings from pre-punching sheets for loose-leaf binders without the need to drill," said Bennett.

The MOBI 360 semi-automatic wire-binder meanwhile enabled the business to replace six temporary workers, who used to tackle predominantly A6 work by hand. Now only one person was needed to operate a machine that binds two at a time to double outputs over a given time.

"We have bought lots of kit in the past year, having gone from 12m to 15m images a year and all of that goes through the finishing department," he said. "The kit will pay for itself; the MOBI 360 has already made significant savings on labour costs.

"Both machines are portable, single-phase, have very easy and fast makereadies and require no air. The Renz installation and the training on both machines went smoothly and we are pleased with the savings."

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"Customers increasingly want paper binding rather than plastic strapping, so we bought the machine to get more work. Paper is easier for mailing houses, which just rip it off rather than fuss around cutting plastic."

The Delta 502 was supplied by Friedheim International and has helped Apex Print Finishers speed up a typical A5 two-up job from 17,500 to 18,500 per hour, according to Clark.

"Another benefit of the Delta is we can use it with one person: with other kit you need two people to handle each bundle but with this machine, they come out together already with a paper binding, so that eliminates the need to one person."

Clark's six-staff company has a £500,000 turnover and its services include stitching, inserting, strapping and shrinkwrapping. Clients include Polestar and Prinovis.

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"We are on a steadily improving trend and the story is logical and in line with the strategy we have previously announced," he added.

Production director Chris Peacock said G&H Group would continue to roll out litho work, but the future "very much lies in a fast turnaround, responsive and high quality digital service" for customers including retailers, finance houses, educational establishments and business-to-business collateral.

"Where our previous older bindery systems would have taken up to 25 minutes per job to set up, the new Horizon takes just a couple of minutes," he said. "We can save up to a third or even half the time now. We are more efficient and more effective and can provide an improved service."

Peacock said the 4,500bph JDF-ready SPF/FC-200A was chosen for three reasons: build quality, the functionality and flexibility provided by a single system, and while he said it was not the cheapest, it was "good for what it does and what we can now do".

The system features a 200-programme job memory for instant recall and an icon-based touch-screen for job set-up, he said. An advanced suction rotor drum feeding system, meanwhile, operated on a wide variety of paper stocks at high speeds. IFS supplied the Horizon.

"Accuracy and reliability are assured by misfeed, double-feed and jamming sensors on each bin and the feed error history can be monitored via the touchscreen. The collators are faster and replace an older collator more suited to litho work. They are also more highly automated, which improves production."

Tradeprint managing director Rod Scrimgeour said the new machine cost around £3m and will run alongside the first Speedmaster XL, a 10-colour machine that cost about £3.5m.

"The first press did everything we expected and more," he said. "We had anticipated it being up to four times as productive as the SM 74-10P it replaced, but in fact, it has given us a five-fold increase.

"Makereadies of four to four-and-a-half minutes are ideal for the high volume of short runs we handle on a daily basis. Before, 99.8% of orders went out on time; now we are hitting 100%.

The company is also upgrading its processors and adding lasers to its original Suprasetter 105 to increase the speed of output of its Saphira NA101 plates. This was critical to keeping two "very hungry presses supplied for maximum performance", he said.

Scrimgeour added: "Expensive price points are unsustainable. By having the best software systems, accessible online web-to-print services and the best equipment we are able to attain the price points today's trade market requires.

"We are commodity, commercial printers combining many jobs per plate to maximise time and waste efficiency. That approach, combined with a clear business plan, is why we are in a position to invest for further rapid growth."

The £8m investment programme includes an extension of the Tradeprint.co.uk offices in Dundee.

"We employ more software developers than we do print minders and have recently beefed up our development team," explains Scrimgeour. "Investment is crucial to staying ahead of our competitors and is the key to our success."

Heidelberg said the sale represented the fastest repeat order for the XL 106 in the UK to date, possibly the world.

The company has invested in the refurbishment of its existing facility near Amsterdam to include a new "solutions centre" kitted out with a full range of digital print-on-demand (POD) equipment, as well as a series of meeting rooms. The site will also become Screen's European spares centre.

The new Luton base, which has retained 34 staff, will continue to provide the same sales, helpdesk, spares and support services across the UK. Screen has recruited four new members of staff for its Netherlands operations, to replace UK staff that did not want to relocate.

Screen Europe president Brian Filler said that the move reflected the transition of its products from CTP to POD. "In the past we were selling hundreds of units at €100,000 each where we could afford to have multiple demo centres across Europe, but now we sell tens of units at €1.5m it becomes more difficult to keep that value of equipment on the books. It changes the whole structure of what we do."

"No-one really needs to see CTP demos any more and if they do we can just take them to any number of customers that have them, but if someone wants to see a POD device then they need to travel to the European showroom to see it but that is nothing out of the ordinary."

The press has been configured with beta.c 220 temperature control and a beta.f dampening filtration unit from Technotrans.

According to Paul Sadler, operations director at the ISO 14001 certified company, one of the critical elements to running alcohol free is ensuring that chemicals are clean and ink tack exactly right.

"Good chemistry is critical to running without alcohol and it needs to be controlled well which it is with the beta.f. The filter life it good too."

"We like using technotrans because their products are good and their service and support is reliable. We are very pleased to have completed the circle in our move to having an alcohol-free pressroom.".

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"At the end of the day we wanted to go, we just needed some sort of reassurance, we now feel sure it's going to be a great show," said Moorby.

In its February open letter, the company said that Informa was alienating litho exhibitors and printers by focussing on digital and cross-media, which it felt implied litho visitors were "irrelevant".

However, this was strongly denied by Informa, which said in April, partly in response to Printers Superstore open letter, that its focus on digital was not a slight on commercial printers, who represent 80% of its audience, just a reflection of an industry that views litho and digital as complementary.

Moorby said: "We were one of the first to commit to Ipex and that never waivered. It was just the refocusing of the show and the specifically the white paper, which we felt was a white paper of reasons why we shouldn't be going.

"Fundamentally though we've always supported Ipex, we've all grown up with show's like Ipex and we sold our first Hans Gronhi at Ipex 2006 and at 2010 we sold everything off the stand and lots more besides."

However, he did confirm that the company had substantially reduced its footprint at the show from 609sqm to 200sqm. Moorby added that the company had retained an option to increase the stand size.

The company is planning to take three or four presses to the show, a mixture of B1/SRA1, B2/A2 and B3 presses.

While Moorby acknowledged that visitor numbers next year might be down on Ipex 2010, he said he was confident that the key decision makers would attend. He added that he was relishing the opportunity of exhibiting at Ipex and demonstrating the latest Hans Gronhi technology, especially in light of the manufacturer's purchase of Japanese press manufacturer Shinohara last year.

Printers Superstore's commitment is a welcome boost to embattled Informa and comes just a few weeks after Konica Minolta also confirmed its commitment to Ipex. Moorby urged exhibitors that had withdrawn or decided to not participate to reconsider their decisions.

"We're really looking forward to Ipex and we'd love it if others did the same. There used to be a bit of bravado between the bigger companies about who had the biggest stand, the world's changed, why don't they just take a view and think about what their customers want. It will be a missed opportunity if they don't go."

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Glasgow-based Bell & Bain specialises in book and journal printing, including colour books. The company runs a range of conventional and digital equipment.

Managing director Stephen Docherty said he had initially been put off inkjet due to high running costs and questionable quality. "We'd seen and heard so much about inkjet, and spoken to so many people about it, but it was mind-boggling what it cost for service and clicks," he said.

Bell & Bain travelled to Fujifilm's technology centre in Brussels as part of the assessment process for the purchase.

"I couldn't believe how quick and simple the Jet Press was to operate, and it was actually an easy decision. There's no click charge and the service costs are reasonable. It makes it straightforward for us to work out our pricing," Docherty added.

The new press has a list price of around £1.2m, depending on configuration.

It will replace an existing Océ 9000 black-and-white continuous feed system when it is installed next month, and is being configured to run inline with Bell & Bain's Muller Martini Sigma binding line.

"We'll be using it for black-and-white work initially, the black tones are absolutely phenomenal so I believe our short-run black-and-white work will instantly migrate to it," Docherty said.

"We can also offer selected customers colour book options, for example market testing with a short run at relatively low cost."

Docherty said the firm was in the process of deciding upon a selection of papers. "We may streamline the choice a little to avoid holding lots of reels."

Chris Broadhurst, UK national sales manager at Fujifilm Graphic Systems, said Fujifilm was extremely proud about the order: "The 540W arrived in Brussels around Christmas time and we started to take customers over to see it in January and February. As soon as Bell & Bain saw the quality they could see it would suit their work," he said.

"It's great news for the UK print industry that well-established printers, such as Bell & Bain, are still investing to stand their business in good stead for tomorrow and beyond. To get the first sale for Fujifilm globally is quite a coup for us." he added.

The move caps a number of recent investments at Bell & Bain. This year it has added a B2 KBA Rapida 75 to its brace of Rapida 142 large-format litho presses, as well as a new Muller Martini Alegro perfect binder.

The 182-year-old firm employs 82 staff and is on track for sales of £9.3m this year.

The foiling system works at the same speed as the JETvarnish and lays down an inkjet varnish layer as the ‘glue' base for the foil, with heated rollers that move in or out of position to apply the foil.

In standard spot coating mode the JETvarnish can produce up to 3,000sph in B2 format.

MGI marketing director Kevin Abergel said the system did not require special consumables, and worked with standard "market available" foils.

"It means we can produce variable data hot foil stamping, so it's potentially massive," he said. "We're getting a good result already for our first try at this, but it will look better."

The current foiling system is in prototype form, but MGI hopes to have it ready for commercial launch by the Print exhibition in Chicago in September.

Pricing is not available for the foiling unit at this stage.

This week the French manufacturer also showed a new higher-speed version of the JETvarnish 3D, using a second inkjet engine. It produces raised, "digitally embossed" effects at twice the speed that was possible before, meaning a 30 micron 3D coating can now be applied to A3 sheets at 3,150sph rather than 1,575sph.

"With the twin option we can either double the thickness of the coating, for applications such as Braille, or double the speed," explained Abergel.

Existing users can upgrade to the faster version for around €50,000 (£42,500).

MGI also previewed a new flood UV coater for its Meteor digital presses, the Nova UV, at the event. It can work inline or as a standalone unit.

"Latin America and Asia Pacific will now become very important markets for us going forward."

As a result, the printers enable users to view and print projects from the cloud in order to collaborate more easily with colleagues in different teams and different locations.

Both systems can deliver an A1/D-sized print in 21s, which the manufacturer claims is the fastest on the market, and feature integrated output-stacking trays built on top of the printers to deliver flat, collated prints.

"Our customers constantly seek more efficient and user-friendly tools to bring their ideas to life," said Ramon Pastor, HP's vice-president and general manager of Large Format Printing.

"More than two decades after the launch of the first Designjet printer, HP continues to bring design, architecture, engineering and construction professionals large-format printing solutions with innovative features that transform the in-house printing process as well as allow users more time for creativity."

Expected to be available worldwide from 8 July the list prices are estimated at €3,650 (£3,100) and €5,650 for the T920 and T1500 respectively.

The Mimaki JV5 roll-to-roll printer is available in four- or six-colour configurations, has a maximum speed of 50sqm per hour and is offered with a choice of HS3 or SS21 solvent and ES3 eco-solvent inks.

Heckford opted for SS21 outdoor-durable solvent inks, which do not require pressroom ventilation and are supplied in two-litre ‘eco-sacks' delivered in 100% recyclable packaging.

Pressroom manager at the circa 50-staff company Pawel Dunaj said that with the new inks, the upgrade provided a more comfortable working environment than with the HS3 inks used with the older model and was far more efficient.

"The new JV5 with bulk SS21 inks has been a real improvement for us. I can safely say there are almost no fumes or odour and we no longer need a carbon filter," he said. "The bulk ink system is also useful because we don't need to replace the inks as often."

Dunaj said one of the machine's highlights was that it enabled the company, which specialises in high-quality vinyl, signage, exibition and interior and exterior displays, to produce PVC banners at 40sqm per hour "at great quality".

I-sub Digital director Andy Spreag said: "It is a great testament to the JV5 printer that a respected company like Heckford has chosen to purchase the same machine as they did six years ago.

"It demonstrates that Mimaki JV5 technology is still offering fantastic print quality at the fast production speeds normally associated with grand-format machines."