The tie-up was announced on the opening day of Duplo's sixth annual London Calling at Canary Wharf yesterday (15 October) where Optimus and Vpress are among the 10 partner businesses exhibiting.

While both companies stressed that they provide integration to many different third-party systems, they stated that the level of integration between Optimus Dash and Vpress Coreprint goes beyond anything achieved before.

Announcing the integration, Optimus managing director Nicola Bisset said: "We've gone far deeper in making the two products talk together and in gaining efficiencies from that."

She added that the "very tight integration" between the two products had enabled the sharing of data in real-time all the way through from the webshop to the production floor.

It comprises a "multitude of touch points", including the sharing of order messages, live stock balances and real-time pricing information between Coreprint and Optimus, meaning job statuses are communicated live.

Vpress managing director Tim Cox said the integration would cut out manual processes, such as the need to re-key information, enabling a reduction in time and costs for customers.

"We're trying to drive profit back into print jobs and the only way to do that is to take out some of the manual processes - this is one way of achieving that," he added.

The partnership was customer-driven, with three printers - Healeys, Ink Print and Vauxhall Printers - already benefiting from the resultant enhanced automation.