Case study

Kopykat combines traditional and digital technologies to give optimum customer service

London based Kopykat printing has been providing print services from its base near Liverpool Street for some 15 years. In the beginning, the bulk of Kopykat’s work was producing straightforward corporate stationery. Now however, it offers litho and digital printing services and a range of finishing options.

Kopykat is a successful company that has seen its business grow steadily since it was established in 1985. In the last financial year, turnover increased by more than a quarter compared with the previous year, while it has grown a further 30% in the first quarter of this year.

Over the years the company has invested in machinery that has enabled it to bring most major processes in-house, including one Oliver and two Heidelberg presses for litho work, and Canon and Indigo printers for digital output up to A3. Kopykat recently purchased a Watkiss Vario eight bin suction feed collator to meet its current finishing needs and anticipates that the number of bins will be increased in future. Phil Moretti-Greene, managing director of Kopycat, comments:

"One of the advantages of the Watkiss Vario is that we can add more bins as and when we need them. Managing finishing in-house is fairly new to us, so it is good that the Watkiss solution allows us to invest at a relatively low level and add to it when the time is right for us."

The Watkiss Vario used at Kopykat also has online stitch, fold and trim modules that can handle up to 3,000 books per hour. While these are rugged, high performance modules, they fit underneath the Vario’s collating tower so that they require little additional floorspace.

This solution is further enhanced with the addition of the newly launched Watkiss SpineMaster™. The SpineMaster™ is a robust standalone unit that reforms the spine of stitch-fold booklets. This removes the gape that often occurs at the spine when stitch folding and allows the spine to be printed on for a high quality, superior appearance.

The Spinemaster’s performance, together with its simplicity of operation and small footprint, made it the ideal choice for supporting Kopykat’s customers’ requirements for high quality booklets.

Kopykat also operates a direct mail and laser printing facility. As this part of the business has grown, finishing has become increasingly important.

Phil Moretti-Greene comments:

"With direct mail, first impressions are critical. As a mail piece lands on someone’s desk there are only a couple of seconds during which the recipient will decide whether to read the material or bin it. This emphasised the importance of the appearance of the finished materials and was what made us review what was available in finishing machinery."

Phil comments on his decision to buy from Watkiss:

"Watkiss are well respected in the industry and have been around for many years. I also liked the fact that I could visit their Bedford manufacturing site and see the machines actually being put together. That gave me a feeling of comfort that they knew what they were doing, and that spare parts would be quickly and easily available."