About us

Our history

We have a proud history of delivering quality services to our clients and we will never stop delivering technology and service to the highest calibre

1995

Andy Cork set up CopyTECH (UK) Limited, which was established as an in-house print facility for the NFU in London.

1998

To expand the firm’s documents printing services for Rebus software, a brand-new facility was opened in Peterborough.

2000

The merging of our production facilities began in 2000 with the closure of the CopyTECH (UK) Limited Shaftsbury Ave, London facility. The result was that we moved to a single premise in Cambridgeshire, which was the start of Printondemand-worldwide as you know it today.

2003

Upfront Publishing Ltd was acquired by Printondemand-worldwide, enabling us to provide publishing expertise in-house.

2006

Printondemand-worldwide acquired Digital Book Logistics (DBL) a short-run printing company based in Basildon

2007

Peterborough-based direct mail company Mailtech was acquired to join the Printondemand-worldwide brand, along with IT company Good Systems. Litho printer City Ruling was also acquired, along with its premises, but Printondemand-worldwide’s destiny was in its core digital printing business, so City Ruling was later sold to a local printer.

2008

Purchased and relocated to a new 10,000 sq. ft BREEAM accredited building in Culley Court, Orton Southgate.

Launched Printondemand-Worldwide.com website with a comprehensive online calculator – transforming how we work with new authors and publishers.

2009

Launched BookVAULT to enable publishers to store their entire library and order books truly ‘on-demand’.

We also began the process of centralising all systems with the introduction of CRMIS to replace and become the central CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and MIS (Management Information System).

2010

Acquired Milton Keynes-based printer Digital Book Print.

Installed Europe’s first In-line roll-to-sheet fed Oce VP6320 and signature folder to produce single copies efficiently.

2011

Purchased the adjoining unit in Culley Court, expanding the floorspace to 17,000 sq. ft.

Acquired Peterborough-based litho printer City Print.

Tripled mono printing capacity with the purchase of another Oce VP6320 and an Oce VP6250.

2012

Relaunched Printondemand-worldwide.com with vastly improved customer area and wizard-based online calculator.

We became the first printer in the world to offer affordable colour books on-demand by installing two HP Indigo Presses.

2013

Doubled our daily capacity with the installation of new machines including another Horizon BQ470.

Partnered with Ricoh with the installation of 2 x Ricoh 751C EX colour printers.

2014/5

Purchased a third unit in Culley Court, further expanding the floorspace to 24,000 sq. ft.

Installed Europe’s first fully automatic HT1000 Horizon 3-knife trimmer, finishing books directly from the binder without any setup.

We also became the first in the UK to install the Kolbus DA270 Casemaker. This was the first Kolbus machine to be linked to a customer’s own MIS system to produce a single copy of a book or journal.

Acquired our first colour Inkjet printer (Truepress Z) and online Hunkeler finishing system

With a vastly expanded business, our focus was on strengthening the management team across the board.

2016/7

We connected our Muller binder to an automated trimmer, which then fed into dispatch – making our processes even more efficient.

Installed HD colour Inkjet Technology giving us the ability to print HD colour books from just one copy, all at affordable costs.

With high quality investment in tech innovations we focused on developing a strong digital market platform, updating our website to give customers the best possible online experience.

We are proud of the work we’ve done to strengthen customer service and continue growing our existing customer base.

Today

We continue to strive towards 100% traceability for our customers and to improve the overall efficiency of our machinery. With this in mind, we are focused on retrieving live data from our Inkjet, binder, trimmer, laminator and case making machines using high-speed imaging cameras – helping us to meet and exceed SLAs.

Across our wider machinery we will be tapping into our R&D team’s love of robotics and all things coding by using RaspberryPi, Python and 3D printing to engineer purpose-built devices for achieving similar results from the less advanced devices, such as the Laminator.

Customer focussed systems, such as BookVAULT 4.0, are on our development roadmap for 2019. BookVAULT 4.0 will bring the control into the palm of the publisher’s hand, while also enhancing the reporting and notification features to give to-the-minute progress updates on the go.

BookVAULT 4.0 promises to deliver ease of use and integration through plug-ins for popular CMS and a new feature-rich API for more bespoke integrations – our goal is to completely remove any barriers to selling your titles, even creating your own shopfront directly through BookVAULT in order to maximise exposure and sales profits through selling directly to your audience.

Printondemand-worldwide is a print and production market driving force for the UK. Be part of our story and contact us on 01733 237867.