The machine was installed at Brierley’s West Midlands premises in Stourbridge on 19 December. It cost around £35,000, which managing director Nigel Cresswell said makes it one of the best in its price range on the market.

The Versant is the third machine installed in Brierley’s digital facility, as it joins a Konica Minolta bizhub Pro C6000 and a Xerox DocuColor 250, which is now mostly being used as backup. It was supplied by Xerox reseller Zerographic Systems.

“It does everything we need it to do. We are only small and it’s perfect for what we are going to use it for,” said Cresswell.

“It’s definitely going to make a difference to us, we are noticing it now because it turns jobs around that fast and is more user-friendly. It sets the jobs quicker and it runs faster so if we we were going on full belt we could probably double our volume of work just by what we can do on this one machine."

The Versant was launched in 2015 as a “strategic replacement” for the C75 and J75 models. It runs at 80ppm and can maintain speeds on all stocks up to 350gsm, delivering image quality of 2,400dpi. It can handle a variety of media types with a compact Belt Fuser system and Xerox’s low-melt (EA) dry ink. 

“It’s very user-friendly as well because if the parts break we carry the extra parts in stock, so you can basically change many of the parts yourself,” added Cresswell.

The majority of £250,000-turnover Brierley’s work comes from short runs of booklets and leaflets. It also runs a two-colour Heidelberg GTO Platen for books and NCR, plus various items of finishing equipment.

The seven-staff outfit relocated from a smaller site in Brierley Hill 18 months ago, which Cresswell said had been a good move as it had kept existing customers while “gaining a lot” from Stourbridge.