Reprographics 101

(more than you ever wanted to know about the reprographics industry)

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  • Construction Spending and New Home Sales (another article)

    What you’ll see below was part of an article I found, today, on USA Today; article was authored by Derek Kravitz of Associated Press (AP). The part of the article I’ve reprinted below is the part that deals with construction spending and new home sales.

    In the construction spending report, spending rose 0.2% in September from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $787.2 billion, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was the second straight monthly increase.

    Still, spending is barely half the $1.5 trillion that economists consider healthy. Through the first nine months of the year, spending is at $580.9 billion, about 3.5% below the same period in 2010.

    Analysts say it could be four years before construction returns to healthy levels.

    The biggest gains in September were in private residential construction, which includes single-family homes, apartments and condos. That category increased 0.9%.

    Public construction projects, which include schools, roads and government offices, fell 0.6% last month.

    A dismal outlook for housing and a weak economy have forced governments to cut spending and builders to scale back construction plans.

    State and local governments have been forced to cut back because of severe budget problems, while the federal government has come under pressure to get control of soaring budget deficits.

    Home builders started projects in September at the fastest pace in 17 months, a hopeful sign for the economy. But most of the gain was driven by a surge in volatile apartment construction, a sign that many people are choosing to rent rather than own a home.

    Americans bought fewer homes during this year’s peak buying season than at any time in the past half-century. Unemployment is stuck above 9%, and many people are fearful about buying a home out of concern they could lose their jobs or home prices could fall further.

    In September, sales of new homes rose after four straight monthly declines, largely because builders cut prices in the face of depressed demand. This year is shaping up to be the worst for new-home sales on records dating to 1963.

    While new homes represent less than one-fifth of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

    Builders are struggling to compete with foreclosures and short sales — when lenders accept less for a house than a mortgage is worth. Those homes are selling at an average discount of 20%, and they are lowering neighboring home values.

    The weak sales and construction figures underscore how badly the housing market is faring and suggest a sustained recovery is years away. They will also affect home prices, continuing to drive them lower.

    Economists at Moody’s Analytics say prices might stop falling by early next year. But they don’t expect a healthy recovery for housing until 2015 at the earliest.

  • U.S. Construction Spending Rose in September for Second (straight) Month

    By Alex Kowalski (Bloomberg) – Nov 1, 2011 10:00 AM ET Tue Nov 01 14:00:00 GMT 2011

    Construction spending in the U.S. rose in September for a second (straight) month as gains in private projects outpaced a drop in government outlays.

    Building outlays increased 0.2 percent after jumping 1.6 percent in August, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg survey called for a 0.3 percent gain.

    Spending on multifamily housing is helping to lift activity from decade lows as more families opt to rent rather than purchase a new home. While lower interest rates may also help drive investment in commercial projects, overall weakness in the housing market coupled with a reduction in government spending will weigh on the construction industry.

    “Construction spending is rising from a very, very low level, but it does look like we’ve established a base,” Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York, said before the report. “Residential construction is at least stable, but there’s no real growth there.”

    Estimates of 50 economists ranged from a drop of 0.5 percent to an increase of 1.5 percent. The Commerce Department revised the August reading up from a previously estimated increase of 1.4 percent.

    Private construction spending climbed 0.6 percent in September from the prior month. Homebuilding outlays increased 0.9 percent, the most since May. Non-residential projects climbed 0.3 percent to $273.5 billion, the highest level since December 2009. Health care facilities and transportation networks led the gain in non-residential work.

    Federal Cutbacks

    Outlays on public construction dropped 0.6 percent, the report said. Federal construction spending decreased 6.8 percent to $27.5 billion, the least since January 2010.

    Builders in September began work on the most homes since April 2010 as apartment and condominium construction surged. Housing starts jumped 15 percent to a 658,000 annual rate after falling 7 percent the prior month, the Commerce Department reported Oct. 18.

    The gains may have helped boost homebuilder sentiment. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment index unexpectedly increased to 18, the highest level since May 2010, figures showed last month. Readings less than 50 mean more respondents said conditions were poor.

    Even so, the number of new single-family homes for sale in September was the lowest on records going back to 1963. There were 163,000 new properties on the market for a second month, a product of the distressed property surfeit that is holding down home prices.

    ‘Stable’ Market

    “Overall U.S. housing demand remains stable but at historically low levels,” Richard Dugas, chairman and chief executive officer of PulteGroup Inc., the largest homebuilder by revenue, said in an Oct. 27 call with analysts. “Conditions have not changed very much with incredible values in home prices and historically low interest rates on one side, balanced against a weak economy, low consumer confidence and tight credit availability on the other.”

    Federal Reserve policy makers moved in September to lower borrowing costs by replacing $400 billion of short-term Treasuries in the Fed’s portfolio with longer-term bonds, which help spur investment in real estate.

    The central bankers meet again today and tomorrow to determine whether any additional action is needed to spur the world’s largest economy.

    To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Kowalski in Washington at akowalski13@bloomberg.net

  • Z Corporation 3D Printing Technology Helps The Beck Group Win, Refine and Sell Building Projects

    ZPrinting Magnifies the Value of Virtual Building Models in University, Church, Commercial and Civic Projects

    07/12/11

    BURLINGTON, Mass. – The Beck Group, one of the top-rated design-build firms in the United States, has begun using Z Corporation technology to create physical architectural models that captivate viewers, promote projects, and dramatically communicate details of a design.

    Beck is a national firm headquartered in Dallas. Its ZPrinted building models compound the value of the virtual building models that Beck architects create on a daily basis, usually in Autodesk Revit software. “When we’re modeling in virtual space we can simply hit print at any time and create precise 3D physical models for pursuing new projects, explaining designs to clients, or helping clients sell their projects to tenants,” said Rob Meyers, director of media services.

    Beck’s ZPrinter® 350 3D printer produces physical models from computer-aided architectural designs much as document printers print business letters from word-processing files. Z Corporation’s 3D printers are the industry’s fastest and most affordable. Its 3D color printers are the only ones with multicolor printing capability.
 
Beck’s visualization group, Beck Blue Media, uses ZPrinting in a wide range of client projects, for example:

    • Detailing construction site challenges for Duke University, which helped Beck win the job to design and build Duke’s new Multipurpose Field House. Besides using physical 3D models for design, Beck also used a model as part of the field mockup to describe the shape and color of the custom roof fin.

    • Helping pastors of religious groups compare and contrast worship center designs. Church leaders compare ZPrinted models of similar scale and explore the relationship between newly proposed designs and churches Beck has already designed and built.

    • Creating detailed 3D models (maquettes) to support the “Lily of Hope” Easter Seals program benefiting individuals and families living with disabilities. The process involved adapting the Easter Seals’ 2D lily logo into a 3D sculpture exhibit that will be on display throughout the Dallas – Fort Worth metro area. The program calls for having community members decorate the 4¼- by 6-foot fiberglass sculptures of Easter Seal’s trademark lily.

    • Helping numerous stakeholders grasp the details of an exciting, soon-to-be-unveiled 100-acre multifamily retail and commercial development. A 30-square-foot ZPrint will be the centerpiece of a multimedia showroom for the project. As the design is refined and as participating merchants sign contracts, the modular model will be updated accordingly.

    ZPrinted models often supplement the dazzling animations Beck Blue Media creates. “As beautiful and detailed as our animations are, there’s something about the sensory experience of touching and holding a model that captivates a client, engages them, and drives a deeper understanding,” Meyers explained.

    “A physical model really opens communication channels with clients. They go on to make more relevant comments about things they comprehend more fully. Although it sounds abstract, the difference between something tangible and intangible is very concrete.”

    About The Beck Group
The Beck Group offers a full spectrum of professional services including development, planning, architecture, interior design, construction, sustainability consulting and BIM technology development. Beck, headquartered in Dallas, maintains a team of over 450 employees working among a network of offices in Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Fort Worth, Mexico City, San Antonio, Sao Paulo, Tampa and Washington D.C. Founded in 1912, the firm has completed numerous high-profile projects, including the Botanical Research Institute of Texas in Fort Worth, Texas, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the National Communicable Disease Center in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information: www.beckgroup.com.

    About Z Corporation
Z Corporation 3D technologies help product designers, engineers and architects create the right designs the first time. Professionals use ZPrinter® 3D printers, ZBuilder™ Ultra rapid prototyping machines and ZScanner® 3D laser scanners to compress the design cycle, generate new concepts, communicate clearly, foster collaboration, and reduce errors. These solutions span the entire 3D CAD/BIM design process from concept through design verification. For more information, visit www.zcorp.com.

  • U.S. Census Bureau Monthly Report on CONSTRUCTION SPENDING

    At 11:00 this morning (November 1st, 2011), the U.S. Census Bureau will release the “Construction Spending” report for September 2011.

    Here’s how to get to that report:

    First, go to….

    http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm

    Then, after you arrive at that page….

    Scroll down to the ninth block and you will see “CONSTRUCTION SPENDING”

    Keep in mind that the U.S. Census Bureau issues these reports on a monthly basis, generally on the first of each month.

  • ReproConnect makes significant headway, in spite of a lackluster reprographics economy!

    I’d like you to know that I’m not easily impressed.

    But, I’m one to give credit ….. when and where credit is due.

    Reprographers are aware that the A/E/C segment of the reprographics market has been slow for several years by now. (Hopefully, 2012 will see a turn for the better.) In spite of that, ReproConnect, which offers Internet-based e-planroom services, has made significant headway with its ReproConnect planroom product. To me, making headway (in other words, growing your business) in a down market is not just impressive, it is astoundingly impressive.

    How do I know how ReproConnect is doing?

    Earlier today, I posted an article on the blog to inform reprographers, who use OCE Plan Center, that OCE is going to shut-off OCE Plan Center come the first of January, 2012. In that blog post, I mentioned a few alternative e-planrooms, those that came quickly to mind. One of those alternatives mentioned was “ReproConnect.”

    After I did that post, I received an e-mail from Joseph Szobody of ReproConnect. Joe shared this (see below) with me about his progress with ReproConnect:

    “This year we have had a record number of sign-ups in spite of the bad economy. There are about 160 reprographics companies that have licensed ReproConnect now. Note that these are unique companies – the number of locations is much higher. I believe you’ll find that is a whole lot more than even our nearest competitor (if you only count independent reprographers and ignore any chains or other shops owned by a parent company that might mandate a particular planroom).”

    “Our growth has been almost entirely over the last 4-5 years – we only had 12 clients back in 2006. It’s all due to our extreme focus on simple solutions that directly target sales (the bottom line!), and making sure we support our clients both technically and with sales / execution. Considering we’re a very small company, competing with several ‘big boys,’ it is pretty stunning to now be #1 in the nation. We are having fun.” J

    I don’t recall ReproConnect being “out there” when I retired from NGI in December 2007, but, evidently, they were, per what Joe said in the e-mail he sent me. Considering the fact that ReproConnect began its business in 2006, managing to get up to 160 licensed reprographics companies is, in my opinion, a stunning achievement, especially considering the fact that the Great Recession began in December 2007, and, for the A/E/C industry (and for the A/E/C segment of the reprographics industry) has yet to turn to the upside.

    After reading this post, perhaps ARC will let me know how many ARC locations and non-ARC-owned reprographics companies are using PlanWell, perhaps ReproMax will let me know how many reprographics companies are using DFS, and perhaps RSA will let me know how many reprographics companies are using PlanCommand?

    I’d be happy to compile and report the numbers!

  • OCE to discontinue OCE Plan Center !!!

    It’s official!

    Effective January 1, 2012, OCE will no longer provide access to the OCE Plan Center on-line hosting service, rendering the software non-functional. In addition, OCE will no longer provide technical support or updates.

    OCE has documented a process whereby you can export the files you are currently storing on the OCE Plan Center server. For information about that process, call OCE at 1-800-661-2966.

    The two paragraphs that appeared immediately above were copied from a letter that, evidently, OCE has distributed to its OCE Plan Center customers.

    I’ve placed a copy of that letter in my Google Docs library, and here’s the link to that letter:

    http://tinyurl.com/3vro8ao

    For those of you who have been using OCE Plan Center as your e-planroom service and are planning to replace OCE Plan Center with another Internet-based e-planroom service, I did a post on my blog, several months ago, that mentioned a variety of Internet-based “e-planroom” services. Some of the options that come quickly to mind are ARC’s PlanWell, ReproConnect, RSA’s PlanCommand, and Lynn Imaging’s eDistribution.

  • Another blogging milestone will soon be reached by Reprographics 101, if I don't drop dead

    If I don’t drop dead within the next few days, Reprographics 101 will have achieved another milestone (of sorts), 900 posts, since I started Reprographics 101 on February 27, 2009.

    Below, I’m going to share with you:

    * The first post I did, when I started Reprographics 101

    * Visitor statistics, since I first started Reprographics 101 – as reported by Google Analytics. Please note that the “analytics” service was, for some unknown reason, turned off for a period of about 4-6 months. If the analytics service had been working during that period, the numbers would be higher

    * My comments, from the perspective of the author of Reprographics 101 (that’s me!)

    Initial post on FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2009

    “Initial remarks about my blog”

    After spending (investing!) nearly all of my adult life (39 years and counting) in and around the reprographics business and industry – – and being one of the most opinionated people in the reprographics industry (at least that I’m aware of), I’ve decided to start a blog to share my opinions. (One of my ex-partners said, in the past, that I’m not “opinionated” but, rather, that I’m “arrogant”. My take is that he said that because he doesn’t know the difference between being “arrogant” and being “highly opinionated.”) Whatever.

    I should not fail to mention that my favorite comedian is Lewis Black. That should give you some sense of my sense of humor. Although I’m intending to use this blog to share my thoughts and opinions about the reprographics business and industry, it is highly likely (if not a given) that I will rant and rave about other topics.

    Google Analytics reports these numbers (from inception through October 20, 2011, which, as I mentioned, does not include visitor activity when the analytics service was turned off.)

    * 13,127 Visitors

    * 30,976 Visits

    * 55,907 Pageviews

    * 30,976 visits came from 119 countries/territories

    * This country/territory (the U.S.) sent 25,281 visits via 52 regions

    Statistics for “visits” from top 10 U.S. states:

    State

    Rank

    # of visits

    California

    1

    5,544

    Florida

    2

    2,367

    Illinois

    3

    2,043

    New York

    4

    1,503

    Texas

    5

    1,333

    North Carolina

    6

    1,155

    Massachusetts

    7

    900

    Wisconsin

    8

    838

    Maryland

    9

    804

    Pennsylvania

    10

    775

    My comments from the perspective of the author of Reprographics 101…..

    Although there are other blogs devoted to the reprographics business and industry, I’m pretty sure that Reprographics 101 is the only blog authored by an individual or company not active in the reprographics business. Which “sort of” makes Reprographics 101 an “independent” blog and, some would say, an “unbiased” blog. In spite of the fact that I know a lot of reprographers (both here in the U.S. and around the world), only one reprographics blogger has mentioned – and provided a link to – Reprographic 101 – and that particular blogger (Jared Willis) is no longer working in the reprographics industry. It is, of course, frustrating that other reprographics-bloggers won’t mention the existence of Reprographics 101. Perhaps they don’t want the competition? Perhaps they don’t want others to know about Reprographics 101? Why that is, I haven’t a clue.

    According to Google Analytics, which captures visitor statistics, Reprographics 101 gets anywhere from 100 to 225 “visitors” each day, during the week, and about 1/3rd to 1/2 that many on weekends. That’s not a lot of visitors. Which often moves me to think hard about continuing Reprographics 101. But, nearly every time I think about discontinuing Reprographics 101, I get an e-mail from one of my blog-visitors telling me “great job – keep it up.” (or an e-mail along those lines.) So, I “truck on”.

    I seldom get “comments” on articles I post on Reprographics 101. I’ve mentioned this before. Is that due to “reprographer-apathy”? Or, is it due to reprographers really wishing that Reprographics 101 would simply go away?

    Some of my blog-visitors have suggested that I open up Reprographics 101 to advertising. I’d do that, but have not done that because I haven’t figured out how to do that.

    I’ve considered adding a “forum” (or linking a forum) to Reprographics 101, but I haven’t figured out how to do that.

    I’ve considered adding RSS feeds to web-sites that contain news about the reprographics industry and about the A/E/C industry, but I haven’t, as of yet, figured out how to do that. But, I plan on testing that over the next couple of weeks.

    Okay, that’s enough rambling for today. Thank you.

  • Former employee reviews ABC Imaging

    I’ve mentioned before that I occasionally visit www.glassdoor.com to read employee reviews (posted by both current and former employees) of companies in the reprographics business.

    Most of the reviews I read, especially those posted by former employees, are quite mean-spirited.

    Glassdoor provides a forum for employees to post comments about their employers. The question I have is….. is glassdoor’s forum fair to employers? Should not glassdoor allow employers to respond to comments posted about them? I travel quite a bit, and, from time to time, use TripAdvisor.com to research hotel ratings and reviews. Travelers post reviews, some are negative, some are positive. Hotels are allowed to post comments about a review. Should not glassdoor allow employers to respond to comments about them?

    Here’s a very recent “former” (and an apparently disgruntled one at that) ABC Imaging employee’s review of ABC:

    Review posted on glassdoor.com on October 17, 2011

    Postion: ABC Imaging FM Engineer in Washington, DC: (Past Employee – 2009)

    “Can Gain a lot of experience fast but it is a Horrible, Horrible, Horrible Place to work”

    Pros

    If you work in IT you pretty much get thrown to the wolves fast and you get to learn a lot in the process. They have a lot of under appreciated great workers. You can gain a lot of experience with printers/servers really fast, but you will have to learn on your own

    Cons

    Well this is going to be a much more expansive list than the Pros. Most importantly there are a lot of incredible people that have been working for a while, but instead of appreciating these people they are taken advantage of over worked, way under paid and under appreciated. When I was there we would regularly work 80 to over 100 hours a week and receive no overtime bonus or even a pat on the back. There is a lot of travel involved, but they make the travel as miserable as possible. They only give you 40 dollars a day to spend in New York, LA or Kansas City. If you end up driving your own car they only pay 30 cents a mile (That is if they ever pay you). They will not pay for rental cars even if one is necessary and turning in expense reports is such a chore that I have known people to eat the cost rather than to just turn it in.

When I was there they constantly hired people who didn’t understand the business to manage positions that they knew nothing about rather than hiring from within. There was one year where I went through 4 Managers and each one was worse than the next. Finally they had someone working production managing the IT department. That was the last straw for me. Benefits are non-existent. If you have a family you have to pay over 1000 (that’s over a thousand) out of pocket for just insurance. Many people in the company don’t even make that much a month. The owner has a bill of rights that states that the company answer is always yes to client demands, but at the same time the owner and management tell the workers that they need to to convince the client what they should want. If that doesn’t make sense to you I thought the same thing the first time I heard it. The ownership and management are big believers in one-sided loyalty. All employees must remain loyal to the company while management and the ownership cut pay by 7 % indiscriminately lay people off, treat people like dirt, and hire people from outside with no experience in the industry to tell the people that have been keeping the company going how things should be done. Forgot to mention that the company had to cut pay during hard economic times for all employees, but at the same time they had money to open up offices in Denver and Philadelphia which were bound to lose money on top of all of the money that would have to be dumped in to purchase the new shops.

    Advice to Senior Management

    Wake UP!!!

    I would ask management to think about how many talented hard working loyal employees have to leave before you realize you can’t treat everyone like dirt and expect the world out of them. There has to be some give and take and not all take and no give.

    ____________________________

    Joel’s further comment:

    My advice to employees who do not like working for an employer is very simple – leave and get a job somewhere else!

    I have several friends who work for ABC Imaging and who have worked for ABC Imaging for more than 10 years, some for more than 20 years. If they are still working at ABC Imaging, could ABC Imaging really be as bad a place to work as the glassdoor poster said?

  • RICOH UNVEILS MANAGED DOCUMENT SERVICES 2.0

    Earlier this year, late January to be exact, Ricoh issued a press release to announce that it would be investing $300 million (US) to develop its “managed print services” business.

    Now, Ricoh has issued another press release, this one to announce Ricoh MDS 2.0.

    Both press releases are included in this post; the most recent one is immediately below; the second press release appears after the first press release.

    I’m getting more confused each day!

    MPS?

    MDS?

    FM?

    MPS is “managed print services”.

    MDS is “managed document solutions”.

    FM is “facilities management” (for reprographics)

    Are these terms interchangeable; are the different acronyms simple marketing-speak?

    TOKYO, Oct. 27, 2011 – Ricoh Company, Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions and services, today announced Ricoh
Managed Document Services™ (Ricoh MDS) 2.0, born from an in-depth analysis of customer engagements and focused on measurable results.

    MDS 2.0 represents significant early progress in the evolution of the services-led business model Ricoh unveiled in January 2011, as it made a three-year commitment to enhance its global MDS infrastructure. The strategy shift was intended to leverage the power of improved document workflows and document management so that customers can concentrate on their business goals and bottom lines.

    As part of Ricoh MDS 2.0, Ricoh today unveiled a new global website that serves as a source of information and guidance to help customers achieve their business goals through Ricoh Managed Document Services. The site includes case studies, white papers and videos, delivering this content via a customized user experience.

    Defining the Ricoh MDS challenge
Through its global MDS engagements, Ricoh has scrutinized thousands of projects and pinpointed customers’ top business concerns in managed print services (MPS), which is the foundation of “Ricoh MDS, MPS and Beyond™.” These concerns have yielded a new Ricoh MDS delivery structure focused tightly on producing desired outcomes in these areas.

    The top identified concerns are cost control, environmental sustainability, information security and governance, business process efficiency, organizational change management, information worker (iWorker) productivity, information optimization and strategic infrastructure. Ricoh MDS 2.0 defines the services and deliverables that map directly to each concern to help customers achieve measurable and sustainable business outcomes.

    “We applied our expertise and sharpened our focus on what customers need, even when they can’t articulate their requirements in so many words,” said Sergio Kato, Associate Director of Ricoh Company, Ltd. and General Manager of Global MDS Center. “Our refined service delivery methodology is designed to better help customers meet their business objectives while retaining the flexibility they need to overcome their unique challenges.”
Ricoh MDS Adaptive Model
Using these new insights, Ricoh has streamlined its delivery framework, producing a new, simpler five-phased Adaptive Model. With the customer at the center, the first phase – Understand – begins with an expert assessment of the customer’s “current state.” The Improve phase includes the design of a “desired state.” The Transform phase focuses on deployment, the Govern phase ensures all objectives are met, and the Optimize phase addresses ongoing improvements and sustained savings.

    The new model strengthens the three stages of partnership engagement: Project Management led by PMI®- and PRINCE2®-certified Ricoh project managers who follow globally accepted best practices to track, manage and measure each engagement; Service Management led by ITIL®/ISO 20000-1-certified professionals who ensure the newly transformed environment is effectively governed and optimized; and Organizational Change Management, which accelerates the transition from the current to the desired state, and makes productivity gains a permanent part of the culture.
This new framework creates a globally cohesive approach to executing MDS programs based entirely on the ways Ricoh customers prefer to do business. Refinements are already paying dividends: since April, Ricoh has signed more than 10 global customers, including one that operates in more than 70 countries.

    New sustainability services
Leveraging Ricoh’s rich history of environmental stewardship, including being named one of the “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World”1 for seven years in a row, Ricoh has evolved its MDS service portfolio by introducing a comprehensive set of end-to-end sustainability services. These offerings can be combined in different ways to address the unique needs of Ricoh MDS customers across the globe. They include:

     analysis and definition of the baseline carbon footprint from electricity and paper consumption;


     creation of an optimization design with measurable reduction targets;

     implementation of the design along with education and training;

     governance and monitoring of sustainability performance to identify and action any gaps between actual performance and defined targets; and


     guidance for balancing any remaining and unavoidable carbon footprint (EU market only).

    “We’re detecting a deepening demand among our customers for sustainability, which has become an integral part of a business’s brand as well as an ethical imperative,” said Ike Kakegawa, Vice President, Environmental Sustainability, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “As we have demonstrated for years, sustainability is squarely in our domain: documents, records and electronic information have significant implications for a company’s environmental performance on a number of levels. Further, reducing our customers’ environmental footprint is an integral part of Ricoh’s strategy to achieve our social responsibility goals.”


    Ricoh has delivered custom MDS solutions to customers around the world. For customer success
stories on Ricoh’s MDS approach, please visit mds.ricoh.com.

    Okay, here’s the Press Release that was issued by Ricoh in late January 2011 about its upcoming major investment in “Managed Print Services”:

    Ricoh Investing $300 Million in Managed-Print Services

    Ricoh plans to challenge HP and Xerox in managed-print services by investing $300 million during the next three years in new technologies, IT infrastructure and salespeople.

    NEW YORK – Ricoh is looking to bolster its managed-print-services division with a three-year, $300 million investment aimed at adding more employees to its U.S. operation and bolstering the company’s IT infrastructure. The announcement comes as Hewlett-Packard and Xerox also look to offer more print services to their customers.

    Ricoh announced its plans to invest in its MDS (Managed Document Services) business at several different gatherings, which all happened Jan. 20. In addition, the company and IDC announced new research to show how companies with annual revenues of $250 million could save about $6 million with more effective document management.

    In addition to expanding its sales footprint in the United States, Ricoh plans to offer customers new cloud-based software that can manage a wide range of copiers and printers, as well as document management, said Jeffrey Hickling, the president and CEO of Ricoh U.S.

    “We see ourselves as a key partner to the CIO, and we offer our guidance and support,” said Hickling. “We also look at a company’s people, its processes and technologies in order to optimize each element.”

    Ricoh, best known as a traditional supplier of printers and copying machines, is not alone in trying to expand beyond a hardware supplier. HP, which continues to dominate the printing market, is offering customers print services and document management, while making it easier to print even more material from BlackBerry devices and the Apple iPad.

    Xerox is also moving in this direction and offering more IT services. In a way, the entire tech industry is moving toward a more services-first model that stems from the success of IBM Global Services. Oracle, HP, Dell and even Intel are also moving in this direction.

    Between 2010 and 2014, the managed-printing-services market is expected to grow about 38 percent, according to the research IDC presented.

    Ricoh has been looking to expand its own business in the past several years through a series of acquisitions. One of the largest involved buying IBM’s Printing Systems Division. More recently, Ricoh bought Ikon Office Solutions, which greatly expanded the company’s MDS division. The Ikon acquisition is also allowing Ricoh to offer cloud-based management of a company’s printer fleet.

    At the Ricoh meeting here, the IDC data showed that printed documents are still a significant source of information for most employees and even as the world goes digital, people are still printing documents.

    In addition, as workers become even more mobile—and technological advancements allow them to print from their mobile devices—new challenges come up. Security issues arise as employees are allowed to take documents from businesses, thanks to the ever-expanding amount of memory that smartphones and tablets offer. It also creates an issue when printing documents to machines that may or may not be within the office.

    This is one of several reasons Ricoh’s Hickling made the pitch for a managed-services model that looks at the company’s entire printing and document infrastructure.

    “We are studying end-users’ behavior and asking what they are printing and how they are filing and how they are sharing information,” said Hickling.

  • Quick Profile: Cyclix Inc – The Peep Squirrel People

    Having difficulty “branding” your reprographics business?

    Well, why not brand your packaging!

    Cyclix has been a reprographics industry vendor/supplier since 1979, and, as a former customer (when I was active in the reprographics business), I can vouch for this vendor; one of the most consistent, quality-oriented vendors ever to grace the reprographics industry.

    Among their products:

    Binding strips with your company’s name.

    Binding strips customized for your customers.

    Plastic bags with your company’s name.

    Custom packaging paper, with your company’s name and logo.

    Corner protectors for shipping mounted graphics.

    “Cylix, Inc. has been supplying the reprographic industry, blueprinters, and the AEC community since 1979. In 2010 we acquired the assets of Technical Image Products and we now provide supplies for a variety of retail industries, especially sign stores and embroidery shops. Our product offerings include binder strips, retail and shipping bags, and print wrapping paper.”

    “The Peep Squirrel offers a variety of products for your reprographic binding and retail packaging needs!”

    http://www.peepsquirrel.com/products.html