P4PHotel.com, definitely worth signing up for

If you buy, sell, or lease imaging equipment or place imaging equipment under an MPS program format, then you owe it to yourself to sign up for membership to P4PHotel.com.  Basic membership is free. 

The owner/publisher of P4Photel.com, Art Post, has been involved in the “copier” industry for nearly all of his adult life, and his web-site and blog are very popular and are chock full of information.  I visit Art’s web-site and blog (and the forums) on a regular basis.  His web-site and blog have a large number of followers.

"Supporting the Dealer and Direct Channel for Copier and Printer Imaging Professionals"

http://p4photel.homestead.com

Fuji Xerox Launches World's Fastest Wide-Format Color Inkjet Printer DocuWide C842

DocuWide C842 Contributes to Enhancing Productivity in Printing Large-Size Drawings 

TOKYO, May 20, 2013 — Targeting the large-size drawings printing market such as construction/civil engineering industries, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. today launches world's fastest^Note1 wide-format color inkjet printer DocuWide C842, which realizes printing of A0 size sheets at seven pages per minute to contribute to enhanced productivity.

Unlike the moving-head method often employed in inkjet printers, Fuji Xerox has aligned high-definition, four-color (CMYK^Note2) print heads that spray the inks to print on a single paper delivery, which has realized high-speed printing. In addition, the DocuWide C842 uses technology that sprays ink miniaturized to 1.4 picoliter to reproduce high gradation of color and half-tone outputs as well as realize high-resolution printing of fine lines in drawings.

The DocuWide C842 is capable of printing on various sizes and types of paper including a maximum of 42-inch wide-format sheets. As the printer can hold two or four rolls of sheet, it allows users to set both two-inch and three-inch core size roll paper, which differ depending on the type of paper, or set both regular and coated paper, thereby improving the efficiency and convenience of users' operating environment where they don't have to change the paper depending on what to print. Further, various security functions have been incorporated, such as encryption and overwriting of data accumulated in hard disk, to prevent unauthorized retrieval or copying of data recorded in hard disk.

While calls for speed are increasing regardless of the type of work or industry, construction/civil engineering industries and construction sites are facing greater needs to raise speed and efficiency in printing complex engineering drawings and electrical drawings that are often revised, along with increased size of data caused by colorization. Facility operations at public offices that utilize geographic information system (GIS) are also challenged to boost efficiency in sharing and using maps and drawings. When using GIS to manage urban design maps and facility layout drawings, high productivity and quality printing environment is especially in need to output line drawings in higher resolution and accuracy.

To further enhance the operational efficiency in copying, scanning and printing, DocuWide C842 can be upgraded by linking with Fuji Xerox's wide-format color scanners including DocuScan C1500 and DocuWide 6055 series^Note4.

• Note1-World's fastest wide-format color inkjet printer for large-size drawings as of May 2013 (based on a research by Fuji Xerox).
• Note2-CMYK is a method to produce all colors by mixing varying percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks.
• Note3-Requires an optional data security kit.
• Note4-Requires optional software to be used as a network copier (scanner & printer).

Ricoh to Cut 13% of French Workforce

PARIS -- Japanese office equipment and digital camera maker Ricoh will cut 338 jobs in France, some 13% of its workforce in the country, union officials said Thursday.

"The management told us it intends to cut 338 posts among the 2,500 the company has in France," said CGT union representative Thang Doan following a meeting with company officials.

Hit hard by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and stiff competition, Ricoh announced two years ago that it planned to shed 10,000 jobs, a tenth of its global workforce, with the first major wave of cuts to take place in 2014.

Ricoh France spokesman, Eric Baudart, said the reorganization "is aimed at safeguarding the competitiveness" of the world's top office equipment manufacturer.

Fierce competition has squeezed margins on photocopiers "and we've arrived at the point where the company can't support the further collapse of margins," he added.

Doan said two previous rounds of job cuts since 2010 had seen over 200 employees leave the company in France.

Reprographics 101 Blog to soon be relocated back to this blog-site

I first “launched” “Reprographics 101”, in early 2009, on this blog-site. 

On August 1^st, 2012, when I assumed the role of Managing Director of the IRgA, I agreed to relocate Reprographics 101 to the IRgA web-site. 

As previously announced, I will be leaving the IRgA Managing Director position on May 31^st.   And, in conjunction with that change, Reprographics 101 will no longer be published on the IRgA web-site; Reprographics 101 will be relocated back to this, its original, blog-site.

From the launch of Reprographics 101 in early 2009, we’ve put up more than 1,635 posts on Reprographics 101 (1,385 posts appear on this, the original blog-site and 250 appeared on the Reprographics 101 blog-page on the IRgA web-site.)

Thank you for visiting Reprographics 101. 

If you have any suggestions for articles that may be of interest to Reprographers or to financial analysts and investors who follow the reprographics industry, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

Joel Salus

Publisher of “Reprographics 101”

Cell: 917-822-4164

e-mail:  joel.salus@mac.com

REPROGRAPHER SURVEY – WINTER 2012-2013

We'd like to thank the 73 reprographics firms who participated in the IRgA/Reprographics 101 Survey.

The survey is now closed.

The results of the survey and our comments about the survey results are contained in an Excel file, and, if you would like to receive a copy of the survey-results file, send an e-mail to joel.salus@mac.com

REPROGRAPHER SURVEY – WINTER 2012-2013

SURVEY ANNOUNCEMENT:

REPROGRAPHER SURVEY – WINTER 2012-2013

In conjunction with the IRgA, Reprographics 101 is pleased to announce the launch of our “Winter 2012-13 REPROGRAPHER SURVEY”

Reprographers, PLEASE PARTICIPATE!!! 

The greater the number of survey participants, the more relevant the survey data will be.  We not only encourage YOU to participate, we encourage you to encourage your friendly competitors and industry associates at other companies to participate in the survey.

No one will know which companies participated in the survey – not even me!  There is absolutely no way for anyone to know which companies participated in the survey.  Our industry is at a critical point in its life; recent and comparative results and trend information is, or I guess I should say, should be, vitally important to everyone in the industry.

Rules for this survey:

-----We ask that only one person from each company respond to the survey!  We also ask that the one person who participates from each company be involved in a management position, since many of the questions pertain to sales data and profit data.

-----This particular survey is designed for “reprographers only”.  If you are a vendor to the reprographics industry, please do not participate in the survey.

-----This survey is open to ALL reprographers.  You do not have to be an IRgA Member to participate in this survey.  (Although, we do encourage you to sign up for membership – and IRgA membership is free, so no reason not to sign up! Visit IRgA.com to sign up.)

-----We intend to continue the survey process until the middle of January.  We may end up extending that, but, for now, that’s the target date.

-----We expect to be able to publish the results of the survey by the end of January.

Thank you, in advance, for taking the time to participate in our Winter 2012-13 Reprographer Survey.

Joel Salus

Publisher, Reprographics 101 Blog

(If anyone has a question about the survey, please contact me via e-mail, at joel.salus@mac.com)

Ricoh wins bid for “reprographics services”. I did not know they were in the reprographics services business! Reprographers, were you aware of that?

Broward County Public Schools (Ft Lauderdale FL area) recently held a BID competition for “Printing Services for Legal Reproduction of Construction Related Projects and Correspondence”.

Here’s a link to the bid tabulation and recommendation for award:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B81al4kFAU9JUWVNZTdScFFSNVE

While I was aware that Ricoh’s Business Solutions group offered Managed Print Services, I was not aware, at all, that Ricoh was pursuing bids for reprographics services. Perhaps this is an outcome of Ricoh merging IKON’s document solutions group into Ricoh’s Business Solutions Group? Will there come a time when all of the major copier/printer equipment manufacturers push into the reprographics services business? Canon and OCE? Konica-Minolta?

Do you remember when Xerox operated Xerox Reproduction Centers? Is that where Ricoh is headed with this?