"When some of the creatives out there see what we can do now, their mouths will water," said joint managing director Peter Ruck.

The bulk of the investment, 500,000, was on two 9in Kodak Versamark ink-jet heads. "As I understand it we're the only firm with 9in heads on a flatbed [sheet rather than web] system," said owner and founder John Ruck (pictured left with managing director Peter Ruck).

The mono heads, capable of 300dpi, are currently being installed. The firm will use some of its existing feed and delivery systems initially, but is in the process of designing and commissioning a dedicated feeder to improve efficiency.

"We will be able to run B1 sheets at a guaranteed 8,000sph, but we're working on increasing that to allow the system to cope with 12,500sph," said John Ruck.

The Maldon, Essex-based firm already has personalisation jobs lined up for the system, which it  expects to be running by the end of the week.

Its other UK first, an inline Bograma BS 750 Multi die-cutting module with inline hole-punching, is up and running.

The firm has christened the machine "EasyShape". "We're saying to clients 'you can have a flexible and different sort of mailer, and it's easy'," said John Ruck.

The firm's Bograma can die-cut products up to 3mm thick and knife-cut up to 4mm, and handle sheets up to 210x600m. The only limitations are a 10mm gutter and 25mm outside edge.

As part of the 100,000 spend on the 750 the firm has also added a pneumatic hole-punch to strip out holes and shapes within the die-cut area the first combination of its kind in the UK.

"The point was that we can now not only die-cut, we can die-cut and punch holes automatically," said John Ruck.

The Bograma BS Multi 750 was one of the stars at H+H openhouse event in Germany last month.

Story by Darryl Danielli