CMP (UK) Ltd brings hard back case binding in-house with Fastbind

Finishing Solutions

CMP (UK) Ltd in Poole has brought its hard back case bookbinding in-house with the installation of a Fastbind Casematic A46z casemaker and a Pressomatic from Ashgate Automation.

‘Since our inception in 1995 we have built the business on the back of short run, fast turnaround digital print solutions. About seven years ago we identified a growing market in affordable book production where we could use our skills to provide the same personal service to a wide selection of publishers and self publishers in the UK and worldwide,’ said Paul Dawe, owner and managing director. ‘We see our place as a dual supplier to a range of publishers who have a need for a reactive service for reprints and short run titles. Many of our publishing clients will batch numerous titles together to achieve scales of economy on their shorter runs, this can now apply to case bound titles too.’

The company operates two Canon colour presses and three Canon Varioprint mono presses.tthese are supported by an in-house bindery that boasts perfect binding, squareback saddlestitching, the very latest laminator/foiling system,

along with coil and wire binding.

‘Outsourcing of case binding has worked well for us and we have been very pleased with the quality of our hardback products. By investing in our own facility we now have more control and flexibility. This works well for split editions, short runs and tight deadlines,’ said Richard Johnson, operations director.

CMP explored several options having first seen the Fastbind Casematic A46z and the Fastbind Pressomatic some two years ago. ‘We liked everything about the machine from its price to the simplicity of its operation but, above all, the great quality of the finished book,’ Richard added.

At the end of last year, Ashgate demonstrated the binder on site. This semi-automated standalone binder has a number of features to make the casemaking process intuitive for the operator and consistent in its output quality.

‘The onsite demonstration proved very useful as we could see first hand how it performed on our stocks and formats. Upon installation, the team received full training from Ashgate Automation. The impressive quality of the finished books gave us the confidence to seamlessly transition our outsourced, short run work in-house,’ explained Richard.

‘We are optimistic that as well as benefiting from all of the advantages of bringing hardback bookbinding in-house, the return on investment should be within the first year. It also gives us the opportunity take on more short run, cased work with the reassurance of knowing that we have full control in-house with the backing of Ashgate for service and support,’ added Paul.