Managing director Mitesh Chouhan led an MBO at the Kings Norton, Birmingham-based business at the start of 2015 and has since overseen the investment of around £350,000 in new kit, which is additional to the firm's existing plant list.
The company already operated Konica Minolta bizhub Pro 950 mono printers and a Konica Minolta bizhub Pro C5501 and it has boosted its capcity with new printers including an additional Konica Minolta bizhub Pro 950, a Konica Minolta bizhub Press C6000, a Xerox Nuvera 144 and a Xerox Versant 80.
The Versant 80, which was installed around a month ago, is the most recent addition.
“We already had a suite of six digital printers but we invested in more because of demand. A lot of clients don’t just want to use a printer and a mail company; they want one supplier to supply everything. We had to invest to offer our clients a one-stop shop,” said Chouhan.
“Quality and speed were factors as well. With the volumes that we’re now handling, we needed the Nuvera 144 - a mono printer that prints onto any stock but will do high volume.”
He added: “We’ve specified the Versant 80 with a performance package so it starts printing a full personalisation job within 30 seconds. People want us to produce fully personalised postcards, leaflets or brochures, which we now run on that machine.”
Other kit investment has included three new inkjet machines from Addressing & Mailing Solutions (AMS) - two X-Jet printers and an AJ1000 envelope printer - two Morgana UFO 1 folding machines, a Morgana DigiFold creaser, a second Horizon AFC-492 cross-folder and a third polywrap machine with two-way camera matching.
It has also bought two Buhrs BB300 envelope enclosing machines and fitted these and two existing Buhrs lines with camera matching technology.
“We’re getting a lot of new business enquiries because along with our camera technology and polywrap lines we’ve also achieved ISO 27001 for data security. Few mailing houses typically have this because 27001 is more for transactional bills and statements,” said Chouhan.
The business has also added to its space after moving into a second site last month, a 465sqm unit a few doors away from its existing 1,580sqm premises, which it moved into at the start of 2013. Both units are leased.
Investment in the new unit has come to around £150,000 and includes racking to allow the firm to store around 200 pallets, a longwheel base van and a heavy duty forklift truck to transport pallets safely between the two sites.
The unit is primarily for storage but will also be used for large hand fulfilment campaigns.
2015 saw the largest growth at Central Mailing Services since the company was established in 1992. It expects to increase its turnover from £4.5m to £7m this year.
The business, which serves clients in the performing arts sector, universities, the B2B sector and small businesses, has also taken on around 20 staff over the past year, increasing its total headcount to 60.
