History of Readyprint
Readyprint was founded in January 1987 based in Kidderminster. Since this time it has continued to grow steadily with sales increasing year on year. By 1989 we moved into the Hoobrook Enterprise Centre where we invested in another overprinter and converter to double our capacity. Although we were reliant on 3rd parties for the production of our artwork and negatives, the move into this unit allowed us to purchase our first plate making machine which enabled us to begin making our own printing plates.
By 1992 we had outgrown this building so we decided to move around the corner into larger premises at Hoobrook Industrial Estate. In 1995 we found that even though this unit was double the size of the Enterprise Centre we were starting to outgrow this unit so we expanded into the unit next door to provide more storage and production facilities. We were now able to bring all our pre-press systems under our control which gave us even greater flexibility to fulfill our customers' needs. This expansion also enabled us to purchase a third overprinter and another converting machine, followed shortly by a much larger converting machine with a capacity of up to 6 colours plus lamination. We also invested in thermal printing technology which enabled us to produce variable data for our customers.
In 2003 we moved into our current premises which although was much bigger than needed at that time has given us the space to continue to grow. We have since invested in more new machinery to give us even greater capacity and offer other innovative products to our customers. Our current premises also enabled us to obtain BRC Accreditation and we are presently certified to Grade A against the BRC/IoP Global Standard - Packaging and Packaging Materials [Issue 4].
We invested in 2006 in new digital plate technology with the purchase of an Esko Spark CDI computer to plate system. This machine was the first of its format in the UK and enabled us to produce consistently high quality plates with 150lpi being our standard. We also invested in a pre-predictive proofing system which enables us to produce digital proofs for our customers' approval prior to print production.
Further investment was made in 2008 in the form of a 10 colour multi-web flexographic printing press. This gave the company the opportunity to experiment with multiple substrates being printed and converted at the same time. Peel & reveal labels is only one of the new products we were now able to produce. This machine was built specifically to our drawing/specification and again has enabled us to increase our capacity still further.
In 2009 we upgraded all of our computer hardware and software [including the latest Esko version] as we believe that we need to continue to invest in our company to offer a professional and competitive service to our customers.
Our most recent investment is a HP WS4600 digital press together with a Digicon Converter and Sheeter. With the new press has come the ability to produce variable data in the form of images, barcodes and text so each label that is produced can be unique and different from the next. We have recently upgraded this press to enable us to produce flexible packaging.