Welcome to Robroyston, which will be HarperCollins’s home in Scotland for many years to come.
Our company has a deep-rooted connection in Glasgow, having employed many generations of families from the local area since William Collins founded Collins & Co. in 1819. HarperCollins is now the second-largest consumer publisher in the world, with operations in 15 countries and publishing over 10,000 titles a year. We employ around 1,000 people in the UK – over 400 based in Glasgow.
For 50 years our Bishopbriggs site has served us well. As we look to the future, we are building a new, state-of-the-art facility in Robroyston – currently the biggest infrastructure project of its kind in Scotland and a major investment for HarperCollins, underlining our long-term commitment to Scotland.
Since breaking ground in 2022, it has been our goal to enhance our service offerings for both customers and clients, using smart logistics automation from KNAPP, incredible new machines from Jungheinrich, and with the help of our world-class team. This new facility, with its cutting-edge technology and with sustainability built in from the start, will enable us to deliver on an even greater scale for our authors and customers – we’ll hold over 56,000 titles, in over 200,000 locations, distributing over 110 million books a year.
The facility will also be the home of various publishing departments, including the historic Collins brand, which includes cartography, dictionaries and education publishing, as well as the HarperCollins archive, containing literary treasures from authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Agatha Christie to A.A. Milne and Michael Bond and his beloved Paddington Bear.
I am delighted that our long history in Scotland is to continue and I can’t wait for everyone to see what we have built.
Charlie Redmayne CEO
OUR NEW FACILITY
Gordon Scott, Managing Director, Supply Chain, explains how Robroyston’s new technology and automation will help his team deliver a world-class service.
I have spent four decades in logistics, with over 12 years running HarperCollins’s supply chain, and I am delighted by what our project team has delivered. Having run many projects like this over my career, I can say that the team has put more time, effort, and resilience into this project than any other I have been involved in.
With our incredible new systems and hugely experienced team, all housed in a facility that will be the envy of the industry, I believe this is a distribution centre for today and far into tomorrow, and will enable us to deliver for our customers, authors and client publishers like never before.
Robroyston will hold over 56,000 different titles, in either one of 117,000 bulk pallet locations or 104,000 forward pick loose locations, sending out over 110 million books a year, and over 3 million a week in our busiest period.
I’m proud of what we have achieved and of the part that everyone in the team has played in this project.’
‘Our smart logistics automation features the cutting-edge technologies of KNAPP, helping dispatch our books to customers across the UK and around the world – the machinery and technology is state of the art.’
Alan Boyd Finance Director, Supply Chain
Our new automated carton erector builds boxes to be filled at innovative goodsto-person stations – complete with integrated image system and userfriendly interface – before being smoothly conveyed to the automated carton closer.
THE ROAD TO ROBROYSTON
In February 2021 HarperCollins announced the decision to move its Glasgow distribution centre and offices from Bishopbriggs, its home for 50 years, 2.5 miles down the road to Robroyston, where we would take advantage of the opportunity to create a state-of-the-art facility that would secure our future in Scotland for years to come. Planning was approved in July 2021 and work on clearing ground on the site began the same month.
Things moved at pace, with 3,500 piles driven over the next couple of months. From there, work on base build construction progressed smoothly followed by the office fit out, installation of racking and KNAPP automation, and the mechanical and electrical fit out.
We are currently transitioning our stock holdings from Bishopbriggs in order to allow us to test our new systems thoroughly to ensure service levels remain consistent when the changeover happens in 2025.
We have long been the third-party distributor of choice for many other publishers, including Simon & Schuster and Usborne, and since announcing our new facility we have taken on several new clients, including Canongate, Nosy Crow, Faber & Faber and several independent alliance publishers.
‘There’s a real buzz of anticipation here. We can’t wait to showcase the capabilities of the new site and demonstrate how it will enhance our service offerings for both customers and clients.’
Ronnie
Muslek
Operations Director, Supply Chain
‘We’ve an exceptionally professional team and I look forward to seeing everyone get stuck in to their roles in the new site, enjoying the new building and equipment and getting on with the job.’
George McLeish, Project Manager, Supply Chain
Click: Timelapse
The Robroyston distribution centre and offices take up
550K sq ft of our 2M sq ft site
Robroyston will hold over titles for HarperCollins and our third-party clients
At their busiest, the team will dispatch over books a week
3M
OUR NEW OFFICES
As well as the distribution team, Robroyston will also be home to publishing and support teams, including finance, HR, tech site services and tech. The customer and client services team look after our countless customers, answering all calls and emails relating to orders and much more, while the small archive team looks after our precious heritage. Their new offices, set over three floors, will be open plan, allowing for a collaborative environment that the split site of Bishopbriggs could not facilitate.
Glasgow is also the home in Scotland of the Collins publishing team. The team span many roles, including editorial, design, finance, marketing and sales.
Collins published its first atlas in 1856; today, the cartography team are responsible for an extensive range of maps and atlases, from local walking guides to the flagship Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. The team publish a wide range of dictionaries including the Collins English Dictionary, as well as ELT resources and language-learning audio courses.
Collins also publishes popular reference and non-fiction titles from Glasgow, in collaboration with brands including the Royal Observatory, National Geographic, the National Trust and The Times and the Sunday Times, as well as an award-winning children’s reference list and the Leckie imprint, which supports delivery of the Curriculum for Excellence in Scottish schools.
‘It will be wonderful to be together on one site, sharing ideas and enjoying everything our new home has to offer.’
Natalie Robertson, Acting People Director
‘It’s great to see HarperCollins investing in Scotland and our team is looking forward to working in this new, modern, creative environment and continuing our strong publishing tradition.’
Jethro Lennox, Cartographic Director
ARCHIVE
Robroyston will also house the HarperCollins archive of more than 200 years of publishing history.
This treasure trove contains upwards of 100,000 items, including rare first-edition books and original artwork, notable contracts and correspondence with some of our storied authors and illustrators, including Agatha Christie, J.R.R. Tolkien, Patrick O’Brian and Boris Pasternak, and characters such as Winnie-the-Pooh and Paddington.
Currently the team is ensuring everything is properly catalogued ready for the move. This includes identifying and indexing valuable items for storage and display, repackaging where necessary to ensure everything is preserved for future generations.
The archive will be housed in a purposebuilt area, including a temperaturecontrolled room to store the most historic and fragile items, and an easy-access shelving system to help future researchers.
There will also be a display area where selections from the archive can be highlighted, changing throughout the year, and the team plans tours to showcase HarperCollins’s history.
Group MD, Adult Commercial Publishing
SUSTAINABILITY AND LANDSCAPING
Our new offices, distribution centre and surrounding land and facilities have been designed and built with sustainability in mind. We are targeting a BREEAM (the world’s leading science-based suite of validation and certification systems for a sustainable built environment) rating of ‘Very Good’.
We have used high-efficiency building insulation and cladding throughout, and fitted solar panels, energy-efficient heating and cooling systems and all-site LED lighting. We will also use energy-efficient forklift trucks in the distribution centre, and have charging stations for up to 35 electric vehicles, with the ability to expand to ten times that amount in the future. We will also have bike sheds for up to 100 bicycles.
Of the earth dug during construction, 99% was reused on site, and the building, car parks and access roads will be surrounded by landscaped features, including wildflower meadows, walkways and water features.
‘I’m really excited about how sustainability has been factored into the new site. We have a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to get it right from the ground up and we’re making full use of it!’
Karen Thomson Quality Manager
In what we believe is a publishing-industry first, we will also become home to an apiary, hosting several beehives. These beehives will be cared for by an experienced beekeeper, and we hope to make good use of the resulting product!
