Ricoh Corp.

Commercial printer equipment installations and other news from Printing Impressions’ June 2011 edition, featuring items on Original Impressions and Astro-Dynamic Print and Graphic Services.

Japanese office equipment and digital camera maker Ricoh said Thursday it plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide over three years to turn around sagging business operations. The cuts from a global workforce of over 100,000, Ricoh's first major wave of job losses, will be made both at home and abroad by March 2014.

Company president Shiro Kondo said no area of the company would be exempt from streamlining.

He declined to disclose the details of the job cuts, such as which countries and business segments would be affected. But the company said it would shift 15,000 workers to areas with more growth

Knight Media of Lake Charles, LA, has installed a Ricoh Pro 907 digital production printer and a Ricoh Pro C720s color production system. “With these two Ricoh systems, no matter what the jobs are, we can turn them around quickly at an attractive price point for our customers,” said Chuck Ehlers, president.

“digi:media was the perfect way to launch our global cooperation with Ricoh,” said Bernhard Schreier, CEO of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. Heidelberg announced the launch of its global sales partnership with Ricoh to the international press on the eve of digi:media, which took place in Düsseldorf from April 7-9, 2011.

Ricoh Co. announced the realignment of its production print resources with the formation of Ricoh Production Print Solutions, incorporating InfoPrint Solutions and the Ricoh Production Printing Business Group’s marketing and planning resources from Japan. RPPS will be headquartered in the United States.

Doug Rawson, founder and CEO of Superior Lithographics, has been named 2011 Executive of the Year by the Printing Industries Association, Inc. of Southern California (PIASC). Rawson will be presented with the PIASC award at the organization's annual Graphics Night on March 26, 2011.

I would like to welcome special guest Frank Romano to my blog this week. I gathered a list of questions that I believe encompasses the crucial emerging areas of the industry and, with Frank’s insights, I hope you learn something new.

Differences in the inkjet imaging systems now being employed can have an impact—to varying 
degrees and relative to each other—on head cost, failure rate and cleaning/maintenance requirements; substrate flexibility; print resolution; color saturation; print width; and more. It doesn't quite rise to the level of an apples to 
oranges comparison, but the technology has very distinct flavors.

Ricoh Co. and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) announced a global strategic cooperation, starting with a global distribution contract for Ricoh's Production Printing Product portfolio. This agreement enables Heidelberg to sell Ricoh's latest color digital press, the Ricoh Pro C901 Graphic Arts Edition, as well as appropriate future production printing offerings in Ricoh's pipeline.

Heidelberg will be focusing on solutions for producing short runs across the entire value chain at the digi:media trade show, which is taking place in Dusseldorf from April 7-9, 2011.