The Leicester-based outfit, which mainly handles transactional mail, has taken delivery of two Epic Inserting Systems over the past few weeks, following the installation of a Pulse Inserting System over the summer at its 8,000sqm premises. The investment is a part of a growth strategy targeting sales of more than £30m within two years.
Comprising the bulk of the investment, the 2015-launched Epics were brought in as replacement kit to handle short-run bespoke work and for fast changeovers, and Opus is likely to take on another in its next financial year.
A regular adopter of Pitney Bowes technology, Opus became the first to take its IntelliJet inkjet printing system in Europe at the turn of the decade, and chief executive Paul Brough recently hosted a summit alongside Pitney president Grant Miller at its Danbury, Connecticut headquarters. Brough told PrintWeek that the two “share the same goals” when it comes to innovation, technology and enhancing customer communications.
“Every year we do a business plan and the plan for this year is all about growth of the business because if you look at our numbers we’ve seen rapid growth over the last few years and intend to grow even more,” said Brough.
“We have won quite large contracts in the past year and continue to do so and part of the plan is to deal with that increased volume by looking at machines to get us more capacity and deal with quick changeover times.”
Using a modular component structure, the Epic is built upon Pitney’s Mailstream Productivity Series (MPS) inserting platform. It can be used for short and long runs, with speeds up to 21,000cph, while the Pulse system is mainly intended for short-run jobs and runs at up to 4,000cph. Earlier this year, Communisis took a number of similarly specified lines.
“The Epics came out top of the three manufacturers we considered in terms of meeting the needs for the profile of the work we’ve got,” added Brough.
“You can put longer jobs on there as well but the Epics are suited to deal with those in the transactional mail industry where volumes are decreasing.”
Both Epic machines have been configured with cross folders, while all machines utilise Opus’ in-house camera reconciliation solution, installed across most of a kit roster that includes IntelliJet inkjets, a number of 2016-installed Ricoh cut-sheets and CMC and Kern enclosing equipment.
“Every piece has to be accounted for so this [the solution] ensures that as the envelopes come off the belt we are taking a photo, reading the barcode, matching it back to the file and we know which ones haven’t come out," finished Brough.
160-staff Opus, which also has a London sales office, is projected for £24m sales this year, with 12% growth forecast for next year and 20% the following year.
