The five-colour litho press, installed in February by Apex Digital Graphics and now running at full production, has replaced Geerings’ five-colour Heidelberg SM102 and single colour Heidelberg Sord press.

Geerings Print joint director Nick Brisley said that around 93% of the work that was being processed by the SM102 was in fact SRA1 format as opposed to the press’ B1 size, which was wasting paper and plate material.

The team saw the Ryobi at last October’s Print Efficiently event, hosted at IFS' showroom in Perivale, west London, with the intention of "keeping an eye" on trends and developments in the market, but were impressed at the Ryobi 920’s credentials and potential benefits for the Ashford, Kent-based company.

Geerings Print joint director Martin Almond said: "Having thought of ourselves as a B1 printer, we quickly realised that at least 90% of the jobs that we were printing on our B1 machine were actually far more suited to the SRA1 sheet size of the Ryobi 920.

"We did our own sums and were staggered at the answers that we produced!"

The directors calculated that they could make annual savings of around £36,000 on paper, £18,000 on plate material, and up to £9,000 on power consumption by employing a printer more suited to the size of their commercial print jobs.

Geerings Print has also opted for Ryobi’s IVS on-press colour management system, which will potentially save the company a further £8,000 annually and reduce makeready time.

The Sord has already been removed, and the SM102 has been sold and is awaiting collection. Geerings Print has also sold its two-colour SM74, whose work will move across to the company’s five-colour B1 SM74 as Brisley said that demand has moved towards more colour variety.

The company currently has a turnover of £2m, which Brisley expects will stay stable this year as the company makes a number of changes to increase efficiency.