Canon and Ricoh are leading the way with production devices targeting traditional offices.
Top: Canon’s color production printer imagePRESS C165
In the imaging industry, paperless offices are becoming more prominent while MFP sales are declining. OEMs and dealers are looking to offset this decline by developing production print devices and large-format printers, or integrating MFPs with a variety of solutions in cloud environments to improve workplace productivity.
One strategy OEMs are employing is replacing MFPs in traditional offices with production printers. The logic here is that printing large volumes in-house reduces the costs of outsourcing these jobs to outside printers, while also enabling the organization to respond quickly to on-demand printing needs. Some of the high-volume or specialty print jobs that can be handled by a production printer include brochures, long banners, posters, and business cards. These applications are now possible with the advent of low-end, easy-to-use production printers that allow customers in an office to produce prints that had previously been outsourced to an outside print shop. By selling production print devices to existing customers, the OEMs and dealers can increase sales.
Canon and Ricoh are among the first to adopt this strategy. Canon accelerated its sales to offices with the imagePRESS C650 (A4 size horizontal, 65 pages per minute ppm) color production printer released in March 2016 (in the Japanese market). The devices have a 100V power supply that enables installation in general offices. The RICOH Pro C5200S (A4 size horizontal, 65 ppm) color production printer released in January 2017 (in the Japanese market) also uses a 100V power supply and is being installed in traditional offices that used to rely almost exclusively on MFPs.
Canon further advanced the concept of targeting traditional offices with the recently released imagePRESS C165 (A4 size, 65 ppm) color production printer. Previous products met the printing needs of traditional offices by adding color production printers in offices using MFPs. But this new product is one step ahead of the previous generation of color production printers in that it is designed to replace office MFPs. The imagePRESS C165 is more compact, about 10% less expensive than previous products, offers better performance, and allows users to add optional facsimile functions. As a result, it can be used as both an MFP and a production printer, making it more cost-effective for the user. Installation of these devices in a traditional office will likely replace more conventional products.
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