CMS brings B2 lamination in-house

The D&K Europa was installed last week
The D&K Europa was installed last week

Central Mailing Services (CMS) has brought B2 lamination in-house after taking on a D&K Europa fully automated laminator.

Supplied by Glendale Presentation Solutions and representing an investment of £28,000, the additional machine will mean the Birmingham-based mailing house no longer has to outsource any of its B2 lamination work.

It follows in a refurbished Duplo System 5000 DBM bookletmaker that was installed by the company in August.

CMS director Richard Morrow told Printweek: “It's a perfect bedfellow for the new bookletmaker in that it means we can obviously do laminated covers and things like that, but also we’re doing so many digital postcards and a lot of companies want to have lamination protection to enhance the postcard offering and also protection against some of the Royal Mail rollers.

“The really interesting thing is that D&K are also talking to us about supplying a compostable laminate, so that it can go with all of our other sustainable offerings as well.”

CMS managing director Mitesh Chouhan added: “We went out to market – we were originally looking for an Autobond – but because it’s going to be an occasional use item, it wasn’t worth going for the all-bells-and-whistles Autobond, so we were told the next best was D&K.

“We’ll put A3 sheets through it, and it will run at 4,000 an hour. And the ability to have laminated books as well is another advantage.”

As well as the laminator and the bookletmaker, CMS also recently purchased Mintsoft software, an e-commerce platform, and is planning investment in a new digital printer next year.

“Since we put the bookletmaker in, standalone digital print and digitally printed direct mail has shot up for us. Again, we were outsourcing bookletmaking and now we’re not, so the laminator complements that very nicely. Our digital offering is just getting stronger and stronger,” said Morrow.

In late 2021 the business bought a third CMC One paper wrapping line, joining two other CMC machines with stream feeders. This followed the completion of a £1m digital spend in summer 2021 to completely reequip its print offering, which included half a dozen production machines from Konica Minolta, a trio of Xeroxes, and a Nipson DigiFlex.

The business operates two sites totalling around 5,575sqm space.