The 32pp long-grain press, which has been tested successfully at the family-owned Dutch printer at 60,000 impressions per hour, will have a top speed of 88,000iph enabling it to produce 176,000 A4 16pp sections per hour. Inline stitching and trimming means that completed sections are finished in one pass without the need for any additional offline bindery operations.

The M3000/32 has a maximum web width of 183cm and a cut-off of 61cm.

The four-tower press, which has gapless blanket technology, will produce work for the UK market through Thijsens subsidiary, the former Thomas Potts company Eurographics, now known as Thijsen UK. About 20% of Thijsens predicted 47m (70) turnover this year will come from UK sales.

Thijsen managing director Onno Thijsen, who is a member of the fourth generation of the family to run the business, said that M3000/32 should be running at full speed in the next two weeks and that the print trials had produced excellent results.

Weve also invested in the best post-press technology from Ferag, including rotary trimming. We want to ensure that there are no bottlenecks to slow down the press, said Thijsen.

The company, based in Buren and Emmen in Holland, has also been the beta site for Creos latest VLF platesetter another world first. The Magnus can simultaneously expose 32pp and 8pp plates and was installed at the Buren site in January.

Thijsen counts a number of UK-based clue chip clients among its customers.

Story by John Davies