On a roll following the release of strong financial results, Australia's Ive Group is set to drive another massive unit of capacity into the Australian market.

Last year's merger with high volume Melbourne-based heatset printers Franklin Web and AIW set the scene to replicate some of the Victorians' capacity in Sydney, a stronghold of rival PMP/IPMG.

Now the massive productivity of manroland's 80-page Lithoman press has been confirmed for a new greenfield site (as revealed in GXpress last month). The order was the last of Steve Dunwell's term as managing director of manroland Australasia.

A smaller Rotoman press, also from manroland, was ordered earlier.

The 80-page press is to be the centrepiece of a new greenfield print site which Ive hopes to have in operation during the middle of this year, after the group won the substantial Coles supermarket catalogue order through Franklin Web.

The new highly-automated site - part of a $30 million plan - will be an important weapon in the battle against newly-expanded PMP/IMPG operation, but adds substantial additional capacity into a market which is arguably already oversupplied.

Elsewhere, it adds to little Australia's reputation as one of manroland's biggest (if not the biggest) markets for heatset web printing machinery, with growth defying overseas trends.

Ive's earnings before tax for the six months to December were up 8.1 per cent to $24 million.