Corporate vice president Boudewijn Neijens said it was a case of improving return on investment.

Neijens was unable to give details of the specific project ramp-ups affected by the cut-backs but said they were mainly young R&D projects that were still out of radar.

However, Creo has slowed down the company-wide roll out of its SAP software in Europe, which will create significant savings from contractors.

In 2001, Creo agreed a 10% pay reduction with staff after the collapse of the US market. This was then brought back up to market level one year later.

The news came as it announced it had completed the acquisition of the South African printing plate production facility from First Graphics for 6.5m ($11.34m) in cash.