The Bristol-based business, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, moved just over three miles at the end of March to a new combined factory and office unit, which operational director Mark Shipley said was “fit for the future”.
“It’s just a much more efficient space for us, which in turn is much more efficient for production,” he added.
“Like many businesses, not just ones 150-years old, we’ve evolved and the [old] layout was quite inefficient, so it’s been great to put in some new equipment, new racking and lay it out exactly how we want to.”
Previously the circa 20-staff firm’s production was spread over multiple floors and locations in a 100-year-old building, which Shipley said was larger than it needed.
The new unit in the Brislington area of the city allows production, warehousing and dispatch to be on the same level, enabling the business to streamline its physical workflow. It also benefits from significantly faster fibre-optic broadband connections.
To coincide with the move, Brunel is in the final stages of buying a new Ricoh production printer as part of its three-year, £300,000 investment plan.
The new press is being supported with some undisclosed additional finishing equipment to support diary and notebook production, which Shipley said had been a “real growth area”.
“We’re seeing companies getting back into using promotional and marketing materials as we start to come out of Covid.
“People are looking for that tactile follow-up to a Zoom sales call, because meeting in person is harder, people are looking for ways to send part of their person, if you like, to the customer or prospect. And I hope personalised print will come to the fore as a result.”
The new press will support the production of the circa 20-staff firm’s new range of personalised notebooks.
“The printing industry moves on all the time, so our premises move and the investment is all about making us a stronger business that is fit for this new decade.”
Brunel, which is a sister business to Rose Calendars after it was acquired by the latter’s directors in 2017, runs an eclectic mix of post-press kit as well as an Apache direct to product UV printer.
