The device, which has a working area of 1,230x2,520mm, was purchased from Morgana Systems for just over £40,000 and installed at Minuteman’s city centre premises last month.

Key features of the Optima V 250 are its ability to deal with multiple sheets and its patented tool change mechanism that allows tools to be changed in less than 30 seconds. This enables users to quickly move from cutting to creasing, perforating, embossing, plotting, or writing and drawing swiftly.

The machine is suitable for working with larger-sized sheets or ganging up to 15 SRA3-sized sheets to cut in one pass and it can handle materials ranging from thin card through to rigid PVC.

Applications include frame mount-board cutting, boxes and displays, contour cutting, embossing and stickers. It can also be used to make prototypes, marketing products and mock-ups.

Minuteman Press Bath sales and marketing director Dave Dixon said: “We were usually cutting short-run packaging and signage by hand but it’s much quicker and easier now we’ve taken that out of the equation.

“We were also sending some of the short-run packaging work out for die-cutting so bringing all of that in-house is a lot better for speed and cost straight away.”

The business chose the Optima V 250 after first seeing it running at Drupa last June. It then visited the Valiani factory in Italy for further testing. Alternatives from Zünd were also considered.

The company said it has already discovered a range of possibilities available with the machine that it had not thought about prior to the investment decision.

“Almost immediately we picked up a job requiring cut tabs within a report and cut lettering from rigid PVC – the Valiani was able to handle that very quickly and very easily,” said Dixon.

“In the packaging market we are talking to a number of companies about test cartons that they want to produce. The Valiani gives us a very cost-effective solution to producing such ultra-short proofing runs.”

Minuteman Press Bath also runs a Xerox 1000i and a Xerox Versant 80, an AB Dick two-colour litho press and HP wide-format kit including Latex and Designjet machines. Its in-house finishing services include laminating, perforating, binding and drilling.

The business has 15 staff and a turnover of around £1.2m. It serves clients ranging from walk-in trade and small businesses to agencies and multinational blue-chip companies.